WiC Watches: His Dark Materials
By Dan Selcke
His Dark Materials
James McAvoy
CR: HBO
Episode 1: “Lyra’s Jordan”
Okay, I think I know what the critics are complaining about. “Lyra’s Jordan” is a solid premiere, but outside of some standout moments, it sort of feels like HBO and the BBC have pressed the magic and mystery out of Pullman’s world.
Some of that has to do with the framing. As I said above, His Dark Materials takes place in a world parallel to our own, but with some key differences. They have technology, but not modern technology — it’s more like souped-up Victorian England-era tech, with a lot of zeppelins. The decor and costumes are also borrowed from that era, with some 1940s glam thrown in when it comes to Mrs. Coulter.
Other differences: everyone in this world has their own dæmon, a physical manifestation of their soul. The relationship between a human and a dæmon is sacred. And the whole shebang is ruled over by an all-powerful theocratic organization called the Magisterium, which takes none too kindly to information that challenges its hegemony. When Lord Asriel posits to his colleagues at Jordan College that there exist other worlds (I love the way the opening credits allude to this idea, by the way), he knows it’s risky; if the Magisterium finds out about this, which of course they do, there will be trouble.
All of this is wonderfully interesting stuff to discover, so why spoil it with a text crawl at the top of the episode? Why identify Lyra as a child of prophecy when the pleasure of the early parts of the story is to see her, an ordinary kid, swept up in events the scope of which we don’t understand until she does? Why visit Asriel in the North and get an inkling of his research into the mysterious substance known as Dust when we should find out about his journey as Lyra does: in incomplete snippets, so that it remains a mystery rather than a fantasy cliche?
There are several moments of clumsy exposition in this episode (Roger to Lyra: “We’re both orphans”) and two moments where Lyra is about to miss an airship departing Jordan and must run to catch it just in the nick of name…that’s two more times than she does that in the book, by the way. I can’t help but feel that writer Jack Thorne isn’t trusting his audience to figure things out for themselves. In his hands, Lyra’s Jordan is a little less wild and weird than it should be.
Come to think of it, Lyra is less wild and weird, too. In the book, she’s described as “a course and greedy little savage,” a girl forever disobeying her scholarly keepers to wage war with the neighborhood kids and secret away booze to share with her hardscrabble friends in the college crypt. She does some of that here, but it’s exclusively in the company of Roger (Lewin Lloyd); there’s no sight of the wider community of kids from the books, gyptian kids with whom she should be conspiring and learning about the Gobblers, mysterious adults who are kidnapping children. Lyra is transformed from an easily sociable girl to a more solitary one, with her electrifying edges wound down. And by more closely following people other than Lyra, her point of view — so important to the energy of the book — is diluted.
Part of the issue is Dafne Keen’s performance, which is mostly solid — particularly when Lyra is taken with the glamorous Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) — but stiff in places.
Speaking of Coulter, Wilson is the standout from this episode; she’s a tightly wound coil, elegant and stylish on the outside but calculating and malevolent underneath. McAvoy is also appropriately distant and harried as Lord Asriel. Performance-wise, we’re mostly on solid ground here, and that includes the talking dæmons. I just hope Keen loosens up a bit as the series goes on.
At the end of the episode, Lyra leaves with Mrs. Coulter to go to London, both to become her assistant and travel the world, and to find her abducted friend Roger. Maybe the new setting will bring out the best in Keen.
As for the series’ vaunted anti-religious sentiment, it has yet to really raise its head. Still, in a show meant to be enjoyed by children, there’s a bit of a transgressive thrill watching two priests, both clearly up to no good, whisper in a Magisterium stronghold.
This wasn’t the triumphant start to the series I was hoping for, but you heard right: it’s miles better than the movie. The pieces are all there. We just need to put them together just so…