The Botanic Garden

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed this series and the craft of the makers. The world building was fantastic. And I know this was an allegory for innocence love youth and all that, but the last 2 episodes had difficulty messing that with the previous 21 which spent their entirety building a captivating world of armor wearing talking polar bears angels, steam punk tech and religious zeal taken to it's zenith.

And there in lies the problem. I know what the story was an allegory for but, when they spelled it out in the last 2 episodes they undid so much of what came before it. Do we need to know consciously what the original intent was or could they leave it at a more subconscious level and let the world building stand on its own?

The ending was a downer, and it revealed a bunch of wtf plot points. Suddenly the scruffy witch with the eye scar reveals that she was well up on the lore of it all, knew all about the holes between worlds and a bunch of 'why are you telling us this now??" rules.

• Can't live in a world not your own although we've not seen a single sign that this was a problem throughout the series. No one got even the slightest bit ill, but apparently now it;s a thing, in the final episode when Lyra and Will want to be together.

• Got to destroy the knife cos as long as it exists the witches wouldn't be able to seal up world cut leaks and they're bad, so, the knife's got to go, and Will can't be ar$ed popping round his trail sealing them all up properly just so he can keep the knife so they'll accept their one means of getting between worlds must be destroyed.....ok......

• Asriel with his creative steam punk genius makes the coolest Aircraft and even sorts it with rail guns, totally cool, but, he only makes one and everyone else is left on the ground with ww2 rifles as the next best tech, right,......? Absolutely no one on his team or anyone from his world has a craft anywhere near it.

• When did Mrs Coulter develop magic skills on ep 3.7? Suddenly she can knock out all the angels by raising her hands to the heavens and going hmmm despite not once indicating any foundation for this skill in the previous 2.5 series? Where did that come from?

• Lyra and Will go to the land of the dead and find a bunch of people hanging around not actually dead, able to talk to each other, no seeming need for food or water, they're just there, so, kind of better than being dead, and she persuades them to step through a gate into another world and dissolve into .... ash? Like, is that really a better option? I'd personally need some more convincing, a bit more information about what I was stepping into. What are my other options, maybe I'll hand around for a bit more and chat to some of these people for a while, no rush and all that, might even find another option?

These problems all came in the final 3 episodes, while the previous 20 were great. Was it because the previous 20 didn't try about the mythology of this world because to do so would unravel it. Why do they travel in Zeppelins in Lyra's world? We don't have to know. You don't have to explain it, so don't try to.

So that's why the end of this series gets a 7 from me. The series over all is an 8 or a 9 because it was so well made and acted. I haven't read the books so I can't say that the landing was fluffed or not, as it might be there in the 'dark materials' to begin with. What ever the reason the ending wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the show has been for me, but I can forgive that.

A beautifully made series none the less.

Presumably the show runners were hamstrung by bad writing in the original book but this entire episode is absolutely full of contrivances and macguffins that are basically necessary to get the ending they wanted when it hasn't been naturally setup by the story.

Barely anything really happens in this final episode and I can't help but feel like they could have done a 5 minute montage and voice-over at the end of the previous episode to deliver ultimately the same outcome but without wasting another hour of our lives.

Genuinely a pretty bland and boring 1/10 episode of tele that I only sat through to see if anything actually does happen (it doesn't).

Already you can find reviewers who were frustrated with this episode, but I think it deserves a little more credit, just a little. One problem is that it could have just ended with the previous episode, which would leave some questions and hanging plot points, but I've gotten used to series ending like that by now. It's a regular occurrence now when funding another season is possible, but not certain. I also think the writer(s?) were nervous about the anti-church, anti-religion tone, and felt they needed to sledgehammer in the messages of romantic love, including same-sex love, and other secular warm fuzzies. I kept waiting for someone to be killed or at least seriously injured in this episode, and without totally spoiling, let's just say you'll be waiting a long time if you had the same expectations. It might have been better just to leave the audience uncomfortable with the message against organized religion ringing loud in the end, basically as the previous episode did. Other than that, it was fairly well done and probably truer to the Amber Spyglass, which I haven't read, but know it anticipates further writings at the end. (If the other books do get green-lit for filming, I expect an entirely, or nearly entirely different cast, at the very least). Apparently many readers were also frustrated at the third and final book, so you can probably assume that this episode has the same faults, and it was probably the best possible depiction given the source material. If you go in with low expectations, it probably won't be so painful. Personally, I was so glad when the ending finally came just so it would be over with.

Lyra and Will walk through the world where Mary Malone looking for their daemons and hunted down by Father Gomez. They stumble upon Mary, who tells them a love story why she gave up being a nun. Lyra and Will feel desire for each other and later they meet Pantalaimon and Kirjava. Their act stops the flow of Dust and save the worlds. But there is a price to pay.

"The Botanic Garden" is the last episode of this awful Third Season of "His Dark Materials". The First Season tells the story of "The Golden Compass" (2007) with many details and is great. The Second Season is reasonable and not so good. However, this Third Season and the conclusion of the plot is terrible and a waste of time. Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson are expressionless and show no chemistry, and the love scene is ridiculous. Will had no daemon but when he crossed by boat to the world of the dead, he left his soul behind that now it is a daemon. Rule of the game. But he becomes a doctor in a world where there are no daemons. It is funny a surgeon operating a patient with a cat (Kirjava) in the waiting room. The subplot with Father Gomez is absolutely unnecessary. Mary's romance is also unnecessary the way it is. She could act like a serpent in a different way. The conclusion of this juvenile series is one of the worst I have ever seen. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "The Botanic Garden"

At first I couldn't understand why they started this series again when they'd abandoned the films after the 1st. For those who hadn't read the books, the Golden Compass was so visually appealing and magical, it felt absurd to begin again. (Equally irritating how the book readers halted the Eragon film series after the 1st.) But they did succeed in producing an even finer production with this. Actors, so well cast. Cinematography, costumes, sets, most of the writing/adaptation - captivating, gorgeous. If there is no spinoff or follow-up series, this was, indeed, a depressing ending, and one that didn't really wrap things up for the majority of the wide cast, many of whom we'd come to care about. If it's a jumping off point...well then, I can't wait to see what comes next!