The reviews are in: His Dark Materials is solid but safe

As a big fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books, I’m looking forward to the HBO-BBC adaptation airing this Sunday. Set in a world kind of like our own — at least if we lived in a vaguely steampunk setting ruled over by a theocracy called the Magisterium and all had animal familiars called dæmons — His Dark Materials tells the story of Lyra Belacqua, a rambunctious young girl on the cusp of adolescent who embarks on an epic journey that will span multiple worlds.

So far, the show is looking good. What do the critics think?

First things first: everyone agrees that this version of the story is miles better than the flaccid 2007 movie adaptation of The Golden Compass, the first book in Pullman’s trilogy. The show covers the same events, but they’re given more room to breathe on TV. “From what I’ve seen so far, nothing of consequence has been left out,” writes Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times. “Changes should alarm only nitpickers, and additions, mostly in the spirit of the text, are to the good — fleshing out characters and character relationships, converting description to action, and making a workable motion picture out of words on a page.”

The Guardian, too, is pretty psyched about the show, declaring it a return to grand old British for the story:

"The series, on the basis of its first episode, shows every sign of being a BBC family drama in the grand old style, with skillful writing, a luxurious cast, and lavish visuals…In television terms, this is precisely the kind of drama that BBC One was made for.His Dark Materials may be precisely what is needed on the cold, dark nights of winter. Viewers may find it the perfect respite cure from the travails of our own, somewhat less magical, universe."

James Poniewozik of The New York Times is impressed with the costume and set design, naming it “Victorian, contemporary and midcentury modern all at once.” He also reserves praise for the dæmons, “manifestations of the soul in animal form, which accompany every human in this world, resulting, for instance, in combat scenes in which the warring humans are flanked by monkeys, birds and bunnies.” Sounding pretty good so far.

"“His Dark Materials” also exists, productively, in the borderland between children’s and adult fiction. The series is a much more all-ages entertainment than “Game of Thrones.” (The first four episodes screened for critics have scares and thrills, but a minimum of gore.)But it also has a more rebellious, questioning outlook — adolescent, in a good way — than some other fantasy sagas. Where the Harry Potter series and “The Lord of the Rings” presumed that the ruling institutions were essentially good, if vulnerable to corruption, “His Dark Materials” suggests that its theocracy is rotten all the way up."

Poniewozik does feel the series is “better at rendering the text’s imagery than capturing its tone,” which is a complaint that will come up a few times, but for now let’s stay positive.

Something else pretty much everyone agrees on is that Dafne Keen (Logan) is excellent in the lead role. “The actress brings a bristling restlessness to the young girl, who’s much more into stealing wine and sliding down rooftops than reading books and doing chores,” writes Alexis Ong of Slant. “Keen shines when she’s at her most defiant, giving stubborn, righteous life to a child struggling to understand the complexities of the real world.”

Ong also singles out Ruth Wilson’s performance as the devious, mysterious Mrs. Coulter for praise, as do several of the reviews. “Wilson’s performance is a study in expertly controlled layers barely concealing a well of rage and cunning; there’s also the inscrutable face of Mrs. Coulter’s golden monkey daemon, an unnerving extension of her formidable will.”

Critics are more split on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s performance as Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby. “It’s an ongoing struggle to get past Scoresby’s overcooked Texan accent and constant rambling, and he ends up more caricature than comedic relief,” writes Ong. Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter has a kinder take:

"I appreciate that Miranda feels initially miscast as Pullman’s paragon of cowboy American masculinity and then forces you to reconstruct an image of American manliness around him, making him exactly what the series needs."

Yeah, we’re sure that’s what they were going for. I honestly don’t know if that’s sarcasm or not.

His Dark Materials HBO/BBC. Lin Manuel-Miranda as Lee Scoresby

Feinberg has some criticisms, as well. He’s particularly frustrated with how the exposition is handled:

"[E]very time it feels like the story is about to really get going, characters stop for near-endless debriefs on Key Concepts to the Narrative, the sort of expositional onslaughts that simply work better on the page and needed to be better conceived here. It’s a situation likely to yield confusion among non-readers and disappointment among readers, except for those so pleased by improvement over the film that they’re prepared to accept whatever theological scraps they’re given."

Still, overall Feinberg enjoyed what he’s seen so far, although he’s already looking out for something better:

"I was, throughout, generally impressed by how consistently HBO’s His Dark Materials accomplishes things the movie wasn’t able to do and didn’t even attempt. It’s a big enough leap forward that actually maybe we won’t need to wait another decade for another attempt to get His Dark Materials right. Maybe Thorne and company will just need another, already ordered, season?"

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club also brings up the exposition-dump nature of the writing. “Instead of trusting the audience to pick things up as they go, the first episode begins with a text crawl explaining the basics, going so far as to tell viewers that daemons are our equivalent of souls and suggesting that there’s going to be a ‘child of prophecy’ in play. Still, as far as opening exposition goes, it could’ve been worse, and for the most part, the series does an admirable job of presenting its story without getting tangled up in lore.”

"It’s evident even from that introductory text; in the novels, the relationships between the humans and their daemons was something that was uncovered over time, and it was a while before anything about “prophecy” came up. One of the pleasures of Pullman’s work was that starting small meant every development and expansion in scope felt exponentially important. Here, it’s all simply pieces presented with equal weight to be integrated eventually along with other pieces, losing that feeling of dangerous, unexpected discovery almost entirely."

 Vulture zeroes in on why this is a problem, pointing out that, in the books, the details of Lyra’s world become clear only as they come to mean something to her; our focus is always with her. The show seems to put everything on the same level, meaning we lose that point of view. “His Dark Materials’ first episodes are a mixture of unabashedly gorgeous visuals, several strong performances, and writing that demonstrates time and again that it has no confidence in either of those things,” she writes. “HBO’s series seems to be operating from a place where all things need to be explained instantly, long before the viewer has any reason to understand why they’re worth knowing.”

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We should note that the critics who have problems with the show are careful to qualify that it doesn’t render it unwatchable or bad, just that it’s not as good as it could be. They’re also hopeful that things could improve in future episodes.

Let’s end with a balanced review from Ben Lawrence of The Daily Telegraph:

"While His Dark Materials is not, on the basis of the first episode, an all-out extravaganza, it is a fine piece of drama, capturing the strangeness and childlike wonder of the books, but also their rigour and bite. This is intelligent populism writ large."

Whatever happens, we’ll be watching on HBO this Sunday!

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