His Dark Materials, on BBC One (UK) / HBO (USA)
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Caution: spoilers!

This 2019 series is based on Philip Pullman's book series of the same name, of which I'm a fan. So I really wanted to see this, but I don't get HBO. But I did eventually watch it on DVD. I should mention that it's been quite a few years since I read the books, so there are a lot of details I've forgotten, which I think makes it easier for me to (mostly) appreciate the TV series on its own merits, rather than constantly comparing it to the books (which are inevitably superior). And before I get on with the plot, I want to mention that I really like the show's theme music (and visuals).

Season One
Well. A lot of stuff happens, much of which I'll want to avoid spoiling. I thought I could just direct you to my review of the book, if you wanted more details, but rereading it now, I see that I left out a great deal there, as well. There are, of course, some differences between what happens in the book and the TV series, though the main difference is that we meet a boy named Will Parry (Amir Wilson), and see his world (presumably our world) much sooner than we did in the book series; I wouldn't have expected to see him until season 2, since he was first introduced in book 2. (Will, btw, is 15, a few years older than he was in the second book.) There's also a man named Lord Carlo Boreal, who comes from a different world, but knows of a secret portal between his world and Will's (where he is known as Charles Latrom). He frequently travels between worlds, trying to obtain certain information involving an explorer named Stanislaus Grumman, who he eventually learns is actually from this world, and is named John Parry. Parry is presumed to have died years ago, but Boreal's search leads him to Parry's son, Will, and wife, Elaine, which puts both of them in danger. And that's all I want to say about that, for now.

But that's all basically a side-story. The main story is about a girl named Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), who lives at Jordan College, in Oxford, in the world Boreal comes from. Another thing that surprised me about this show is that it actually begins with a helicopter; I never would have expected such a thing to exist in that world, since air travel there is mostly done on dirigibles or hot-air balloons. Anyway, the man in the helicopter is Lord Asriel (James McAvoy), who wades through a flood to deliver his baby niece- Lyra- to the scholars at Jordan College, where she will be raised as an orphan. After that scene, the story flashes forward to when Lyra is, I think, 12 or 13 years old. And in case you don't know (like, haven't read the books or my review of them), in this world, humans' souls manifest as animals outside their bodies, with whom they can converse. They're called daemons, and Lyra's is named Pantalaimon (or Pan). Lyra is rather adventurous, but since she's never been outside Oxford, her adventures have thus far been mostly limited to running around rooftops, and whatnot. She's often joined in these activities by her best friend, Roger. But eventually, Roger goes missing, as have numerous other children in Oxford. There are rumors of people called "Gobblers" who are said to be the ones kidnapping the children.

Well, lots of other things happen, including a visit from Asriel, who is seeking funding for his exploration and experiments in the North, which some consider heretical. It's all about something called Dust, which isn't well understood by anyone, nor does everyone necessarily believe it even exists. But apparently it's attracted to adults, but not children. Asriel gets his funding from the college, and leaves. Lyra wants to go with him, but he refuses to take her. Later, Lyra is introduced to a woman named Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson), who takes Lyra to live with her and work as her assistant. But before Lyra goes, the Master of Jordan College gives her a device called an alethiometer, which he says will tell her the truth, but she'll have to figure out how to read it on her own. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter promises to have people who work for her search for Roger and the other missing children. But Lyra and Pan eventually discover that Mrs. Coulter is the head of the General Oblation Board, an agency of the Magisterium (a religious organization that basically rules the world). And the GOB are actually the Gobblers. So, they run away, but soon get caught by Gobblers, themselves. However, they're almost immediately rescued by Gyptians, who have been searching for their own missing children, in particular a boy named Billy Costa. The king of the Western Gyptians is John Faa, who is convinced of Lyra's importance by a local leader named Farder Coram. Lyra and Pan travel with them for a time, staying with Billy's mother, Ma Costa, who eventually reveals an important fact about Lyra's own origins.

Lyra eventually meets a polar bear named Iorek Byrnison, who had been cast out from his own people (er, bears), and had his armor taken away from him by agents of the Magisterium. (Incidentally, I want to mention that the CGI for the bears in this show, as well as the daemons, is pretty darn good.) Lyra has learned to read the alethiometer by that point, and uses it to find where Iorek's armor had been hidden. So he gets it back, and joins Lyra and the Gyptians as they travel North. They're also joined by an old friend of Iorek's, a Texan aeronaut named Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda, much younger than Lee was in the books). At one point, Lyra goes on a side quest with Iorek, prompted by the alethiometer, and finds Billy, but his daemon has been cut away from him (or "intercised"), as part of an experiment by the GOB. So he's now soulless, which leaves him in a very bad state. He dies soon after Lyra and Iorek return him to the Gyptians. Now that they know what sort of horror the Gobblers are actually up to, it becomes more urgent than ever to find the other children.

Soon after that, Lyra is captured by a raiding party, and taken to Bolvangar, where she becomes a prisoner, like the rest of the missing children. She's finally reunited with Roger, and makes a plan for all the children to escape. She also destroys the intercision machine. But not before Mrs. Coulter shows up to inspect the progress of the experiments, and ends up saving Lyra from being intercised, herself. Mrs. Coulter tries to explain why this horrible thing is being done (I guess she believes Dust and daemons cause adults to sin, or something). Lyra pretends to accept Mrs. Coulter's explanation, but soon goes ahead with the escape plan, which is aided by the Gyptians and Iorek, Lee, and a witch named Serafina Pekkala, the queen of one clan of witches. (The battle is rather underwhelming, compared to the one in the book.) While the Gyptians take the rescued children home, Lyra, Roger, and Iorek continue farther north in Lee's balloon. They head for Svalbard, the home of the armored bears, who they've learned are holding Lord Asriel prisoner for the Magisterium. Lyra tricks the king of the bears, Iofur Raknison, into fighting Iorek, who becomes the new king. (He now gives Lyra a new surname, which I'd been looking forward to all this time.) But Iofur had previously let Asriel go back to his mountaintop laboratory, so Lyra and Roger go there to find him...

When Asriel sees Lyra, he is horrified, but he's then relieved when he sees Roger. I think even anyone who hasn't read the books could deduce that Asriel's plans require him to do something terrible to a child, and he's glad it won't be Lyra. But he still doesn't treat her very well. And he doesn't even want the alethiometer that Lyra has come all this way to bring him, which upsets her. But later he does explain some things to her about Dust, and his contempt for the Magisterium, whose grip on the world he hopes to end. Meanwhile, a fleet of Magisterium airships is on its way to the North, to stop Asriel from whatever he plans to do. But they arrive too late. I don't want to say exactly what Asriel does, though it's not exactly a surprise (at least not to viewers), but Lyra is horrified. And his horrific act opens a portal to another world, through the Northern Lights. Mrs. Coulter shows up then, and Asriel asks her to go with him, and be part of his war... which is not just against the Magisterium, but the Authority (i.e., God) himself. But she refuses, because she wants to be with Lyra (whose whereabouts she doesn't know). After Mrs. Coulter leaves and Asriel has gone through the portal... there's a very sad scene that ends with Lyra going through the portal, herself. Meanwhile, Will finds a portal in his own world, which he also goes through.

And that's how the season ends. We don't yet see where either Lyra or Will end up. That's for next season. I should say there are some characters I haven't mentioned that are seen a number of times throughout the season, but I haven't really known what to say about them. Maybe later I'll have to mention them, I'm not sure yet. For now, I don't know what else to say, except that the story so far has been pretty epic, and it's only going to get more epic in the future.

Season Two
Lyra and Will both end up in a place called Cittàgazze. (Watching this show is how I first learned to pronounce the name of the city, which means "City of Magpies". Reading the book I was never sure how to say it.) The two of them soon meet, and while they don't immediately trust each other, it doesn't take long before they start working together. The city's adults have all either fled or been attacked by "spectres" that drain them of "all that makes them human", leaving them in a zombie-like state. Now the city is populated only by orphaned children, and we don't see many of them. Meanwhile, In Lyra's world, Serafina Pekkala advises Lee Scoresby to search for Stanislaus Grumman, who may know of a weapon that could be used to protect Lyra. Throughout the season, we learn bits and pieces of a prophecy the witches have about a child who they believe to be Lyra, though the prophecy calls her by a different name. Elsewhere, Mrs. Coulter interrogates a captured witch, and learns a bit about the prophecy, but another witch queen named Ruta Skadi shows up and kills the witch (as well as a number of Magisterium soldiers) before she can reveal any more. She also wounds the leader of the Magisterium, Cardinal Sturrock, who later dies and is replaced as cardinal by Father MacPhail. (They were two people I never mentioned in the first season because I didn't know what to say about them. And really, I still don't.)

Lyra and Will travel to Will's world, where Lyra meets Charles Latrom. She then goes to Oxford university, where she meets a physicist named Mary Malone, who studies dark matter, which is another name for Dust. Mary eventually discovers that yet another name for dark matter is "angels". And the angels later send her off to do something important, though it isn't revealed yet what that is or where exactly she has to go. But she finds Latrom's window into Cittàgazze and goes there, where she meets a couple of orphans. But I'm getting ahead of myself (and leaving out a lot of details). MacPhail sends the Magisterium's military to bomb the witches' lands, which leads the surviving witches, particularly Ruta Skadi, to decide to go to war against the Magisterium. To that end, they plan to join an army being raised by Lord Asriel. But Serafina and a couple other witches are determined first to find and protect Lyra. Meanwhile, Latrom steals Lyra's alethiometer. When she and Will confront him about it, he says he'll return it if they bring him a certain knife from Citàgazze. The knife has a bearer who is in a tower, but once Lyra and Will find him, they learn a boy had stolen the knife from him. In a fight to get the knife, Will loses two of his fingers, which is a sign that he's the new bearer. The previous bearer teaches him to use the knife to cut between worlds, and to close the windows he creates. Will and Lyra plan to use the knife to sneak into Latrom's home to steal back the alethiometer, but when they get there, they find Latrom has been joined by Mrs. Coulter. They do, however, succeed in their attempt to get the alethiometer back without giving up the knife.

Scoresby eventually finds Grumman, aka John Parry, who is now a shaman calling himself Jopari, and who has manifested his own daemon. Jopari wants Scoresby to help him find the bearer of the knife (called the Subtle Knife), which Scoresby wants to protect Lyra. So the two of them begin traveling together, and fly Scoresby's balloon through Asriel's rift in the sky. Meanwhile, Latrom/Boreal takes Mrs. Coulter to Citàgazze, where Coulter learns to control the spectres, which will eventually lead her to Lyra. But I keep getting ahead of myself. Lyra and Will begin searching for Will's father, as the alethiometer has said Lyra is supposed to help Will find him. They are accompanied by Serafina and some other witches. Elsewhere, Ruta Skadi overhears cliff-ghasts talking about the coming war led by Asriel against the Authority, and they say he needs to acquire something called the Æsahættr (a word that even now that I've heard it, I can't remember how to pronounce). In Citàgazze, Coulter captures a witch and learns more about the prophecy concerning Lyra. Scoresby and Jopari are pursued by Magisterium soldiers, and Scoresby holds them off in a shoot-out while Jopari goes ahead and finds Will. He tells Will a bit about his destiny, which involves using the knife against the Authority, whose followers (such as the Magisterium) cause suffering in every world. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter abducts Lyra, planning to take her "somewhere safe". And a group of angels tell Asriel they will join him in the coming war.

Well, I have left out a ton of details (including a few deaths). But I think that's all the important bits, for now. I should mention that all three seasons of the show were meant to have eight episodes, but this one only has seven, because of a shutdown in filming during the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm not sure how important the missing episode would have been, but I don't think it would have been the season finale, anyway. (Though I could be wrong about that.) Anyway... I continue to love everything about the series (even the tragic parts), and I look forward to season three, whenever that may come. (I expect the pandemic will make it take longer to reach TV, and even then I'll still have to wait for DVDs.)