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tori_reviews2021-06-04 11:41 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote in tori_reviews2021-06-04 11:41 pm
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His Dark Materials 1x06: The Daemon-Cages
His Dark Materials 1x06: The Daemon-Cages
This was probably the best episode so far, and I think it is the first one that makes me kind of regret not going right on to the next episode. Not because the cliff-hanger is at all convincing, but because I want to see what happens next. I mean, I kind of know, but I’m interested in seeing it played out.
I only have one observation about daemon inconsistency I want to focus on (though there are definitely times when I think they should be more visible), and that’s that the show plays pretty fast and loose with whether people can hear daemons talk. At the beginning Pan and Roger’s daemon have a conversation out in the open but apparently no one overhears it. Then later, Sarafina has no trouble talking to Hester; and I’d say that might be witch thing if I wasn’t pretty sure it happened a couple episodes ago with non-witch characters (even ignoring that witch daemons can talk to people, witch daemons seem different anyway). It would explain why we never hear the monkey talk, but if it’s just expected then that’s taking away something creepy about the monkey.
Okay make that two, they are also playing loose with how far a person can be from their daemon. Back in episode 2 Pan himself was commenting on how Mrs. Colter was able to be too far from her daemon and here they don’t do a great job of showing Pan and Lyra sticking close together.
While I think the story is well done in this episode (and sticks pretty close to what I remember from the book), I feel like the structure and pacing are a bit of a mess. There’s tension, but no urgency. There’s weight to the reveals, but I think they’re going for melancholy and missing. It can’t decide if this battle is horrifying or triumphant. The setting is boring, I would allow that it’s somewhat intentionally done, but it’s also kind of a cheap cartoon where they didn’t flesh anything out. I can’t tell if it needed more time, or if the various codas just didn’t jell for me as well as the rest of the episode so it feels balanced wrong.
I can’t decide if my next point should be counted as a positive of negative, because the scene between Lyra and Colter works…mostly. The writing is right; I think the acting from both of them is decent to good; they feel very much in character in a way I felt episode 2 rushed. But something is wrong with that scene. I think the directing/editing is just boring. There’s little if any music in the scene, but there’s no feeling of intent behind the lack of it. I usually think shot/reverse-shot is a fine way to handle a scene, but I think it was the wrong choice for so much of this one. They’re body language is too still for the direction to be static as well. This is really the kind of thing where there is a lot of area where I barely notice what the directing/editing is doing, sometimes not even if it’s really good or bad. But this managed to be a bad enough choice that even I noticed it.
Though like I said, I feel like this episode, and that scene in particular, had Lyra in character more than most of the series so far. This Lyra shows she has skills and cunning, which is very Lyra. Although, I’m not crazy about how much this is pushing the Chosen One narrative (or how openly Lee and Sarafina talk about it when I’m not sure if Lyra’s asleep, and she’s not supposed to know. There’s something about that scene that somehow…reminds me that Lyra is this story’s protagonist and if this conversation is happening near her, it’s probably because she’s the POV to it happening. It’s one thing to have scenes that aren’t from Lyra’s perspective when she’s not around, but when she is I figure that she’s the one in focus and/or through which we focus.
I suppose I could say something about how perfunctory and useless Will’s scene was; but I also think my statement is that I’m going to give it a perfunctory and useless sentence in the review.
This was probably the best episode so far, and I think it is the first one that makes me kind of regret not going right on to the next episode. Not because the cliff-hanger is at all convincing, but because I want to see what happens next. I mean, I kind of know, but I’m interested in seeing it played out.
I only have one observation about daemon inconsistency I want to focus on (though there are definitely times when I think they should be more visible), and that’s that the show plays pretty fast and loose with whether people can hear daemons talk. At the beginning Pan and Roger’s daemon have a conversation out in the open but apparently no one overhears it. Then later, Sarafina has no trouble talking to Hester; and I’d say that might be witch thing if I wasn’t pretty sure it happened a couple episodes ago with non-witch characters (even ignoring that witch daemons can talk to people, witch daemons seem different anyway). It would explain why we never hear the monkey talk, but if it’s just expected then that’s taking away something creepy about the monkey.
Okay make that two, they are also playing loose with how far a person can be from their daemon. Back in episode 2 Pan himself was commenting on how Mrs. Colter was able to be too far from her daemon and here they don’t do a great job of showing Pan and Lyra sticking close together.
While I think the story is well done in this episode (and sticks pretty close to what I remember from the book), I feel like the structure and pacing are a bit of a mess. There’s tension, but no urgency. There’s weight to the reveals, but I think they’re going for melancholy and missing. It can’t decide if this battle is horrifying or triumphant. The setting is boring, I would allow that it’s somewhat intentionally done, but it’s also kind of a cheap cartoon where they didn’t flesh anything out. I can’t tell if it needed more time, or if the various codas just didn’t jell for me as well as the rest of the episode so it feels balanced wrong.
I can’t decide if my next point should be counted as a positive of negative, because the scene between Lyra and Colter works…mostly. The writing is right; I think the acting from both of them is decent to good; they feel very much in character in a way I felt episode 2 rushed. But something is wrong with that scene. I think the directing/editing is just boring. There’s little if any music in the scene, but there’s no feeling of intent behind the lack of it. I usually think shot/reverse-shot is a fine way to handle a scene, but I think it was the wrong choice for so much of this one. They’re body language is too still for the direction to be static as well. This is really the kind of thing where there is a lot of area where I barely notice what the directing/editing is doing, sometimes not even if it’s really good or bad. But this managed to be a bad enough choice that even I noticed it.
Though like I said, I feel like this episode, and that scene in particular, had Lyra in character more than most of the series so far. This Lyra shows she has skills and cunning, which is very Lyra. Although, I’m not crazy about how much this is pushing the Chosen One narrative (or how openly Lee and Sarafina talk about it when I’m not sure if Lyra’s asleep, and she’s not supposed to know. There’s something about that scene that somehow…reminds me that Lyra is this story’s protagonist and if this conversation is happening near her, it’s probably because she’s the POV to it happening. It’s one thing to have scenes that aren’t from Lyra’s perspective when she’s not around, but when she is I figure that she’s the one in focus and/or through which we focus.
I suppose I could say something about how perfunctory and useless Will’s scene was; but I also think my statement is that I’m going to give it a perfunctory and useless sentence in the review.