His Dark Materials: Season 3

December 29, 2022 6:56 AM - Season 3 (Full Season)

His Dark Materials concludes with this adaptation of The Amber Spyglass: Elephants on rollerskates! A jailbreak from Purgatory! A war to kill God! Eve 2.0!

Ruth Wilson on Mrs. Coulter's heel to face turn.

Executive Producer Jane Tranter discusses the choices made for the adaptation.

In Season 3, His Dark Materials Finally Found the Way to Tempt Readers Who Love the Books.

posted by whuppy (12 comments total)

Most folks were wondering how the Mulefa would look on the screen, but I was wondering how they could possibly portray my favorite moment in the trilogy: When Metatron examines Mrs. Coulter's "cess-pit of moral filth" of a mind and soul. Such a thoroughly interior scene where all of her sins prepared her for this inquiry, where the very fate of the war hinges upon her being the monster she created. Ruth Wilson did a fantastic job throughout with this difficult-to-portray character, but she did the damn-near impossible nailing this moment.
posted by whuppy at 7:10 AM on December 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ugh. Can someone please fix the first link? I'm not a regular FF poster, I just felt this one needed to be done. Thanks!
posted by whuppy at 7:13 AM on December 29, 2022

We are just starting out the season, but did Lyra's mom pluck her eyebrows while she was unconscious?
posted by Catblack at 7:46 AM on December 29, 2022

Here is the first link.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:09 AM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm glad the third season ended as strong as it did. What an ending as well!
posted by jazon at 5:56 PM on December 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

The first half of this season did not work for me very well, probably due to the various concessions they clearly made for budgetal/practical reasons- they thoroughly downsized Asriel's fortress, which I guess is fair enough, but still.

The first scene that really worked for me was Lyra's storytelling to the dead, and it got better from there. It stuck the landing, which is what matters.

I'm glad they realized that Ruth Wilson's Coulter was so good that she could carry the show more or less single-handedly when necessary. The Lyra/Coulter's daemon moment really worked for me- found myself actually tearing up, which is unusual for me!

The only element I really missed from the book were the newly-freed dead joining in the battle and fighting the Specters.

I was worried they'd forgotten the "Lyra and Will accidentally kill God but it's not really important" moment, but they didn't and they didn't mess with it too much either, which was great.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:36 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I had a lot of problems with this season but credit where credit is due, they nailed the ending and Dafne Keen is a legit star!
posted by adrianhon at 2:03 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm enjoying this but I am remembering why I struggle a little with the series, which is that Lyra is in a lot of ways a very different character. In this, she's solid but a little bland. But in the books, I thought she was really remarkable - blunt, headstrong, a little bit dumb sometimes, rushing headlong into things, and having her own wonderful internal logic ("Oh, he's a murderer, I can trust him."). Here, she's driven and loyal but doesn't quite have that same level of being a hardheaded charger who's great at playing dumb.
posted by entropone at 10:54 AM on January 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

Still, the series did bring some things....This was a moment from the second series, but it's something I didn't remember from the book. It was early on when Will and Lyra were still in Cittagazze and getting to know each other, and he says something about how he's just had a bath, but the water's still warm....and he gives her a bit of a look as he leaves. Lyra wonders aloud why he said that, and Pan says something like "maybe he was trying to say that you might need one yourself."

Lyra frowns at this, but then after a second, she tentatively bends her head down to smell under one of her arms....then considers things a couple seconds, and then shrugs and says, "I'm good as I am," and leaves. It was just so....Lyra.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:33 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Just finished a binge watch of this. I thought it was really good and enjoyed it alot. But it is also a show where alot of animals die, which is hard for me. When she leaves Pan in the land of the dead, I didnt care about anything else until she got back to Pan. And how cruel to make them fall in love and force them to separate. Dust apparently runs on broken hearts?

We just kept laughing at Asriel thinking he's the center of the story and being annoyed that everyone keeps making a big deal about Lyra. Like it was literally the 2nd to last episode before he realized he was just a supporting character.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:45 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

had fun thinking about costume as storytelling instead of realism (no-one’s outfits all fit into their backpacks, but the costume designers are telling us character things instead)
posted by lokta at 6:19 AM on January 24, 2023

I read HDM back in college and I remember that it was very dramatic and very silly, but with a lot of great complexity, subterfuge, and philosophy. So I'd like your recommendation if I should watch this. To what extent is it like Lord of the Rings vs The Rings of Power?
posted by rebent at 5:08 PM on February 15, 2023