“From the little I’ve seen of the film, I don’t feel Richards could have portrayed what Lyra has to go through” - Given that I (and San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle) have seen the film, albeit not even the shot-but-cut ending, you’ll excuse me if I hold my own, correct opinion on this count. ;)

We watched the entire season over the holiday break, ringing in the New Year around the final episode of the first series. I though McAvoy actually hit the right notes as Asriel — not a bad person, but an obsessed person doing Very Bad Things in the pursuit of what he believes is a Greater Good.

Yeah, this is one thing that the screen versions make you realise just does not work. You’ll note we’re never shown the bears locking and unlocking Lyra’s cell door, or crafting or putting on their armour, or firing those cannons... and it’s not really imaginable how they could have done so. Maybe they have some bear c…

I don’t think Asriel’s meant to have superpowers of any kind; he’s just a world-class rogue who’s spent decades making friends in all kinds of low places, so even when he’s under house arrest in the far north, if he writes a few letters cashing in old favors asking for a kid that no one will ask questions about, he’ll…

The book mentions they have opposable thumbs, though I don’t think either screen version portrayed that.

God I have still never recovered from that. But she really had no choice. Excruciating.

Well, basically the quote from the book, from Thorold, is:

The show makers talked about this at a Q&A I wen to, they said that Pullman advised them that daemons should only appear for a purpose. I forget the exact phrasing, unfortunately. And the way they talked and the show they made leads me to think they utterly misunderstood this advice. I think it was more ‘daemons have…

‘I’m not convinced Thorne or the producers understood the opportunity cost of their choices. It was like no one followed the thread to how—most prominently—erasing the daemons from so much of this world would make them largely incidental to the story at hand.’

can somebody tell me how the f*ck Bears make and use weapons? How do they make & use metal for armor and for their bear lair doors and cells?  How do they start fires?  I love the idea of the bears but come on ... that’s just some dumb make believe going on there.

Asriel supposedly can summon people to him, which earned an eye-roll from me even when I was very young. It’s not at all explained how this works, and whether that’s why he manages to get so far in his War despite causing overnight climate change to every single world and causing untold chaos and destruction for some…

There’s such a strong austerity vibe to the narrative choices, as though someone very strongly determined that there can be no scene that costs money which doesn’t have an explicit plot function. That meant, ultimately, no scenes between daemons and humans that wasn’t in some way either a key piece of exposition or a…

I understand where you’re coming from, but to be honest I think I went into Will’s story moving forward completely open to it: if you go back to the review of the second episode, I was thinking about the consequences of shifting focus to Boreal (and, inevitably, introducing Will) but I also saw the potential in the…

These reviews have become a bit of a bore to read as Myles can’t seem to make peace with the diversion into WIll territory, something that I have adored. Some of it has certainly seemed like padding, but I love that we get to start Season 2 more or less where book 2 started, but without having to do too much…

I call bullshit on their “child labor laws” excuse for the ridiculous amount of time spent with Will (who really doesn’t do much himself, besides say “not here, mom!” and kill a dude). It was 100% because it’s miles cheaper to film hours in a London apartment than it is to film 20 minutes of an armored bear.

I was more excited for your review this week than the actual episode. And as I predicted last week... no punch to the gut.

All right, as a film-viewer non-book-reader, this has now entered parts I know close to nothing about, so I’m not sure if I’m criticizing the show or the book here (I like to assume it’s always the show’s fault). But... I failed to grasp what everybody’s intentions were at this juncture.

For something that was supposed to be terrifying, tragic and sad that was just about as bad of direction in the death of Roger that could possibly have been shot. It had no weight, no sense of loss, no conveyance of the cold, not any sense of dread or terror, never mind the terrible light effect upending the murder…

I also think the alethiometer referred to her later betrayal of Pan on the banks of the Rover Stixx as her betrayal against herself

I imagined the finale would be like every other episode this season, in that I’d be mildly disappointed with it, like I am with the show, but actually thought - all things considered - that it was pretty great, but perhaps it’s just because it’s the first time the show felt like it had actual momentum, at least for…