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His Dark Materials Season 1 Review

His Dark Materials is a fantasy television series based on the first novel by Philip Pullman. The first season premiered in late 2019.

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“With every child’s nightmare,

there’s an element of truth“

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The first book remains the best one of the entire trilogy. It was first adapted back in 2007 into a pretty solid, not that bad movie at all. It was quite underrated. This one was hugely anticipated and it was clearly an improvement upon its cinematic predecessor, but still it’s not too big of an improvement, which was unfortunate.

I adored the first episode. It set up the entire story tremendously well, it was hugely entertaining, even engrossing, and the magical elements were very accurately brought to the screen. The second episode was also pretty good. However, most of the rest of the episodes were immensely disappointing.

Why so exactly? Well, for one, the daemons started appearing way too scarcely, the magical elements overall were stripped away in favor of drama, and let’s face it in favor of cutting costs, thus resulting in a much more tedious, not as magical viewing experience.

The show is still very faithful to the source material, which I certainly admired, though the shifting around of some major plot points was a miscalculated choice by the makers of the show. As for the characters, some were poorly realized, but others were excellent. It’s a mixed bag for sure.

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Dafne Keen of ‘Logan’ fame got to play Lyra Belacqua. I was so happy to see her again, and she gave another strong performance, though the character was not nearly as well developed as she was in the books. Will Parry was used in the very first season despite not appearing before the second book, which led to a jumbled pace and tone to this first season. It was a bad choice that really backfired in my opinion.

I adored Marisa Coulter, though. She was just as amazing as she was in the books, and maybe even better as she’s so badass and particularly powerful when in villainous mode. The casting of James McAvoy was problematic as I could never picture him myself as Lord Asriel. Ma Costa is great herself, but all the others are so weakly utilized, including unfortunately Farder Coram and Lee Scorseby. The latter was particularly goofy with Lin-Manuel Miranda being too silly in the role.

Thankfully, the technical aspects in His Dark Materials are fantastic, especially the special effects. The daemons looked stunning, which made their weak character development and lesser utilization into the overall plot more palatable. The animals’ designs were truly amazing. I also loved the polar bears and all of their scenes are immensely entertaining and memorable.

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The cinematography is excellent, the costumes exquisite and the sets are all gorgeous, especially the Oxford ones. The visuals can be truly amazing here. The performances are also mostly superb and the score is wonderful, especially beautiful is that opening theme that is so damn grandiose. I just wish the script was better adapted.

Overall, the first season of His Dark Materials started off superbly, but it ended in a very disappointing fashion. Yes, the technical aspects are fabulous, but the characters are a mixed bag. The story is faithful, but messy in pacing and structure. It’s solid, but it could have been so much better.

Worst Episodes: Lyra’s Jordan and The Idea of North.

Best Episodes: The Lost Boy and The Fight to the Death.