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tori_reviewsHis Dark Materials 2x01: The City of Magpies
Hmm…
This episode was kind of better and kind of worse than I expected it to be. I think more of it worked than a lot of last season did, but I also feel like it didn’t have a lot to aim for with this portion of the story. It kind of made me remember why I wasn’t hooked in to keep reading TSK, since it started out kind of slow and in a world where I didn’t see much to interest me.
This feels a lot like the early part of the novel, and a novel in general. Meaning it still has some of the problems the first couple episodes last season had, in that it’s kind of boring to start with. And this has even less of an early hook than s1 did. But because we are with a character seeing a world for the first time it makes the writing a lot cleaner since it makes sense to have exposition and introductions, something that had s1 between a rock and a hard place in terms of handling. They didn’t have a vehicle to deliver exposition to, with more explanation that was needed.
I am pleasantly surprised by how well Lyra and Will work together. I’m not sure it justifies including Will’s setup in season 1, but I do think that probably helped, even if I’m not sure it was good on balance. I also know that these characters fitting well together is going to be kind of the heart of the series for the at least a while if not the rest of the story, so I’m glad it’s working so far.
I suspect that because Pan is now basically the only daemon they have to deal with most of the time, they got a fair bit more interesting with him this round. It actually ended up being the witches’ birds that were the most distracting, though I’m not sure if that was the animation or just their use within the scene. And I rarely found myself being confused by the absence of daemons in scenes (although I suspect I could have been).
There’s still something weird about the portrayal of Colter that I can’t put my finger on. I would appreciate having more of an idea how she is in the books, because there’s a definitely feeling of…translation error in her. Either most of her stuff is off-page so the writing is trying to make it up, or maybe we see her through other eyes instead of her being our focus in those scenes, or they reconceived the part to make it work as TV villain. Without more knowledge of what’s in the books I can only guess; maybe she’s 100% accurate and I would find her just as strange and off-kilter in the book, but that’s at least not the impression I get.
As I mentioned last time, at this point I’m basically flying blind with this series, and this episode more or less went through I what I remember reading (note that when I say reading I’m 90% sure I listened to the audiobook), and I suspect that will give me a different perspective on this season that I had the last. It takes away the ability to judge it as an adaptation and against half-remembered pieces from when I read it a decade ago. But it also takes away the crutch that that gave parts of the first season. I understood more about the world than I think the show really made clear (although I did call it out on that a few times).
I’m cautiously optimistic I guess, because I think this season is starting with a better foundation (with Will not being tacked on, with the ability to have characters explain things, etc.) but this episode wasn’t exactly grabbing my attention either.
For an episode I didn’t think had much to it, I guess that’s enough to say.
Hmm…
This episode was kind of better and kind of worse than I expected it to be. I think more of it worked than a lot of last season did, but I also feel like it didn’t have a lot to aim for with this portion of the story. It kind of made me remember why I wasn’t hooked in to keep reading TSK, since it started out kind of slow and in a world where I didn’t see much to interest me.
This feels a lot like the early part of the novel, and a novel in general. Meaning it still has some of the problems the first couple episodes last season had, in that it’s kind of boring to start with. And this has even less of an early hook than s1 did. But because we are with a character seeing a world for the first time it makes the writing a lot cleaner since it makes sense to have exposition and introductions, something that had s1 between a rock and a hard place in terms of handling. They didn’t have a vehicle to deliver exposition to, with more explanation that was needed.
I am pleasantly surprised by how well Lyra and Will work together. I’m not sure it justifies including Will’s setup in season 1, but I do think that probably helped, even if I’m not sure it was good on balance. I also know that these characters fitting well together is going to be kind of the heart of the series for the at least a while if not the rest of the story, so I’m glad it’s working so far.
I suspect that because Pan is now basically the only daemon they have to deal with most of the time, they got a fair bit more interesting with him this round. It actually ended up being the witches’ birds that were the most distracting, though I’m not sure if that was the animation or just their use within the scene. And I rarely found myself being confused by the absence of daemons in scenes (although I suspect I could have been).
There’s still something weird about the portrayal of Colter that I can’t put my finger on. I would appreciate having more of an idea how she is in the books, because there’s a definitely feeling of…translation error in her. Either most of her stuff is off-page so the writing is trying to make it up, or maybe we see her through other eyes instead of her being our focus in those scenes, or they reconceived the part to make it work as TV villain. Without more knowledge of what’s in the books I can only guess; maybe she’s 100% accurate and I would find her just as strange and off-kilter in the book, but that’s at least not the impression I get.
As I mentioned last time, at this point I’m basically flying blind with this series, and this episode more or less went through I what I remember reading (note that when I say reading I’m 90% sure I listened to the audiobook), and I suspect that will give me a different perspective on this season that I had the last. It takes away the ability to judge it as an adaptation and against half-remembered pieces from when I read it a decade ago. But it also takes away the crutch that that gave parts of the first season. I understood more about the world than I think the show really made clear (although I did call it out on that a few times).
I’m cautiously optimistic I guess, because I think this season is starting with a better foundation (with Will not being tacked on, with the ability to have characters explain things, etc.) but this episode wasn’t exactly grabbing my attention either.
For an episode I didn’t think had much to it, I guess that’s enough to say.
