His Dark Materials show won’t water down the books’ dark vision

Wow, the fall TV season is kicking into gear, isn’t it? This Sunday, HBO will premiere its take on Alan Moore’s Watchmen. And just a couple Sundays later, on November 3, it’ll drop His Dark Materials, another hotly anticipated series.

So far, the early reviews for HDM — I’m gonna start calling it that and see how things go — have been strong. “HBO delivers a thoughtful and adventurous adaptation of Philip Pullman’s challenging book series,” writes Entertainment Weekly’s Kristen Baldwin. “His Dark Materials is definitely a better TV show than a movie.”

That’s a reference to 2007’s The Golden Compass, a 2007 movie adaptation of the first book in Pullman’s trilogy. It was a pretty limp offering that pulled punches when it came to the series’ more hot-button elements, and no sequels ever materialized. But according to executive producer Jane Tranter, speaking after a screening of the first two episodes on Tuesday, that won’t be a problem for the TV series. “We plan to adapt the books as the books were written,” Tranter said.

"The actions that happen in the books will be the actions that happen in the adaptation. No one took the books on not understanding where Season 2 and Season 3 were going, and we will adapt those. This is one of the beauties of working for the BBC and HBO: no one is fearful. In fact everyone is engaged and embracing of the journey the books will go on."

Why might someone be fearful to take on this series? On the surface, it seems pretty placid. At the start, the story revolves around Lyra (Dafne Keen), a girl growing up in a world much like our own…but not. In her world, everyone has a dæmon, a kind of animal familiar that’s kind of an externalization of their soul. Also there are talking bears and witches and way more zeppelins than we’re used to.

So that’s all fun, but the show also gets into some heavy subject matter, including child abduction and religious oppression — Lyra’s world is ruled over by a theocracy called the Magisterium. “These books are monstrously good,” said writer Jack Thorne, who you may recognize as the guy who wrote Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. “When you’re given an adaption there’s sort of two forms of adaption: There’s the ones where you go, ‘Ah, there’s a seed of something brilliant here that I can sort of play with and make work. And then there’s other ones where you go, ‘My job is just to get this as close to this as possible on the screen because the book is perfect. And I do think the books are perfect.”

“Perfect” is a strong word, but they are more than good enough to stand on their own merits without much in the way of changes. I hope HBO gets them right.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: Ruth Wilson attends The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Among the many reasons the His Dark Materials books rock: Mrs. Coulter, a mysterious character played in the new series by Ruth Wilson, of Luther fame. “I have really enjoyed this job because there’s so much mystery to her,” Wilson told EW. “She’s quite enigmatic. In the books, you never get to know her at all. She comes in and she’s a bit like the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia. She comes in and does something ghastly and leaves again. You’re always confused by what her motives are and who she really is.”

It’s true that, in the books, Mrs. Wilson mostly comes across as a villain, although the story leaves room for ambiguity. Apparently, the series will dive deeper into what makes her tick. “Philip Pullman has given us more license to do that, which is really great,” Wilson said. “He’s allowed us to dig more into her and to examine why she is who she is and why she makes those decisions and why she does the awful things she does. It’s a huge journey for her to go on throughout the seasons.”

Also fun: Mrs. Coulter’s dæmon is a golden money who, unlike the other dæmons, never talks, which is super creepy. I mean, what does that say about his human? “She doesn’t really connect with other people,” Wilson added. “Her daemon is her main reflection of herself. So, that’s such a unique relationship. Why is it like that and what does it say about her and how does it change as it goes on?”

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Mrs. Coulter is also closely tied to Lord Asriel (James McAvoy), Lyra’s uncle and another powerful, morally ambiguous figure. According to Wilson, Lord Asriel “came from somewhere similar [to her], but they have these opposing global views or world views or universal views.”

"One worked within the confinement of the Magisterium and looked for power that way and the other one wants to destroy the Magisterium. Where did that division happen? Where did that viewpoint occur at the split? Was it her confinement because she’s a woman and she’s trapped in a male world? She couldn’t possibly do the things that he could do, so she had to work within certain limitations?"

From the actors to the producers, it sounds like everyone is coming at this thing correct. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us!

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h/t Mashable