His Dark Materials: Armour (1x04)

Yessss. I loved this episode so much. Lots of stuff going on, a fast pace, world-building, new characters, a mission introduced and completed all in a single hour.

Cons:

I love our new characters so very much. I do wish we could have been a little more clear on Lee Scoresby's motivations. He feels he owes something to Iorek, but we are not told what, and we are not told why he has chosen now of all times to seek him out. It's a small thing, but it's the kind of plotting issue that seems like they just needed to get all the chess pieces on the board, so they forced it to happen.

Pros:

But whatever, that's such a small thing. Before we dive in to our new characters and all that noise, I'll briefly touch on what our villains are up to. We don't get a ton of movement here, just some small shifts. We learn that Mrs. Coulter has managed, with the assistance of some armoured bears, to capture Lord Asriel. She is using Asriel as leverage with the Magisterium to maintain her position as the head of the General Oblation Board. She is also leveraging Iofur's desire for baptism in order to keep him in line. Mrs. Coulter is so expertly playing everyone else in this episode, as we see her negotiating and threatening and manipulating various important people in order to position herself in the best possible placement. I love it. I love how evil she is.

In the main story, we've got a quest. Basically, Lyra and the Gyptians are looking for the assistance of an armoured bear named Iorek Byrnison. Also looking for Iorek is Lee Scoresby, a Texan aeronaut. We also hear talk of a witch who might be able to help our heroes on their quest, named Serafina Pekkala. This is essentially an "ally gathering" episode, and it does a lot of work in a short amount of time, invigorating the story with fun new faces and planting seeds for lots of future exciting stuff.

The elephant in the room is that people were not super thrilled, initially, with Lin-Manuel Miranda's casting as Lee Scorseby. I guess I can see why, but also... it's okay if the show has a different flavor to it than the book or the (horrible) movie. And let me tell ya... Miranda does an amazing job as a rouge-like figure, bright and cheerful and irreverent, but also sincere when he needs to be. I already like his dynamic with Lyra, I like his relationship with Hester (his daemon), and I like the energy he brings to the story. All of my favorite moments of this episode were moments with Lee.

I think Lee and Hester's relationship captures the daemon/human relationship better than any of the others I've seen on the show. I loved Hester heckling Lee during the bar fight, the way they sing together, how they consult each other and make joint decisions. I hope we can see more of that relationship develop between Lyra and Pan, actually.

I also loved Lyra talking about playing cards, and turning a bad hand into an opportunity. Her disappearing and Lee being amused/annoyed that she'd stolen his bacon was pitch-perfect, and it fed so naturally into that scene at the end where Lee saunters up all confident to offer his services to the Gyptians, only to learn that they haven't asked for him. He turns to Lyra, partially because he's frustrated with her, but also partially to ask for her guidance. It's so cute and I can't wait to see more of them together. I know I'm a pre-existing Lin-Manuel Miranda fan, but even without that, I feel like his presence has added so much vigor to the story.

And the other big character being introduced this week is of course Iorek Byrnison. So far, the CGI on the daemons has been... okay. Not distracting, but not remarkable either. I was nervous about Iorek, therefore, because he's got to command the screen and be an important character with gravitas, all in his own right. I must say, I was pretty impressed. I remember when there was all this discourse about the lions in the Disney remake of The Lion King, and people were comparing the CGI to the effects they did in the Narnia movies, with Aslan. Aslan was expressive and had facial expressions where you could gauge his mood. The lions from The Lion King, not so much. Iorek fits more into the second category, in that he really does look like a bear. There has been no attempt anthropomorphize him beyond the fact that he has a name and speaks English. He really is an animal, unfamiliar to human eyes in terms of how to read his facial expressions and body language. I think that really works for his character, and gives the voice actor a really tough job, one that so far he is doing very, very well.

We don't get to meet Serafina in this episode, but we do meet her daemon, and thus introduce another aspect of this world to the viewers. There are witches, and they can part from their daemons. There is a history between Serafina and Farder Coram, which adds more depth and flavor to his character and also gives us insight into an upcoming character introduction. I'm excited for more of this!

There's a lot more I could say about this episode. It was my favorite thus far, and opens the world up so much wider. The new characters add a compelling energy, and we're getting more information about the alethiometer... I'm really looking forward to what's next!

9.5/10