His Dark Materials: The Break

Looking over this review, it strikes me that this entire deep-dive into the show is more of an excuse to ponder both the adaptation and the books upon which it’s based, particularly in regards to Pullman’s prose and intentions and writing style.

This suits me just fine, for – as has been frequently mentioned – the His Dark Materials trilogy was a formative part of my late childhood, to the point where I based at least half of my thesis on its philosophical/metaphysical underpinnings. Watching this show is as good an excuse as any to delve back into the aspects of the story that fascinated me as a child, not to mention my general interest in the adaptation process and the structure of stories.

Watching this episode, it became apparent to me that although this epic is far too dense and complex to be adapted coherently into a film (as the 2007 attempt demonstrated) it also desperately requires a film’s budget. Even today, with the ability to render realistic armoured bears and shape-shifting daemons, you can see certain limitations in the way the story is presented.

For example, it’s clear that the dragonflies of the Gallivespians have been omitted for budgetary reasons, likewise the appearance of the angels from barely-visible impressions in the air to actors in robes and gold/silver face-paint. Lord Asriel’s sprawling adamant fortress, made up of towers and battlements and fortifications, is now a standard army basecamp.

Even the little things, like the fact that Mrs Coulter’s hiding place has been transposed from a cave in the Himalayas to a cottage on the Welsh coast, all point to BBC accountants desperately trying to keep finances at a reasonable level. 

I understand, I do, but it’s a shame that something of such immense imagination and scope as Pullman’s vision has to be pared down in this way. And sometimes it leads to unfortunate plot-holes – in rereading The Amber Spyglass along with the progression of the episodes, I was reminded that Will instructs Balthamos to take the form of a daemon so that he can pass through Lyra’s world without attracting any attention. Recall that to those living in her world, a person without a daemon would be like wandering around without a head – a source of terror and disgust.

The show skips all that, to the point where Will can overcome Iorek sans a daemon in full view of an entire village without comment. It chips away at the integrity of the world-building, though I’ve no doubt that the decision was due to cost cutting.

His Dark Material: The Enchanted Sleeper

Yes, I’ve at last made time for the third and final season of His Dark Materials, adapted from the novel The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.

In all honesty, this book is not my favourite of the trilogy, and came as something of a disappointment after being utterly transported by Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife. As a thirteen-year-old, I had never read anything like them before. They were formative in teaching me that fantasy didn’t have to be set in Ye Old Medieval England. The metaphysical mysteries, such as the nature of Dust and the daemons, were captivating.

It is a rare thing to have been as swept up in a story and its implications as I was with those books, and they’re the type of story that fills any would-be writer with a kind of despair, as you know you’ll never write anything half as good. The way Pullman linked his own concepts (the daemons, the alethiometer) with the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, and with the universal human experience of gaining consciousness, growing up and becoming an adult was – and still is – awe-inspiring to me.

Yet here, that story gives way to a treatise on Pullman’s personal outlook on life – not one that I found offensive, but which wasn’t presented in the text in a way I found convincing. I wasn’t hugely moved by the love story between Lyra and Will (I remember thinking on my first read: “oh, we’re going there”) and that romantic attraction is what saved the entire multiverse didn’t mean much to my aromantic soul.

Generally speaking, stories in which a hero journeys down into the underworld don’t pique my interest (hot take: you’ve read one katabasis, you’ve read them all) and to this day I’m rather incredulous that the entirety of Lord Asriel’s physical assault on the Kingdom of Heaven happens off-page in favour of Mary Malone telling the protagonists about her sexual awakening. We get absolutely nothing on how the actual war panned out (yes, you could argue that an Anti-Climax Climax was the point, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing).

A lot of the material seemed completely superfluous (the Gallivespians, Lyra speaking with her Death), so many of the enticing philosophical questions that were raised didn’t feel like they were answered in any satisfying way (did we ever get a clear answer on what the Spectres were or why they attacked adults the way they did?) and a number of intriguing set-ups ended up going nowhere (it was repeatedly stated that Asriel couldn’t win the war without the help of the subtle knife, and Serafina is given fuck-all to do).

There was a chance that a television adaption could have alleviated some of these issues, but so far I’ve found this a rather toothless and over-explanatory take on the source material. Not bad by any means, but straightforward, workmanlike and diligent in ticking the boxes of Pullman’s story without exploring or deepening the text in any meaningful way. It could be a lot worse, but you only have to look at its (lack of) reception to realize it clearly hasn’t made that much of a splash.

Still, we’ve still got one more season to go, and having seen it through this far, I’ve no intentions of stopping now.

Reading/Watching Log #90

I had two weeks off from work this month, so naturally they were spent stuffing myself with all the shows and books I needed to catch up on. I’m now well into my Slavic Fantasy reading list, having read novels by both Sophie Anderson and Leigh Bardugo. I caught up on two blockbusters from the nineties that I’d never seen before, and got more graphic novels under my belt (damn, there’s some good stuff out there).

Having time to catch up on my shows are always welcome, in this case it was the various conclusions of Sanditon, Happy Valley and Westworld, the sophomore season of Vikings: Valhalla, and the Bridgerton Queen Charlotte spin-off. Another Babysitters Club Super Special, more Spooks, and a little treat from Philip Pullman...

And I went to the ballet, which is always a soul-cleanser.

Woman of the Month: Bluey and Bingo

Bluey and Bingo Heeler from Bluey

It’s been a while since I’ve had a duo in a Woman of the Month post (prior examples include Misty + Colleen, Joy + Sadness and Korra + Asami) and they usually come about due to a sheer inability to separate the pairing. For whatever reason, they exist as a double act. However, this post is a first in that I’ve never profiled any anthropomorphic female characters before.

Bluey and Bingo are children, sisters and dogs – in that order. Much ink has been spilt on what has made Bluey such a popular show, from the stealth parenting tips to the depiction of a happy childhood to the emotional maturity of the writing, though for my money it’s because our two main characters provide such vivid depictions of children.

It helps that real (uncredited) children voice the two characters, though the real miracle of the show is that it somehow manages to capture the ineffable magic of childhood and the way we all experienced it. That seems a lofty goal for animated seven-minute shorts, but then, how else am I supposed to describe Bingo's separation anxiety subliminally manifesting in her dream about basking in the warmth of the sun, only for the episode to reveal that her mother has curled up next to her in bed, all to the sound of Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter”? I mean, just calm down Bluey.

That Bluey and Bingo are also sisters is also noteworthy. On any other show, you’d expect them to be brothers, or a brother/sister pairing, just to attain that mainstream, widespread appeal. But the girls are sisters, navigating that time of constant companionship, in which you’re playmates, rivals, buddies, and partners in crime. As the eldest, Bluey is often more assertive and bossy, while Bingo is more sensitive and careful. Bluey will dive straight into the pool, Bingo dips her toes in first. Bluey is brimming with ideas and innovations, while Bingo is more than happy to just come along for the ride.

They capture (in broad strokes) the two sides of childhood; the extrovert and the introvert. But as it happens, it’s difficult to talk about characters that are children since... they’re children. There’s no real character to speak of; indeed, childhood is the time in which you gain your character. Yet that’s reflected in the show itself. Bluey and Bingo are a work-in progress, filled with curiosity and a zest for life. When you’re that young, everything is new, everything is an adventure. They’re still at the beginning of everything.

And of course, they’re dogs. They wag their tails when they’re happy and shake themselves when they’re wet. But as characters, they make for a more realistic depiction of children than many actual child characters. Their speech patterns, their thought-processes, their boundless creativity. Some episodes take place entirely within the imaginative landscape of their games, and watching them begin to fathom the world around them is as fascinating to us as it is to them. Long may their childhoods continue.