| December 8, 2025 
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You’re reading the Watching newsletter. Every week, our team will bring TV and movie recommendations right to your inbox. Enjoy the edition below, and look for future newsletters on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. A swashbuckling young adult series | | Walker Scobell and Leah Sava Jeffries in a scene from Season 2 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Disney/David Bukach |
Dear Watchers,Like other popular young adult book series, Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” novels were quickly adapted for the big screen. But the films stumbled, never quite capturing the books’ magic. It took another decade before the stories, which are inspired by Greek mythology, returned to screens — this time on television. Debuting on Disney+ in 2023 and under Riordan’s creative control, the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series avoided the films’ major missteps, including casting book-accurate tweens (the films aged them up). Now, after a two-year hiatus, the first two episodes of Season 2 arrive on Wednesday. (A third season is already in the works.) And boy, have some things changed: The young cast has gotten visibly older. Once the initial shock of seeing Percy (Walker Scobell) towering over his mother (Virginia Kull) wears off, the show quickly gets things moving. While it took the first season an entire episode to reach the Hogwarts-like Camp Half-Blood, this time our intrepid heroes arrive at the summer camp almost immediately. Percy, whose father is the sea god Poseidon, soon learns the camp — where demigods train to combat mythical threats — is in danger. Joining Percy are familiar characters like Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries), the half-human daughter of Athena, along with new friends like Tyson (Daniel Diemer), a Cyclops who is strangely protective of him. Echoes of other Y.A. franchises abound, particularly “Harry Potter.” Camp Half-Blood has a Snape-like nemesis in the new camp director, Tantalus (Timothy Simons), whose sour disposition partly stems from his eternal inability to eat. The series’s primary villain, the titan Kronos (Nick Boraine), has a Voldemort-like penchant for whispering taunts in Percy’s mind. A no-holds-barred chariot race, meanwhile, recalls “The Hunger Games.” For all its charms — and there are many — the show sometimes relies on overly familiar plot mechanics. How many times can you misinterpret a prophecy, embark on a quest, or betray (and be betrayed by) a friend? Still, there are pleasures. The cast remains winsome, and the settings are often beautiful, particularly the moody shots of fog-shrouded seas and stormy skies. The show is generally relatable: The gods, as it turns out, are just like us — terrible at communication, emotionally stunted and too wrapped up in petty feuds to give their children the attention they need. They’re omnipotent, but somehow never available. Also this week | | Tim Meadows in a scene from “DMV.” Bertrand Calmeau/CBS |
- The fall finale of “DMV,” a new workplace comedy, airs on Monday at 8 p.m., on CBS.
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- The second season of “Blood Coast,” a French crime drama, premieres on Tuesday, on Netflix.
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- The first season finale of “Somewhat Familiar,” a docuseries following the journalist Pedro Andrade’s exploration of families across cultures, arrives on Tuesday, on HBO Max.
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- Season 2 of the Mexican thriller-drama “The Accident” arrives on Wednesday, on Netflix.
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- The first two episodes of “The End of an Era,” a six-episode docuseries offering a behind-the-scenes look at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, premiere on Friday, on Disney+, along with the concert film “The Eras Tour: The Final Show.” Also on Friday, ABC will air Episode 1 of the docuseries, along with a one-hour version of “The Final Show,” starting at 8 p.m.
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