Reviews of first season, second season.

The third and final season of His Dark Materials gets pretty weird. We see not only multiple other worlds (including the land of the dead) - but multiple other species. That includes angels, the witches from the first season on Lyra's world, harpies, and something akin to an intelligent elephant. And in the mean time, Lord Asriel is waging war against Heaven (although the TV series is careful never to use that term, he's fighting "the Authority").

It's hard to talk about the season without spoilers: I'll issue a warning before I do. Here's the thing: if you buy into the whole wild and strange construct, the last two or three episodes are deeply affecting and very, very good. If you didn't - it might come across as spectacularly cheesy. I bought in, I loved it, but ... it's hard not to notice that it was a bit heavy-handed in places. That's partly Pullman's writing, but it's also partly the need to compress a lot of plot and philosophy into a relatively short TV series.

They carried over one of my favourite things from the book - one of my favourite, horrific things. The concept of "pre-emptive penance," the idea that you can do penance throughout your life, and then you can do the sin later. Not that they really examined that, but they dropped the term for those who wanted to think about it.

SPOILER ALERT!: Stop reading if you haven't seen the series, etc.

Let's talk about Lyra's parents - brought to the screen with considerable accuracy by the script and Ruth Wilson and James McAvoy. Two of the most awful people who had ever lived. Both with incredible strength of will and fierce intelligence, her mother is possibly the most conniving and manipulative person alive, and her father is willing to sacrifice anything and anybody for what he believes in. Between them, they achieve the unachievable. They are both willing to sacrifice anything - including themselves, and they do. And it's one of the great things about the Pullman series: he was okay with acknowledging that sometimes horrible things are done to achieve great things.

One of the details from the book I was really looking forward to seeing them put on film was when Will and Lyra released "the Authority" (aka "God" by any other name) from captivity in a big box that was forcing him to remain alive instead of dissipating (which he was happy to do). Will and Lyra open a box, and a maybe-angel dissipates - but no explanation is given. So they carried over the scene ... but without explanation only people who had read the books knew what was going on. I thought that was a bit of a cop-out.

I got weepy when we saw Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and John Parry (Andrew Scott) again, even after their deaths. A grand end to a great series. That's right people, the possibility of original sin is what makes life worth living.