His Dark Materials - Review

His Dark Materials (originally a book) is an award winning TV show and is now releasing a second series.

Season 1

The first series is set in a parallel universe where everyone has a shapeshifting animal as part of them - called daemons - and revolves around the main character Lyra. She is greatly interested in a new thing called dust which would then lead her onto an adventure that would change her life. Lyra has many secrets and lies she does not know about, but eventually goes on an adventure with a humble kitchen boy on their search for Lord Asriel, to ask about dust. She has many questions and gets given a strange object called an etheometre that tells the truth to help her. Unfortunately she will betray somebody and that will cost her grief; shocking events happen that are very unexpected, but I won't reveal too much for those who are interested in watching.

Season 2

In series 2, Lyra steps through a portal that was created by Lord Asriel and ends up in a world with no adults. She meets a boy from our world, and finds out that the people from his universe don’t have daemons! The etheometre tells her something shocking about her new friend but she decides to trust him; it also tells her that she should be helping the boy find his father, and is greatly confused by this, but again decides that she should do what it says. Lyra follows the boy into his world, where she meets a scientist at Oxford, and coincidentally, she is studying dark matter - which in Lyra’s world is called dust. The scientist is persuaded by Lyra to let her show her studies on dust, and even agrees to let her be tested. The scientist says that she must put her mind in a state of stillness, and when Lyra did as she was told, the scientist was shocked by her discovery: her computer was showing the dust interacting with each other, and making pictures and symbols. With Lyra’s friend, he was busy talking to his grandparents who he didn't even know he existed…

Overall

I really like this show and feel that it has been very successful; I definitely recommend that you watch it as it is so interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. In my opinion, I preferred series 1, but season 2 was still exceeding what I expected.

**** (4 stars)

By Isabelle Wedlake