Review: Disney's ambitious YA yarn 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' never puts a foot wrong

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians," Rick Riordan's YA novel series, has become a television show, premiering this week on Disney+, and it is as good as can be.

I might easily have looked askance at it, or not looked at all. In simple terms, the books begin as a "Harry Potter" knockoff: A special child, growing up in difficult circumstances, comes into latent supernatural powers, attracting the attention of good and bad forces. He is transported to a magical academy where a wise master will guide him, and joins with two peers to fight the bad things coming for him, and for the world. It's not like J.K. Rowling invented any of that, either — there