I came around to loving Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and the HBO TV adaptation of the series captures it beautifully. This is a gorgeous show that examines the big ideas of the books as it brings the characters to life and delivers on its inventive fantasy concepts.
Young Lyra lives in the care of the scholars at Jordan College, generally running amok with her best friend Roger until someone corrals her long enough to give her a lesson. When the rumors of the mysterious “Gobblers” abducting children hit close to home, Lyra ventures out from the safety of the college into an uncertain world ruled by the theocratic Magisterium. She’s determined to root out what the Gobblers are up to and how it’s connected with the “Dust” that her uncle is studying.
That summary is the same one I wrote for the book of The Golden Compass. Fortunately, the show covers all three books, so we get to a lot more than just that, but it makes for a fine jumping-off point for the series. This show offers up all sorts of major elements from the books: alethiometers, armored bears, witches, windows, Spectres, Angels, and of course, dæmons. While I can’t say how well a non-book-reader would be able to follow everything, all of it works really well for me.
The production design and visual effects are simply stunning. I love the look of the windows and the use of the subtle knife, the CGI on Iorek Byrnison looks incredible, and the sets and costumes do an excellent job of creating the feel of this story. We visit multiple worlds and they all look fantastic, from the eerie stillness of Citágazze to the melancholy blankness of the land of the dead.
If I have one complaint to make about the visuals, it’s that there aren’t enough dæmons in the crowd scenes throughout the first season. Obviously, CGI costs add up quickly, but this is a world where every human has a dæmon, to the point where seeing somebody without one feels sickeningly unnatural. As such, it feels strange to see, for instance, Lyra and Lee Scoresby in a crowd of gyptians, but theirs are the only dæmons we see. From season 2 on, however, the show does a much better job of creating the sense of dæmons everywhere without having to render every single one—we get more shots of birds swooping overhead, salamanders and hedgehogs disappearing into pockets, and so on, enough to remind us that the dæmons are always there, even if we don’t see them in every single shot.
This is a dense story with lots of moving parts, and as I said in my reviews of the books, it doesn’t always seem like all the disparate elements should fit together. But the books make it work, and for the most part, the show does too. At the same time that it juggles all the large-scale plot stuff and world-hopping, it also makes space to explore the series’ themes and allow events to resonate for the characters. There are changes—in particular, following Will in our world prior to him meeting Lyra in season 2 is a good one—but it always feels like His Dark Materials and stays true to its origins.
The cast is great across the board. Dafne Keen, who made such a huge impact as X-22 in Logan, is a wonderful Lyra; she’s stubborn and a bit bratty, but she’s also clever and daring. I wasn’t familiar with Amir Wilson, who plays Will, but he’s excellent, equal parts emotionally intelligent and pragmatic. Among the adult cast, everyone turns in fine work. James McAvoy is every inch Lord Asriel, proud and brilliant and determined to a fault, and Ruth Wilson brings both soft menace and ferocious twisted love to Mrs. Coulter. After reading the books, I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby, but I wound up loving his performance—so many of his characters have this jittery energy to them, but even as Lee goes on adventures and gets himself into trouble, there’s a steadiness to him that really works. There are too many other memorable appearances to name them all, but just as a sample, the cast also includes Andrew Scott, Nina Sosanya (lately of Good Omens,) Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (who I still remember best as Eko from Lost,) Anne-Marie Duff, and Clarke Peters.
Warnings
Violence (including violence against children,) disturbing images, language, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.
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