A tragedy befalls one "Lost Boy" as His Dark Materials rushes to introduce another (experts)
TV Reviews His Dark Materials
Welcome to The A.V. Club’s “Experts” reviews of HBO’s His Dark Materials.
It is written from the perspective of someone who has read all three
books in Philip Pullman’s trilogy, and intended for an audience of
viewers who have also read these books. While the main review will not
actively spoil details from future books, there will be a
spoiler-specific section at the end of the review, and the conversation
in the comments will feature spoilers from all books in the series. For
those who wish to avoid these spoilers, please visit our “Newbies” reviews.
“I don’t know why, but I need to go.”
Lyra Belacqua is being led by a force larger than herself. After the alethiometer helped her bring an aeronaut and an armored bear into the Gyptian forces marching north to Bolvangar, Lyra is beginning to trust the device, despite not knowing where its power comes from or where it could be leading her next. Her challenge is convincing others—John Faa and then Ma Costa, who is laser-focused on finding Billy—that she should stray from the set path on her own, because she instinctively feels that is the right path for her.
“The Lost Boy” is a story about Lyra’s discovery of a tragedy: Billy Costa, separated from his daemon at Bolvangar, a cold and lonely “ghost” dying in an abandoned fishing village. In the books, this was another character entirely, but the movie was the first to make this particular change, and it’s a dramatically effective one. The reveal of what the Gobblers are doing with the children they’re capturing is meaningful in its own right, but it lands harder when we’re able to see Billy’s mother and brother comforting him in the moments before his death. Ma Costa didn’t make the trip north in the books, but Billy’s death gives Anne-Marie Duff an opportunity to flesh out a character who has been more important to the show. While there were times when the character lacked dimension beyond her concern over Billy, the material with Lyra provided more depth, and the ability to give the Gyptians a clear, emotional launching pad into their final push to Bolvangar helps flesh out their piece of this narrative after being introduced as a more substantial presence in the pilot. Lyra’s trust in the alethiometer is important, but her “fetch quest” of sorts serves a purpose beyond her character or the exposition about Bolvangar, and that’s a productive development for the show as a whole.
However, “The Lost Boy” doesn’t only refer to Billy. As we had expected when a young man’s photo turned up in an earlier episode, Jack Thorne has made the decision to flesh out the story of Will Parry, son of John Parry/Stanis Grumman, by introducing him mid-way through the first season. It was really one of the only reasons to justify revealing the existence of “our” world so early—Lord Boreal is not unimportant, but he isn’t a character who could carry a whole piece of the narrative himself, and so we were always heading to the point where this became Will’s story. It’s a choice that once again destroys the “experience” of discovering Pullman’s story, albeit one that has the potential to create new experiences with equal weight if handled correctly.
The way Will Parry is introduced in the books is perhaps best compared to the beginning of Lost’s second season, where we are introduced to an entirely new character who has really been key to the story the whole time. It’s meant to be disorienting: we’re pushed to wonder how this is connected to the characters we’ve been spending time with, our unanswered questions about the cliffhanger from the previous season forced to share space with new questions about this revelation. Although Will Parry is on the cover of the copy of The Subtle Knife that I first read over a decade ago, I still spent that opening chapter in that productive space of anxiety over the unresolved cliffhanger and intrigue at this whole new story being introduced.
That’s not going to happen in the series. Part of the thrill of Will’s introduction was that we had to learn everything in a moment of crisis: there is a lot of backstory to Will’s life, but it all had to happen swiftly, raising questions without necessarily immediately answering them. But what Thorne has done is take that backstory and laid it out over the back half of the season, such that when we eventually get to the moments that open The Subtle Knife we will have all of the answers to those questions. Even just in “The Lost Boy,” we get a full accounting of his mother’s mental illness, perspective on his relationship with his father, the establishment of Col. Parry’s letters in a hidden compartment, and the looming threat of Boreal’s men searching for pivotal information on how Will’s father crossed into Lyra’s world. These are—without outright spoiling what happens—all of the pieces that Pullman used to disorient us, stripped of their mystery and presented as exposition to sell the moments to come.
So why do this? The answer, I think, comes from where Will’s story serves the most utility. “The Lost Boy” is primarily invested in thinking about how Lyra and Will’s respective journeys compare to one another, as established by narration from Serafina Pekkala’s daemon that’s basically like “Whoops, forgot to mention there’s this other kid who’s important too, we should see what he’s up to.” It’s deeply unsubtle, and the episode as a whole has a problem with using Kaisa as an exposition tool, but it does mean that Thorne’s script can start focusing on how the two children approach their situation differently.
Lyra has come to embrace her call to adventure: although the show has made this more of a transformation than a part of her existing character, Lyra is more curious about the world around her now, peppering Iorek for information and willing to let the alethiometer take her wherever it needs to. As we discussed in the comments last week, the choice seems to have been to downplay Lyra’s personality early on so that it can become a clear marker of growth: she becomes Lyra Silvertongue, as opposed to simply claiming the title, if that distinction makes sense.
Will, however, doesn’t believe in destiny. His mother talks about how he is all set to follow in his father’s footsteps—much as Lyra thinks about herself relative to her own parents—but Will can only see his immediate position, caring for an ill mother and facing bullying from his classmates. He has no reason to believe he lives in a world of heroes because he never knew his father, and has only known a life defined by his mother’s condition. Whereas Lyra has reason to trust the alethiometer, Will has every reason to distrust his mother’s claims, especially as her paranoia—while justified to us, who know someone is watching them—reaches a breaking point. Lyra might not know about the prophecy around her, but she is embracing the ramifications of it, because the idea of being part of a legacy frees her. By comparison, Will is effectively being told that he’s destined for something, but he refuses to embrace it, because the idea goes against what he’s learned about how to survive.
It’s a productive parallel that has a lot of potential to flesh out both characters. Whether it’s worth the “loss” of the opening to The Subtle Knife will remain unanswered until the end of the season, but “The Lost Boy” is the first time the show’s efforts to diversify the narrative felt like they were generating real thematic value. Whereas Boreal’s trips to our world felt like exposition and not much else, we’ve reached the point of accumulating actual characterization, and I can see why the legwork was deemed necessary when adapting the story in this way. Amir Wilson makes a solid impression as Will Parry, who isn’t meant to be as dynamic as Lyra at first blush, and therefore creates less expectation. Still, it’s comforting to feel like a core relationship of the series is off to a productive start, and nothing we see here raises alarm bells for where this connection can grow in the future.
The rest of the episode is about forms of connection, too—Farder Coram’s reunion with Serafina Pekkala provides an early insight into the bonds of love and grief, and of course the severing of Billy’s connection with Ratter points to the Gobblers’ desire to destroy connection as we know it. The choice to largely eschew other story elements—we only hear of Iofur and Asriel in Kaisa’s exposition, and Mrs. Coulter is nowhere to be found—means that the episode isn’t trying to do too much, perhaps realizing that following too many connections is difficult when we’re still in an expositional phase of the story. It also does mean that there’s a lot of that exposition being laid out in full, as opposed to discovered, which is still clunky but might be better than the show overextending itself. It’s still critical that this feels like Lyra’s journey, and if that means occasionally having to listen to Kaisa rattle off a roll call of characters and what they’re up to, that might just be a necessary evil.
When the Gyptian camp is first invaded by the raiding party, I was worried Thorne was just going to recreate the false cliffhanger from the second episode, but he smartly lets Lyra get carried fully to Bolvangar, giving us our first glimpse at what Billy and Roger would have gone through. It’s a reminder that although the show does start slowly, there’s a point at which the plot of this thing has a very natural sense of momentum, and reaching that stage has the show recapturing the energy of the books more readily. The choice to pull Will into the first season is still creating an arm’s length as I wait to see how the decision pans out, but getting closer to the climax has gotten the show into a groove, which is a positive sign if not an absolute one.
Stray observations
- Okay, look. I get that daemon CGI is expensive. But I have two very specific complaints about this episode. The first is that my copy of The Golden Compass has a cover image of Lyra with Pan as a mouse by her hood riding Iorek, and they did not recreate this shot nor even acknowledge where Pan was during the ride, and that was extremely rude. The second is that when Lyra and Iorek returned with Billy, Ma Costa was immediately like “Where’s Ratter?” as though she immediately knew he was missing, which seems insane to me given how many daemons are apparently playing a constant game of hide and seek. If you know you’re going to create a moment where the absence of a character’s daemon is going to be important, you need to do better work showing daemons as part of this world. Period.
- After a whole episode where Lee Scoresby got a major character reimagining (although with a version pulled from Pullman’s own novella, as we discussed in the comments), he’s a complete nonentity here: a couple of quick jokes, maybe, but you could imagine an older version of the character saying most of them, and he turns into a fairly generic source of comfort for Lyra by episode’s end.
- We got a fair bit more of Iorek in a sober state of mind this week, and I did admittedly have a few moments where I found the voice a little bit too un-bearlike, which is an insane thing to say given I don’t know what bears are supposed to sound like.
- As with my previous discussion of the series’ blindcasting of Lord Boreal, I am hopeful that the choice to give Will a mixed-race heritage might play some role in how he understands his identity moving forward, but I am not hopeful at this point.
- Is boxing a common school sport in Oxford, or did they just decide that it provided a more acceptable way to establish his toughness than the book’s backstory of having fought some kids to intimidate them?
- There’s a bit of dodgy CGI in Lyra’s ride on Iorek, but the scale of the piece and the backdrop sell the joy of the moment, even if I return to the objection about the absence of Pan in her hood.
- “You call me Lord Faa when you want something and John Faa when you don’t, you know?”—this was a cute bit of character building for Lyra as she becomes more confident.
- Ruta Gedmintas has big shoes to fill given that Eva Green sort of defines witchiness, but the design work ensures a very different approach to the witches, which helps to give her space to find a take on the character.
- I know this is ostensibly a PG show, but the neck snap on the Gyptian during the raid was embarrassing.
Through The Amber Spyglass [Warning: Explicit Book Spoilers]
So at this point, the show’s gambit is that the loss of the conclusion of The Golden Compass and the opening of The Subtle Knife is made up for by the idea that Will and Lyra are likely going to be crossing into Cittàgazze simultaneously as the season concludes. It’s a different kind of climax, fitting with the show’s larger belief that clarity is more powerful than mystery. They don’t want you to be entirely unaware about where Lyra and Will are going: they want you to anticipate them meeting one another.
I’m not actively against this, although I’m curious if they still delay their meeting. Part of the Cittàgazze story is the idea that Lyra has been there for a while alone before Will stumbles onto her, and so my imagined ending of them literally crossing within sight of one another would work against that. But it seems like it would be too tempting to leave the season on the viewer thinking Lyra is about to step into Will’s world, when in reality they’re about to meet in another world entirely. It’s not the same effect the books were aiming for, but it might create a stronger sense of anticipation over what will be a wait for the second season (depending on when the BBC and HBO decide to air it, given it’s already been filmed).
98 Comments
That funeral scene…damn.
I think the primary reason that Will has entered so early is to avoid what would amount to a whole repilot for season two. Since this is being adapted as “His Dark Materials”, the name of the whole series, and not “His Dark Materials Part One: Northern Lights”, it makes sense for the showrunners to avoid having to completely reintroduce a world that viewers wouldn’t expect. The things you mention serving as functions in the books are fine, because you can just keep reading, but with a show they’d have to spend at least one episode establishing the things we saw today and another establishing his journey to Citigazze. They’re avoiding that by opting to, and i do agree with you on where they’re going, likely have them go to Citigazze at the same time. Frankly I really like them doing this this early on. I was always confused as to who was following Will and his Mom so seeing the people was a big click for me.
Lin-Manuel continues to annoy as Lee. And when Lyra returns with Billy, he’s like “trust me, they love you but hang back” – he knows this from the 12 hours he’s spent in their company? Suddenly he’s the arbiter of all the relationships in their camp, I guess.Serafina was miscast as well. The first 3/4 of that scene she’s basically bitchy to Coram.
It was nice to see Lyra get a little brighter/more excited, and Will (and his Mom) seem to be well cast. It’s going to be interesting to see how they juggle all of this…
Agree on Serefina. Also, why do adaptations always try and give people the ability to fly on their own? Witches need a cloud pine to ride on. This becomes important in The Secret Commonwealth. It’s just like when they decided in the HP movies that all death eaters could just fly in a whim when only Voldemort could ever fly solo. I don’t know if I’m being nit-pickey but some of this stuff is very frustrating.
The need of the cloud pine was explicitly explained in the last episode, but I’ve noticed some of these little details are kind of quickly glossed over in the show and easily missed.
I haven’t read the books in a few years, but I remember Serafina having a warmer presence. I’m not quite sure what that scene with her was, but it felt tonally out of place. James Cosmo is absolutely great as Coram, but I’m not convinced of the show’s take on Serafina yet.
Also Kaisa should be goose.
Apparently no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t make the talking goose not look silly. There needs to be a gravitas to Kaisa, so I’d rather they change his form slightly than have unintentional comedy whenever he’s on screen.
Is anyone else as DEEPLY disturbed by the mention of “God” and Billy as a son of God as I was? Shouldn’t we all be?This story was conceived, as I understand it, by Pullman to in part be a “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” for atheists. One of the biggest problems with the movie was that it would not commit to this. One of the strengths, thus far, of the series, is that it seemed to want to be more faithful to Pullman and to his intent. Now, we have this inkling about God. If they wuss out on us, on this very important point, where can it go? Will the Authority still dissolve when Will and Lyra go to the Land of the Dead? Will this very critical thematic element still matter? If they can’t follow through, I call foul.
So, ultimately, the Gyptians are not a people without God, as it were. I would ultimately argue—and did, in then comments of the first review, with several people—that the book is about the emptiness of organized religion but leaves room for a belief in a higher power, albeit with the acknowledgment that this does not take the form religion says it does. Now, others have suggested that Pullman is being much more strongly against religion in and of itself, and I take that point. And I do think that there’s a concern about them wussing out. But the truth is that none of the characters at this point in the story have any reason to be against the very idea of religion—they only have reason to question the authority of the Magisterium. Once the angels get involved, we will get a clearer sense of how deep they intend to explore these issues, but I wouldn’t raise an alarm yet personally.
That’s a valid perspective, and you are right to point out that we will know more once the angels are involved——BUT—-unless I’m forgetting, Pullman does not ever have any characters a belief in God, aside from those of the Magisterium. And Pullman himself is an atheist, I believe. So it does raise alarms for me, and possibly others reading the story.Have you read “The Secret Commonwealth” yet? It’s interesting to have the conversation with the newer book in mind. Pullman is more explicitly against a sort of overly-rationalistic worldview which robs the imagination and strips life of meaning—-there are several villainous characters which remind me a bit of Richard Dawkins. But even there, he seems to lead us towards an idea of a world teaming with meaning rather than one in which we are directed by a higher power. Those are two very different ideas. You can feel the world has meaning, and that, as Pullman also seems to suggest in “The Secret Commonwealth” that we bring our own meaning to the world by choice—-without any higher power. Although you are very right that the books are more about the abuses of power in organized religion, it’s so much more than just a fairy tale; it’s a way for parents like me to introduce ideas to our children with beauty and awe, and I would hate it if yet again that essence were sacrificed. I don’t want them to separate the story from its daemon!
about 2/3 through that book now, It does seem like a bit of a back peddle. I am curious where Lyra and the story go next.
I don’t think it’s a back-peddle. As atheist age they often tend to soften their hardline pseudo-objectivistic or anti-theist views, recognising the value of spirituality and even religion to people whilst still remaining atheists.This is what I see examined in The Secret Commonwealth.
I am right at that part in the book now. I wonder how many will soften when they see the current mess of anti truth dictatorial theocracy smacking the US apart.
I agree with your point that none of Pullman’s characters in His Dark Materials book series—outside the Magesterium, of course—expressed a belief in God. BUT, I don’t necessarily agree that the Lyra’s world is one painted such that people aren’t led or directed by a higher power. Even in the books, particularly the part of Northern Lights covered in this episode of HDM, it sort seems like Lyra is being directed by a higher power as she looks for Billy/Tony—the aleithiometer. The aleithiometer is telling her things she didn’t ask in order to direct her to Billy/Tony. (The aleithiometer is powered by Dust, so I guess she is being led by Dust? Which tells the truth via the alethiometer in a sort of omniscient way?) Anyway, I’m not bothered by the Gyptians using the word “God” in a song about death. I can sort of understand how some characters in Lyra’s world might attribute the mysteries of Dust that they don’t grasp to “God.” If this is the case, I’m guessing that the Gyptians understanding of “god” is very different than the magesterium’s understanding of The Authority. Maybe they should have used “the secret commonwealth” in the song instead of “god” though, lol.
I’m with Miles—I don’t think that song alone is an indicator that the show is wussing out. So I am not as deeply disturbed as you are. (I honestly didn’t even realize they said it until you pointed it out…I was more focused on counting daemons, per usual.) I’ll be more concerned if next week there’s no mention of the magesterium’s belief that intercision is a way to stop original sin or whatever, bc to me that’s when the critiques of religion in the book got super pointed and specific.
I found the funeral dirge very beautiful. It keeps running through my head, and I will use the tune in appropriate ritual settings in future.
Yes, this is what he proposes in his Republic of Heaven essay in Daemon Voices as well.
Yes, absolutely that bothered me
For me, not at all. Pullman is really a kind of agnostic. For many of us, “God” is much larger than Church (Magesterium), and much larger than any theology.
that was my initial reaction too, but then i realized that even though the books are hard on religion as an institution, they aren’t really necessarily against having faith itself. in fact, everyone — from the Magisterium to Lyra — has total faith in the alethiometer, despite there not really being any information about where they came from, or even how they work. you just trust them, and are 100% sure they “never lie.” i find it amusing that Pullman snuck total faith into his “athiest” work.
the Authority is God, and at this point in the series, exists and is alive. and saying the Magisterium are the only people who believe is like saying the Church are the only people who believe in God IRL. No. Most people in Pullman’s world participate in religion. just most of them don’t wield power through it.
A thing this reminds me of is that not long after the books came out Pullman was asked about this question of faith in god, vs religious authority, and he sort of admitted that having every religious character be a ‘baddie’ was lacking in nuance. So this doesn’t bother me so much.
I do wish that the show was more explicit about the magisterium being the church, and I also think the war against heaven in the final books is something that shouldn’t be obscured to preserve some sort of fig leaf of deniability.
The movie really suffered from its timing. The 2000s were just such an awfully conservative time, the film never had a chance. Though in retrospect some of it really doesn’t look so bad, compared to this series.
Weitz placed more emphasis on the connection between the characters and their daemons, and the characterisations and casting are still spot on. It’s a shame the studio took the film away from him and recut it into its present state.
I still think the decision not to save the introduction of our world for the end of the finale was a huge mistake.I have an additional problem with the introduction of Will Parry at this juncture, however. The altered version of the witches’ prophecy in the opening voiceover basically tells the audience that Lyra’s fate — and the fate of free will and entire worlds — is tied up with another. And then the episode makes it pretty explicit that that other person is not Roger.At this point in the story, the audience should be focused on Lyra saving her friend Roger. Introducing Will compromises that, and robs what happens to Roger later on in the story of a lot of its power.
I like the lost boy parallels, but agree with the kausa bit at the beginning of the episode. Worst bit of the entire thing. The witches know of prophecy and the other works. They do not know about will and asriels fight before it happens. And I’m fairly sure they don’t think it’s a good idea either.
I started screaming to my boyfriend about how annoying it is that Ma Costa notices Ratter us gone but I have NO IDEA what Ma’s deamon is. Because they never show him. Does anyone remember what form her deamon had in the books?Aso annoyed they couldn’t have put a CGI mouse in her hood, and the fact that Pan is nowhere to be found during her convo with Iorek, not even sleeping somewhere or at least awknoledging him. Aso annoying: when Lyra refers to herself saying “I have to go in alone.” The whole point of having a deamon is you are never alone. Unless talking to Pan, Lyra rarely ever refers to herself as I. It’s always a “we.” Her and Pan. This is very important when it comes to the deamon connection and they Don’t Even Show Us where Pan is when she askes Iorek if he ever feels lonley without a deamon. This is just frustrating at this point.I like having the origin of wills storyline seen and not told, because in the books he essentially explains all that stuff to Lyra in Citagazze and I get they would want to get rid of exposition like that but it would have been way better to put all that stuff in a Desmond-like episode at the beginning of the second season. Whatever. I still hate Mrs. coulter’s casting choice and she wasn’t even in this episode. She isn’t pretty. I’d never go with her if I was a little kid. Her mouth alone screams don’t trust me.
Seems like everyone’s deamon is there and then not there a lot. Like tonight’s episode and Pan was nowhere around when she gets up and rides the bear, but is at the town and afraid to go in the hut. It is like they are there when it is convenient for the the plot.
Damn, TV standards are harsh. Ruth Wilson isn’t drop dead gorgeous but in the real world, she’d be one of the more attractive people in any given room.
That’s not the thing, Coulter should be insanely comforting when she wants to, she should be able to come to you and for you to trust her no matter what. But the way she holds her mouth and smirks just screams danger and viciousness to me. I’d have my guard up the moment I see her talk.
“Striking” is the word. And I love the blues and greens they dress her in.
You’ve nailed it on the casting of Coulter. No kid is trusting that thin lipped pout, especially one as smart as Lyra.
I think she’s really pretty and she looks like Lyra.
The frustrating thing about missing daemons is that some of it is obviously a budgetary thing (forgivable) but a lot of it seems deliberate. It would be so easy for the dialogue to be written as it is in the book (people always referring to themselves as “we”) but Jack Thorne seems to be deliberately turning Pan into Lyra’s disappearing pet and it’s driving me bats.
Pretty sure Ma Costa’s daemon was the hawk that alerted her at the start of the scene. But I don’t think the show has established that that’s her daemon. I think the intended subtext of the scene where Tony’s daemon is revealed as settling as a hawk was that it was the family daemon, so to speak. But if you didn’t know it from the books, you’d have probably thought, if you thought anything of it at all, that all gyptians had hawk daemons, and then when you saw otherwise, you’d have thought, “Whoops, guess not,” then forgotten about it.
Ma Costa’s daemon is a hawk!Agree about the daemons in the convo with Iorek! Also would’ve loved to see Ma’s and Tony’s daemons supporting/comforting them as they watch Billy die. And the language point about “I” vs. “we” is dead on!Strong disagree about Mrs. Coulter’s casting choice. I think she’s pretty. I just don’t like the way the show has written her (…kind of unraveling early on as opposed to being firmly in control.)Withholding judgment on the choice about introducing Will early, mostly because I really like the way the actors portrayed him and his mother.
Ma Costa’s daemon is a hawk in the book, and remembering that I did spot him about in some shots. Fun fact, in the first editions, Pullman forgot he’d already chosen a form and she has a hawk on first appearance and a dog in her second. I’m using ‘fun’ here to mean ‘of interest to no one except basically me’.
Ruth Wilson is great, but she’s basically playing mrs Coulter with all the relish of Anthony Hopkins hamming it up as Hannibal Lecter.
I thought in the books that a person without their deamon is described as instantly recognizable- as they look like a body inside out, a skeleton etc. Or did my imagination make that up?!
As much as
I hated Trollesund last episode, I loved our first look at Bolvangar here. The
Station in the movie was very pretty and well-done, but this one is appropriately
dark and frightening. I felt Amir Wilson nailed his anxiety
about his mother and conflicted curiosity about his father. Still, I would
prefer the mystery, with maybe the first episode of next season doing what this
did in terms of background for the Will. I would also prefer if they had kept
Lord Boreal’s real identity a secret, just because I recently reread the
chapter where Mrs. Coulter shows up in Will’s world and is such a nail-bitter,
and I hate that it has been preemptively ruined.
I’ve been reading your recaps since the show aired and it’s funny as normally you have been harsher on the episodes than I have but I think this is the first one where I seem to have been more disappointed by the episode. The discovery of Billy did not land for me at all, which makes me quite nervous for the rest of the season. Overall, the show has failed to establish the sacredness of the human-daemon connection, which made this moment fall flat and which threatens to minimize the impact of Bolvangar. Frankly, I’ve given the the show a pass on not always having daemons in the shots and not establishing all the rules (ie. It hurts when your daemon tried to run too far away, it’s taboo to not touch someone else’s daemon) as I assumed this episode would focus on that fact. Instead, Pan did not have a single line for the first half of the episode, nor did he make an appearance, which was unacceptable in THIS of all episodes! Then, they failed to have Billy clutching onto the fish, while he can utter nothing else than “where my Ratter? which heartbreakingly exemplifies how desperately a human needs their daemon. Basically, the scene was sad because we saw a mother lose her child, naturally, but not because of the horror we should feel at a person not having a daemon. Lin explained the Magisterium’s motivations for separation succinctly after the fact but this is yet another instance on the show when we could have been shown rather than told. Also we lost a nice bit of characterization for Lyra by omitting her berating the Gyptians for getting rid of the boy’s fish, as it showed how fiercely loving she is.Anyway, them messing up this part, which was one of the most impactful in the book for me, just overshadowed the rest of the episode for me. Will’s parts were good, there was lots of attention to detail in his scenes and he seems to embody the character well, but I still stand by the fact we should not expand to our world when it’s clear viewers still don’t understand the rules of Lyras world.
You raise an interesting point: am I too forgiving because I’m filling in gaps the show isn’t addressing? I definitely felt like the moment with Billy landed, but I know all these things, and obviously a non-reader wouldn’t, which does raise some issues. For me, it’s a question about whether you need to know them for this moment to land, or if this moment can be part of a larger education about these issues.I take your point that this feels like a missed opportunity to have outlined some clearer stakes regarding this connection, but at the same time will it resonate more with viewers if it’s framed through a mother’s grief? I don’t know, honestly, but I don’t think you’re wrong to be a bit skeptical at this stage. Thanks for reading!
Yes, I think you are right—-those of us who are loving the books are filling in the gaps—-how could we not? But I’ve been reading the newbie recaps too——and it definitely doesn’t seem to be landing for them. There was so much daemon-related exposition early on——-too late now, but it would have been so much better if he had shown more scenes of intimacy between daemon and human—-that’s what I always remember—-the physical intimacy. Again, since I’ve just finished “The Secret Commonwealth”, that is now my point of reference, and the physical warmth and intimacy between human and daemon is more explicit there—-the comfort isn’t just having your daemon close, but actually having contact at times of rest——lots of evocative writing in the new book about daemons curled up on laps and pillows. That’s what’s missing. Less talking, more showing of that connection would flesh out the relationship.
Agreed. I feel like they could have done half shots with real animals and saved their budget a bit. Just a few dogs and cats. They don’t even need to be whole, just the occasional sighting of animal ears as their human touches them, it would have made all the difference. One thing I noticed was they did Billy’s death as akin to a spectre eating. Drew a good parallel for future seasons if they do it right. I found the scene very emotional and traumatic and I was expecting to not, as I’d already had it spoilered that will was in it and that there were no daemons on show. I love what they’ve done with the books. But the “financial restraints” of the daemons will be its downfall unless they do something
As a book reader, I think it lands pretty well. But there’s a reason why the newbies review gave it a C+. They haven’t done a really good job at engaging nonreaders.
Speaking as a non-book-reader (I had already skipped past YA novels by the time it came out, and it seemed at least in marketing to be very YA; I’m dipping in here since I’m not very concerned with spoilers), the grief his mom felt landed since we’ve spent time with her. Any sort of horror about him losing his daemon didn’t, since there wasn’t even any mention of his daemon (unless I missed something) until he was brought backbeyond Lyra getting hurt when her daemon was getting hurt, nothing’s been established about what the bad consequences related to daemons might bethe only times being separated from daemons has been brought up, it has been to establish that it can be completely fine (ie. with both Lyra’s mom and the witch, they seem to be doing fine without being near their daemons, so it can’t be that bad can it?)frankly if I hadn’t been reading some extratextual sources I’m not sure I’d realize that daemons couldn’t just disappear, and I definitely had that impression from the show for the first 3 episodes or so (hell, there was even a line of dialogue claiming that; it was non-verbally shown to be probably false, but still, that sure didn’t help).
I think knowing about the human-daemon bond, specifically, changes the perspective. It’s the most unique element of Pullman’s creation, and if you go read the newbies’ forum, a lot of people didn’t get that specificity at all. They received it as these are sort of companion spirits, like a witch’s familiar, or a shaman’s totem animal, where you have a spiritual bond, sure, but at the end of the day they’re separate entities, and there’s nothing particularly original about them. The bits of exposition that pointed towards the books’ proper vision are very easy to miss, and visually the daemons are too sparsely used, and never have a real narrative function – they’re sometimes there, most of the times aren’t.
Yeah, and that failure of understanding on Thorne and the directors’ part colours in the whole adaptation. Their whole focus seems to be off the mark, more interested in setting up the dimension hopping and the spectacle of the later books than what those things mean.
Lyra and Pan are the main characters of the books, through their bond the human-daemon connection becomes meaningful. That’s what gives intercision its impact, that’s how Dust becomes more than a mcguffin to drive the plot. And without that work, how is the part in the Amber Spyglass where they have to cross the world of the dead going to work?
I haven’t read the books but I do feel the show’s made a good effort to establish the daemon-human connection. Or at least, I’ve made sense of it in that the daemon is the human’s “soul” as the show states, or their conscience/essence, and without it, they’re essentially puppets for someone else. I’m not sure if there’s more to it than that, but Billy losing his daemon and then dying really landed for me. The show may have shifted the focus to Ma Costa, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, considering the actress (and the kid who plays her other son) nailed it. I like that the show isn’t necessarily a jigsaw puzzle to be fitted together, and instead feels more like a flowing river… I don’t really know where it’s going, but I’m enjoying the ride. That said, I love the little tidbits you mentioned, and I can’t wait to read the book in a few weeks.
Billy losing his daemon and then dying really landed for meIt didn’t for me, like, at all. If I see a litle kid, who wandered alone in polar temperatures, become extremely weak and die, I don’t call “severing of supernatural connection with inner soul” as the cause of death. I just call it hypothermia.
the show has failed to establish the sacredness of the human-daemon connection100% this! I did not read the books or see the movie, so I’m like…ok these are like normal pets. I feel I should be more invested in their bond. I get that budget might be tight, but you barely see any animals around when there is a group of people! And that scene where Lyra and the bear make a lunch stop, she does not has her daemon with her, like, at all, you don’t see it…c’mon….
That scene was particularly facepalm worthy. “Do you never get lonely without a daemon?”, asks Lyra, with Pan nowhere to be seen in a hundred feet radius.
Jack Thorne said on Twitter that they filmed it with the fish Ratter but it didn’t work for some reason.
Yeah, they really haven’t done a very good job of stressing the importance of the daemon/human relationship. I had to pause the show and explain this to my partner because it wasn’t clear to her why Billy’s daemon being missing was such a big deal. It shouldn’t be a secret to viewers who haven’t read the book at this point. At all.
I was thinking about the fish he was supposed to be clutching, and how much less potent this version is, and then I wondered if maybe it wouldn’t be clear in a visual medium what was going on, since kid daemons can take on any form. They would at the very least have had to add some expository dialogue, e.g. “He’s not holding Ratter… it’s just a dead fish.” which may have been seen as too clunky. Either way, I agree it was a letdown.
I agree 100% – Pan was such an important character throughout the books and in this arc in particular I felt he was completely missing. He wasn’t whining like an arctic fox, he was actively pushing Lyra away from the fish hut and imploring her – in words – not to go in there. And then when she realizes what has happened and that all Billy (Tony) has to hold onto is a piece of dried fish, she clutches Pan to her and all the connection and impact of this was nonexistent in the show. Billy’s death hit home for me because it was sad, period, and Anne-Marie Duff acted the hell out of it. I forgive her for being nothing at all like I pictured Ma Costa to be. I also thought it was a real loss to have Billy be completely nonverbal. It was much more effective in the book when Tony asked Lyra “Where’s Ratter? Do you have my Ratter?” and kept asking after her. The crossing scene to the land of the dead in the third book is going to lose so much if they can’t get the daemons right.
you took the words out of my mouth — the discovery of Billy was utterly botched, in my opinion. Part of it was the lack of daemons in the show overall, but this episode specifically really beefed it as well. When Lyra approaches the shed with Billy inside, the only indication that it was scary was Lyra literally telling us how scary it was.
It also felt super weird to have multiple characters immediately realize his daemon was missing — even if the show did have more of them running around, it still seems unreasonable to have a character jump straight there instead of the much more logical assumption that the daemon is just in their pocket or whatever. It would’ve been much more effective/creepy to have the realization dawn slowly on Lyra/Ma Costa/everyone and see them go through denial, horror, etc.
Making Billy completely comatose also robbed the scene of a lot, I think. He’s basically dead from the moment Lyra finds him, which steals some of the impact of both the daemon realization and his death. If I remember correctly, it also directly contradicts the un-daemoned but still functional people we see at Bolvangor, right?
But yeah, this should have been a majorly unsettling/frightening moment and instead it was just … sad. It’s the first time I felt totally let down by the show instead of mildly annoyed.
I think the Gyptians throats were cut in the raid
Chalk me up as another one who is very disappointed about the lack of fish. Jack Thorne mentioned on twitter that they shot it with the fish, but said it didn’t work. Personally, I feel like if it didn’t work its not because it can’t work, but because he as a showrunner is not rising to the challenge. The scene ended so abruptly and fell very flat for me, especially as I just re-read the book between these last 2 episodes. I will say that the scene at Bolvangar was well done, and making Lyra strip and see the same outfit that Billy had on was appropriately unsettling.Will’s story was actually the stronger of the 2 for me this week. I really liked his mom especially, great casting there. Will himself seems fine, and by nature of the character will take a bit to see how much I like that casting. One huge thing that bugged me though is the house. That thing is huge, and way, way too nice for what they live in in the books. Especially considering in the episode itself they mention how John Parry’s account only pays out a very small amount every month.
The house bothered me too! To the point that I was distracted wondering how they can possibly afford that house, and how it does not lend itself at all to the history of a boy and his mentally ill mom on their own for 13 years.That’s annoying to hear they did shoot it with the fish but didn’t get it to work. I honestly found myself laughing a little when Ma Costa is shouting “Where’s Ratter?” as though anyone else’s daemons were visible at the time? Where was her daemon, anyway? It was just not convincing for me, having the actors shouting about a daemon to tell us we’re supposed to care, but not backing it up with enough visuals to show something actually IS amiss. After all, Pan was nowhere to be seen until a minute before he and Lyra were supposed to be shocked at their discovery of Billy. Personally I think, if they couldn’t fill the shots with daemons to show the impact of a child without one, having that child instead be clinging to a piece of fish that he believes is his missing daemon would have been a lot more convincing.
There’s just been such a lack of connection between people and their daemons shown. Lyra should have been hugging the shit out of Pan after finding Billy.
The mean part of me wants to say, ‘well it doesn’t work WITHOUT the fish either!’As I mentioned else where I think the things undermining this scene go deeper and further back than details like the fish. They could have given him that and it wouldn’t have made the scene work.For one thing it is just immediately a totally different story with Billy in the role than Tony Makarios. If it’s Billy HAS to become about the Gyptians and Ma in particular rather than this broad existential horror. The loneliness that only Lyra and the reader get is embodied in the fish; in the series that sense is lost so the fish wouldn’t have the impact…. But all the same I am baffled by this and the other screen adaptation’s failure to pick up very filmic visuals straight from the novel.A shot of the boy clutching he dried fish match-cut to Lyra clutching Pantalaimon tells the story in two shots: he has no daemon to cling to, he has only this.
In the same way I am baffled by the screenwriters’ failure to see daemons as an absolute screenwriting gift, a reason for your protagonist to stand about discussing her innermost thoughts and feelings, and instead sideline them to the point of non-existence, I am baffled at how the makers of the series can read a scene with all the visual storytelling ready to go and say ‘hmmm well we’re stumped for how to make this work’.
I agree that daemons are a literal Deus ex machina for complicated plotlines and character monologues that just seem to have been watered down. We have Kaisa explaining everything unnecessarily, and pan occasionally stating the obvious, obviously. I eye rolled when he pointed out the jumpsuit she was wearing was the same as Tony’s. WE CAN SEE THAT TA. And I thought Hester was by far the best Daemon with most character development initially. After reading the secret commonwealth and the problems Lyra has travelling without pan I just can’t help but find the continued ignorance of daemons just feels insulting and a little uncannonical. But I trust Phillip Pullman, I trust his world and I always have, please don’t let us down Philly.
It’s a remarkable failure of screenwriting to not use the daemons for exposition and anything else you want to have your characters talk about. But then I don’t think Thorne is really interested in them, whatever does interest him in telling this story isn’t clear to me though. I thought that when we got our first glimpse of Boreal traveling to our world, that Thorne had some sort of plan. But so far it’s just been this weak tea introduction of The Subtle Knife.That the direction is lacking isn’t surprising to me, Tom Hooper is a boring hack. They should have given this to someone with some imagination and a sense of visual storytelling.
I get the same feeling, that Thorne isn’t interested or kind of misses some of the most important levels his story should be operating on. My theory is that he’s simply the wrong kind of writer for the project, but that it’s almost inevitable coming out of a British TV background. He’s a character/interpersonal-drama-led writer. This is an ideas-led story.Northern Lights is full of interesting relationships yes, but the drama hangs off more existential ideas and emotions than that.
So the series kind of feels… IDK, it’s very hard for me to judge as I know the books, but I feel a bit dull? Because Plot Stuff is Happening but in this version it’s a bit disconnected from anything we’re much engaged in scene-by-scene. In the ep. discussed above there’s a lot of fuss about recruiting the bear, but they’ve really sapped that sense of him as kind of philosophically interesting or complicatedly fascinating to Lyra so it all feels like a bit of a pointless runaround with nothing engaging enough to justify the time it’s taking on screen.And they COULD have upped the stakes in other ways. Played more with reversals, given us a specific reason to buy into thinking that the bear was key to the success of this mission. But they haevn’t really, it’s just got a kind of optional side-quest feeling.
The tension and momentum and sense of anything big and overarching are so lacking in the absence of ideas-storytelling, that by episode 5 they’re resorting to having Kaisa desperately exposit about prophecy, which sure, was part of the book but Pullman never relied upon destiny or prophecy to have his characters do things or pursuade us to care. It was an extra dimension to events which felt motivated and had impact and momentum in themselves.Without the storytelling around the ideas of the book – in this one, especially daemons, which form the core of the book’s story – you really lose what glues events together in any meaningful sense. The daemons are there but there’s not real storytelling going on with them because they’re outside the remit of Mundane Human Drama Thorne Can Write. So they’re just kind of cluttering up a story which is really more interesteed in the parental stuff.I’m writing this after seeing ep. 6, which was in most ways terriffic.A nd we’ve still got two episodes to come. But I can’t help but feel this is going to feel like a big of a shaggy dog story. Without the growth and development of the ideas (and of Lyra’s character, she feels a bit flat to me), this is all going to feel like a bunch of Stuff That Happened only for nothing ultimitely to be achieved. A collection of fantasy ideas which were set up and techincally got paid off but to no particular thematic or emotional end.
The thing is that there is a terrific character drama in there too, this story of a girl looking for a home and a family, but Thorne isn’t really doing much with that either!
The way he’s restructured it just throws off how Pullman built up the drama. I can see why they might have wanted to draw in Will’s side of things earlier, but the effect of it is that combined with the other alterations that it chops up the story of the first book into these bland stand alone bits of story.
After last week’s high point, we’re back to a new low. I couldn’t have imagined almost falling asleep watching “His Dark Materials”, but here we are. Specifically, they spent WAY too much time with Will and his mom. First, it’s way too early to even introduce him, and if we must, surely there’s a more compelling way than a 30 min after-school special about living with mental illness. For what it’s worth, for as much time as they gave it, my friend (who hasn’t read the books) is wondering why it feels like he was watching a completely different, and much more boring, show in the middle of this alleged high fantasy.
And that’s not even mentioning the (lack of) VFX. Daemons are kind of important to the story, guys, maybe we ought to show them? I was hoping this was going to be the next Game of Thrones, but clearly they’re on a BBC budget, not an HBO one.
I know that twists aren’t the point of the books, and that some twists in the books just wouldn’t work in a visual medium (as has been previously discussed in these reviews), but it’s still a very odd adaptation choice to me that we already know what I think of as two of the biggest reveals in The Subtle Knife (Lord Boreal and Grumman=John Parry) before we’ve even reached the end of season 1.My personal “where are the daemons???” complaint of the week is with the scene with the nurse at the end. In the book the image of the small dog daemon trotting behind his human has always stuck with me, and I’m unreasonably annoyed that they couldn’t be bothered to even do that – they probably could have even used a real dog! The whole point is that its not like other daemons! Whatever; I’m still looking forward to next week – previews indicate it’ll almost certainly have my most-anticipated scene of the show, and I’m just really looking forward to seeing all the Bolvanger scenes play out in general (though I’m sure they’ll find a way to make at least one bizarre adaptation choice I don’t understand).
I agree about the Grumman=John Parry reveal! This is particular reveal bothers me more than almost any other. They could have easily not have underlined this connection, even if they did decide to introduce Will and his mom and the fact that they are being watched by Boreal. I also wish that, in this episode, they didn’t show that Will’s mom had actually interacted with Boreal until the end…sort of make it unclear whether or not her paranoia was imagined or grounded in fact and experience for most of the episode. Whatever though, that’s just a small quibble. My “where are the daemons?!” was not the nurse. (I think there’s still time for that next episode if they choose to show it—delayed insight as to the nurse’s weird, blunted affect.) Like most people, I’m bugged by: 1) Lack of Pan with Lyra while riding Iorek, 2) Lack of Pan when Iorek and Lyra are eating/talking and she asks him if he’s lonely without a daemon, and 3) Lack of Ma’s and Tony’s daemons comforting them as they watch Billy die.
I mean, the show’s versions of daemons is basically the Bolvanger daemons already.
Very much agreed, re: the nurse’s dog. A little white dog, blankly trotting behind her. It was a very visceral image.
“my copy of The Golden Compass has a cover image of Lyra with Pan as a mouse by her hood riding Iorek, and they did not recreate this shot nor even acknowledge where Pan was during the ride”I am so glad I’m not the only one bothered by this! I spent the whole scene anticipating that shot with Pan only to be let down. It also felt pretty weird to me that he was nowhere to be seen when Lyra asked Iorek about being lonely. Like, really? And where’s your daemon, Lyra? It just feels that they sorely underestimated the budget they would need to properly translate a world like Lyra’s, given how ubiquitous daemons are and therefore how disturbing it is to see someone without one. I am genuinely curious how it appears to someone who hasn’t read the books, and if they can understand just how horrifying it is in that world to be severed, especially with Bolvangar coming up in the next episode.
“I am genuinely curious how it appears to someone who hasn’t read the books, and if they can understand just how horrifying it is in that world to be severed, especially with Bolvangar coming up in the next episode.” It’s interesting to go pop over to the newbies threads for this exact reason. I keep wondering how things are landing without the background of having read them all before.
I’ve been pretty chill about the changes from the books (CGI budget etc.) and am actually really happy about Will’s early introduction – I read the Subtle Knife as a pre-teen and it took me ages to be happy that it wasn’t Lyra, even though Will is now my fave for all time, so I can only imagine what it would mean for a non-book viewer.But I do wish they’d make more use of puppets or even real animals. They implied that Billy had died of the cold – which, yes, but it was definitely tied in to him having lost his soul. The fish and the plaintive ‘where’s my ratter’ hurt. I just need to see Pan sat on Lyra’s shoulder more, i.e. puppets not always CGI. And the same for the funeral scene – it would have been much more powerful with all the daemons on people’s shoulders etc. Otherwise, where’s the threat of Bolvanger.Also, I was legitimately disappointed not to see the creepy little dog with the nurse.
I think you’re missing the genius of the decision of moving Will’s world (aka ours) to this season. For me, the biggest thrill of the trilogy was starting the story in a fantasy world and then unexpectedly entering ours – it’s the perfect inversion of a thousand rip offs of Narnia; it’s *our* world that feels alien.It felt profoundly exciting to start the Subtle Knife and think ‘wait, what?’ as we start the story on our world, but this would have been TOTALLY LOST in the trailers/hype for season 2.There would have been no way to promote Will’s introduction in the run up to the new season,i and I’m positive there’s and alternate universe (heh) in which you’d be writing a think piece about how disappointing it was that the big reveal had been given away by the necessary evil of marketing. As it is, both book readers and new fans got the unexpected thrill of Boreal arriving in a modern Oxford – something that was never even hinted in the marketing for season 1.(Also, I much prefer following Boreal in this show as I found his reintroduction in the Subtle Knife a bit lame and smacking of retcon)
You make some really good points here that make me feel a *little* better about the early reveal of other worlds. However, I am NOT a fan of the fact that the show has already spoiled the Grumman=John Parry connection.
With Will, more so than Lyra, the actor/character’s age really struck me. In the books, they’re children, and Dafne Keen can sell her as younger. But Amir Wilson’s voice and size gives him away, he’s a teenager. I’m not sure how well that reconciles with the later stuff about their transition from childhood, or if that too will have to change in the show.
I thought he felt too old too.
Is there a particular reason they aren’t using…you know…real animals in any shots? I’m familiar with how rodent droppings get everywhere, but they totally could’ve given us a flash of that iconic cover.
You brought up a point that I hadn’t realized was affecting me (positively, actually). I have no idea how others experienced the beginning of the Subtle Knife, but I remember feeling like it had adopted some tropes of YA Lit that I find a little…frustrating. Namely, the conveniently squeezed in, relevant, and conveniently perfect back story that has to be rushed through because of an emergency. Now, instead of rolling my eyes a bit, I am engaged with Will and am seeing what his life is like and what sort of boy he is. I may not be remembering the books exactly right, either, so maybe I’m blowing smoke. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the series is trying to gently disengage many of the YA lit tropes as it goes to make it a slightly more engaging story for grownups. Your mention of how they’ve allowed Lyra to become the silvertongue rather than simply naming her as such might be another example – YA lit often relies heavily on labels for characterization. Thanks for giving me something for my brain to chew on.
this quote from a producer: “
“As wonderful as CGI is, when you have got these amazing actors and
you cut away to a daemon – kind of like, one moving over to the other to
show that it’s warming to it – the scene would just drop like a stone.
And you’d think, ‘What are we doing?’“I mean literally, when we had rehearsals we had flying daemons in
and out… the daemons were crawling over everything, every character’s
daemon was marked. It was so noisy, we could hardly get onto the set for
them,” Tranter recalled.”makes me realize she has never read the books at all. And it shows
Shocking, yet so revealing.
“Every new daemon character is a butt-ton of cash,” executive producer Jane Tranter told RadioTimes.com.“But I think it’s a very happy union of being governed by spend, and having to make the most of the daemons we’ve got. I’d rather have quality than quantity of daemon form.”But there were also stylistic considerations to think about, with early tests where all the daemons were in shot sapping the energy of scenes and making for an overly “busy” atmosphere.“Literally I just sat with my head in my hands in the edit,” Tranter told us.“As wonderful as CGI is, when you have got these amazing actors and you cut away to a daemon – kind of like, one moving over to the other to show that it’s warming to it – the scene would just drop like a stone. And you’d think, ‘What are we doing?’“I mean literally, when we had rehearsals we had flying daemons in and out… the daemons were crawling over everything, every character’s daemon was marked. It was so noisy, we could hardly get onto the set for them,” Tranter recalled.
She’s all like, “the daemons were sucking the energy out of the scenes”, and I’m all like “what energy?”
So basically they don’t know how to stage and frame a scene.
This episode really highlighted the overall disappointments I’ve had with a number of choices of this adaptation that have been nagging me since the beginning – namely how they have handled daemons, the alethiometer, and the early introduction to the other worlds.When it comes to the daemons they have completely failed in establishing that they are truly part of and extensions of a person’s soul. They feel like talking pets. It’s why the scene where Mrs. Coulter and Lyra’s daemons fought didn’t carry much weight and why finding out that Billy’s daemon had been taken fell flat when it’s supposed to be a major tragic reveal. (Side note: I recall from the book that the boy Lyra found was clutching a dead fish or something and that it was a devastating touch – why leave that out here?) As for the alethiometer it still just feels like Lyra’s smartphone and she’s just Googling relevant info for their journey when she’s supposed to have an almost mystical connection to a sacred device. I also don’t recall her just whipping it out whenever needed in the books.And lastly the introduction of the other worlds overall just distracts from building Lyra’s world. As others have stated it takes away from the big reveal that other worlds actually are real, but it also has killed the slow build that novels achieve by hyper focusing on Lyra in the first novel as she learns about her own world and then eventually exploding outwards later on. She is the core of the series and here she feels a bit like just another character.
I have to say the shot of Lyra riding Iorek sent real chills down my spine – it’s exactly how I pictured it as a 10 year old girl, and it’s still the coolest possible thing. Will is also exactly how I imagined him, which I’m so grateful for. The reveal that Billy’s daemon had been cut away was anti-climactic, though. I was watching with someone who hadn’t read the books, and they kept expecting a reveal that he was possessed or was going to attack them or something. I didn’t know how to explain that the horrible eery thing had already happened. A lovely acting moment for Ma Costa though, and good use of the emotion we have invested in her since she came along to the North.Overall I think I’m enjoying the series a lot more than other people here! Loved the evolution of Lyra, and the comparison between her and Will’s outlooks this episode.
It’s been my running comment but it still holds true: The misuse of daemons has been the greatest flaw of the show. I honestly, without going back, could not tell you Ma Costa’s daemon’s species let alone its name. The same with most of the secondary characters.As such the separation of the daemon and the horror of finding him without it does not land at all. If we always saw and felt the daemons than its lack *would* be obvious and creepy and the implications horrifying but, as it is, it falls fully flat.
The conclusion of the Northern Lights book has not been lost. It’s not Billy that Asriel uses.
and it honestly wouldn’t matter. that’s a negligible detail.
I think weaving in Will’s story earlier is a good idea, and may avoid some of the sidelining that happened to Lyra in The Subtle Knife. But whoo boy, this show feels stiff and wooden. After watching something as considered and thoughtful as Watchmen (please stick the landing), it’s painful to see this show resort to a clunky voiceover in episode 5. The tone is all over the place and the emotional stakes feel like they rise and fall depending on the charisma of the actors on the screen. And I don’t know if it’s the clunky scripts, but there’s a disappointing lack of attention to detail compared to, say, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. I’m sympathetic to the budgetary constraints, but the use of dameons is so random that the interactions all fall flat – there’s no sense of Pan as a character in his own right. And it doesn’t help that the blocking is so static it’s distracting (poor Lord Mormont brought his A-game to a scene where he’s just standing 8 feet from his ex for most of it). It feels like they gave a theater director access to a green screen for the first time.Anyway, Iorek is cool and gives a good “hard stare.”
even if filmed we will need to wait 2-3 years for season 2 because that is how streaming tv works these days.
Unfortunately, the show so far isn’t very compelling. This episode, I was bored. I don’t know exactly how the show isn’t grabbing me, but it’s not. It’s lacking the momentum of the books. Like if I hadn’t read them, would I come back every week? Maybe. Or am I disappointed it’s not living up to the source material? Not as lively. I’ll continue to watch it because I’m curious about how they’re adapting it, and I like Daphne Keen, and the visuals are nice. Oh,and Ruth Wilson’s Mrs. Coulter is the best character on the show so far. But another downside is that Jack Thorne’s writing is too much clunky exposition instead of character work.
Agree with most others here that the Billy scene did not land because they haven’t done a good job establishing the human-daemon connection. They keep telling us daemons are important, but they aren’t showing us that at all. I’m usually not a book purist, but I think it was a miss not showing the villagers. who were terrified of a lost child without a daemon. In the book they want nothing to do with him and tell Lyra/Iorek it would be better if he was dead, which is powerful. They should have been establishing this all from episode 1, but that scene still would have helped.One of the frustrating recurring things that keeps happening is that whenever people have dog daemons (the police; the Samoyeds at the end of this episode) the dogs just growl and bark, making them seem like K-9 units or pets as opposed to daemons. It’s frustrating, and would add a little bit of world building if the dogs could speak.
Re: absent daemonsFor me, the most affecting scene in the books is when [spoiler] Lyra has to leave Pan behind when she travels to the land of the dead. That separation is so traumatic and it’s traumatic because we have such a strong sense of the human-daemon relationship.I feel like the tv version of this will be like “yo Pan, sit tight, I’ll be back in five.”
“BRB”
You’re more generous than me, but we are both more positive
on this episode than the general fan response. I think, based on following your
reviews, because we’re coming from a similar place re. the previous
storytelling. I wasn’t horribly disappointed by the Lost Boy moment and I didn’t
much care that he didn’t have his fish or get his coin etc because that’s not
what this made less impactful than the book’s; what made it less impactful was
that the book spent its first half earning this moment with stupendous
storytelling around daemons. The series has barely bothered in that direction.Plus as soon as poor wee Billy called his daemon ’Ratter’ in
the first episode we all knew wht was coming, and for me putting Billy in that
role immediately lessens the potential emotion. Tony Makarios is the little girl
in the red coat from Schindler’s List. You don’t make that note more effective
by making it a character with connections to the protagonist, you just change
the drama from being about what is happening to who it is
happening to. As soon as it was Billy that was going to end up in the hut and
as soon as Mas Cost was going North, this was always going to be a scene
changed and lessened in power and complexity.It was actually the stage play that first turned Tony
Makarios into Billy Costa, and actually in both the play and the film I think it’s
a fairly solid decision. In the abbreviated space of a play or film, it makes
sense to lean into that rather than try to jam an already busy and confusing
narrative with something a little more stolid and workhorse-y.And in the series too I think it was the best decision,
though here it’s not a time or space issue but because I think Thorne has a
fairly narrow comfort zone of writing and it’s sensible to move the drama to
lean more into something he’s actually good at: making the moment about the
interpersonal drama, the death and the mourning of the mother, rather than an
existential horror and idea-as-story writing he has just never showed much talent
for.It Billy scenes fall over in lots of ways, like the ones you
and others have mention – it’s absurd to have characters crying out about one
character’s lack of daemon when none of then have them either. But by giving the
beats around finding Billy and realising what intercision is a fairly
perfunctory skip through, and focusing the emotional drama instead on
something he can write, the death and funeral scenes, I think Thorne
gets away with it. Obviously it’s not anything like as powerful or complex as
the book but honestly, in the nicest way, this series isn’t capable of that and
I never expected it; we’re operating on quite a different metric of
storytelling here, and I think the death and funeral scenes were some of the
best moments of the series so far.I am similarly pleased with Will’s introduction. One of the
most simultaneously gratifying and frustrating things about this series is how
it has suggested new angles of approach only to not follow up on them very satisfyingly.
Perhaps it’s unfair but I felt I could almost feel Thorne and Trantor giving
themselves little hugs of self-satisfied pleasure at thinking f having the
title The Lost Boy refer not only to the daemonless boy but also Will. It was
an excellent idea as an entry point for our second protagonist. But sadly they
seem to think its enough to kind of go, ‘eh? You see? There’s more than ONE
lost boy!!’ and not actually use a potential thematic resonance they’ve spotted.You found more thematic connection between A- and B-plots than I did
but personally I felt it was a wasted opportunity to actually say something,
anything, with that comparison or contrast. There’s so much potential in it,
things that Billy and Will share (apart from a name): the lack of daemon, the
relationship with the mother, the aloneness. Imagine this is the hands of a
really good TV writer. What does it mean to call Billy ‘lost‘ and to call Will ‘lost’,
and how do those interpretations cross over and relate to each other? Or
perhaps the story is really about two lost mothers? But no, Thorne is satisfied
to stop at noting that more than one boy can be called ‘lost’ in HDM and not having
their stories speak to each other at all. The plots as yet are fairly unrelated
but the thematic story could have matched, and we might have gotten a more
graceful transition into will’s line than Kaisa going, ‘oh I totes forgot there’s
an important boy’. And it might have reached some sense of episodic conclusion
rather than just ending with a resounding ‘yup’.Lastly I like your thoughts about the way this revised
presentation of the chronology might create different spins of the ending of this
season, but I’m not optimistic they’ll pick such an interesting one. The series
hasn’t shown much skill at dealing in expectation or tension so I wouldn’t
expect them to start there!
I thought that this episode made a huge mistake (albeit one we all saw coming when Billy called his dæmon Ratter in the first episode) by changing Tony Makarios to Billy Costa. Tony is a total stranger who Lyra finds, his soul horribly mutilated, yet she still overcomes her horror and cares for him until his death. It seemed like the show threw away a more powerful moment of character building for Lyra (caring for a broken stranger) in favor of putting a character in that the audience is already familiar with, and that just seems cheap. It also feels like they are developing the character of Ma Costa and giving her a greater arc at the expensive of a less developed Lyra, which is frustrating.
One of the great issues with the book is the sex negativity of organized religion. And the onset of puberty is a huge deal for the characters. Amir Wilson strikes me as too old.
The first is that my copy of The Golden Compass has a cover image of Lyra with Pan as a mouse by her hood riding Iorek, and they did not recreate this shot nor even acknowledge where Pan was during the ride, and that was extremely rude. The vast bulk of the Earth have a copy of Northern Lights with this on the cover, and I haven’t heard you complain about what the fuck that square alethiometer is supposed to be. 😂