Following on from the work setting up the new characters in “The City of Magpies,” His Dark Materials goes full steam ahead with its storylines with “The Cave”.
Lyra and Will decide to go to Oxford to find answers about Dust and get access to Will’s trust fund. Back in Lyra’s World the Magisterium have to elect a new leader after Cardinal Sturrock’s death and Father MacPhail becomes one of the leading candidates. The Witches fear the Magisterium will go to war with them after Ruta Skadi’s killed the Cardinal.
The Subtle Knife was the shortest of all novels in the trilogy. It was 341 pages and it was meant to substance seven 50-minute episodes. A film adaptation of The Subtle Knife wouldn’t have needed to be more than two and a half hours. Because of this, the showrunners have had to add subplots that were never in the book. I even mentioned this in an article and Pop Culture Maniacs’ podcast.
The biggest change this episode made was the subplot involving the Magisterium’s election and the impending war between the Magisterium and the Witches. There was no mention of this in the novel. It was added to give the series more drama and show more events in Lyra’s World. The election subplot was more like an event that happened in The Secret Commonwealth where a crisis was used for a power grab. It did lead to a great scene towards the end of the episode as the tensions between The Magisterium and The Witches boil over. It added to the World War II vibe the series has been going for.
The Magisterium showed more of Father MacPhail’s character. When he made his speech at the funeral, he was framed like Palpatine when he seized power in Revenge of the Sith. His room in The Magisterium was shown to be bare-bones, and he was so zealot that he self-harmed himself as a penance for his actions.
The other additions in this episode were the portrayal of Ruta Skadi and introduced two characters that were never in the novels. In the previous episode, Ruta Skadi was showed to be a warmonger and her actions have brought about internal conflict for the Witches. The most pointless was the introduction of Will’s grandparents. The aim was to add some personal drama, but in this episode it felt like padding.
Padding is the best word to describe a lot of these subplots. The writes to stretch out the story to justify the run time. The first season suffered from this because the first three episodes were a drag. It’s the same with a number of the changes made to stretch out the drama or simply changes for the sake of it.
The best part of “The Cave” was Lyra’s story. The episode opens with a joke where Lyra has an outlandish outfit – this was a replacement to a scene in the book where Lyra refuses to wear trousers. The series had a more dramatic way of showing Jordan College not existing in Will’s World which was more visually effective for television.
The major event in the story was when Lyra meets Mary Malone (Simone Kirby), a physicist who specialises in Dark Matter. Mary becomes a major character in the series and her explanation of what Dust/Shadow Particles were was better than in the books. It will help non-readers understand what Dust is.
Kirby’s version of Mary was not how I pictured her, but I liked what she did. I didn’t imagine Mary being Irish or as dressing as casually. Kirby’s version wasn’t as uptight which was an improvement from the books. Kirby did get the essence of the character because Mary was a woman of science who sees some extraordinary events and has some lingering faith.
When “The Cave” stuck close to the source material it was a treat for book fans. But the story elements that were added for the episode were more hit and miss.
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