His Dark Materials
After delaying watching until last Sunday, the BBC/HBO co-production of His Dark Materials series finale profoundly resonated!
Its emotional impact echoed how I felt about the surprise cameos of previous incarnations of Doctor Who in the BBC centenary special: The Power of the Doctor!
Late last year, the long-awaited final season of His Dark Materials dropped on BBC iPlayer and HBO Max.
Like many productions, it was delayed (for 2 years) due to the pandemic and I was enjoying it so much that I wasn’t ready to say farewell to Lyra (Dafne Keen) and her daemon Pan - truth be told, I’ve never been brilliant with goodbyes (we couldn’t say goodbye to mum and it will always hurt).
However, in the meantime, I resumed watching another multiverse gem, Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. This was the impetus I needed.
It was a time before the pandemic before Elon Musk bought Twitter.
The multiversal adventures of Lyra and Pan were warmly welcomed on the winter solstice of 2019, and HBO retweeted me... My imagination was captured on the darkest day, and I was in the thrall of Dust (not ideal for an asthmatic).
Lyra’s best friend, Roger, was abducted, and the actor cameoed in Doctor Who, which wasn’t missed by fellow Whovians: “Lyra, Roger’s with the Doctor!”
Talking of Doctor Who, I kept thinking Sony’s Bad Wolf would be perfectly poised to produce the beloved BBC sci-fi series. My best friend agreed during a birthday trip to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour. Prophetic, as Bad Wolf Studios is producing Doctor Who from the 60th anniversary onwards on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Disney+ (outside the UK and Ireland).
Sir Philip Pullman’s scholastic sanctuary, a refreshingly complex and thought-provoking family drama, was as much an intellectual haven as the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Normal People! Pullman’s fantasy trilogy underscores the vital importance of literacy from an early age. A love of reading and, by extension, writing was cemented with The Hobbit and The War of the Worlds. By the age of 10, I had a reading age of 16. It's a gateway to understanding, empathy and critical thinking.
Incidentally, 10 years ago, out of the blue, I was invited as a guest speaker for a Media Careers conference at the University of Exeter! This was the first time I’d been back there since talking to medical students, about living with a life-changing brain injury, in 1989. Still as shy as I was at 17 years old, I miraculously managed to hold the interest of the students (despite losing my voice) and was overwhelmed by their positive feedback afterwards. A privilege.
His Dark Materials and Normal People are poignant tales about coming-of-age, loss of innocence and doomed first love. Personally, Lyra reminded me of a childhood friend (with a similar-sounding name) who I befriended in the wake of a life-changing trauma or, as I symbolically view it, a forced regeneration…