Odysseus' protector is the goddess Athena. He angers the god Poseidon. Athena and Poseidon are longtime rivals in mythology, having fought over the patronage of the city-state that would be known as Athens (so, clearly, Athena won that battle).
Many of the cast and creative team of this mini-series are of Greek ancestry.
Greek actress Irene Papas, who played Odysseus' mother Anticlea, played notable heroines in other Greek epics. In Electra (1962), she played the played the title role, daughter of Agamemnon. In The Trojan Women (1971), she played Helen, wife of Menelaus, and in Iphigenia (1977), she was Klytaimnistra, Agamemnonas' wife. On stage, she played Hecuba, in 2003.
The boat used in the series was reused a few years later for the Jason and the Argonauts (2000) miniseries.