Tuesday, March 03, 2020

His Dark Materials

It has taken a while, but LC and I finished up the first series of "His Dark Materials" at the weekend. This is the start of an adaptation of the trilogy by the same name by Philip Pullman, covering the first novel and parts of the second.

For the most part I very much enjoyed it. I did feel that the first three episodes took a long time to get going, but then episodes four to seven were very good indeed. Unfortunately, the final episode was a nonsense of sound and fury, and therefore nowhere near as good as what went before, but it was still okay - and the final twist somehow still managed to surprise me. I guess it's just been a very long time since I read the trilogy.

I should note that I thought the decision to move some of the second novel into the first series was a very wise choice. Otherwise, the sudden and total shift in emphasis would likely have been quite jarring when we go into the second series. As it stands, much of the groundwork has been laid, allowing them to push on with some of the meatier story aspects sooner. All in all, a good choice.

And that's that. How nice to be able to actually be positive about something on the BBC for once!

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