'His Dark Materials' Season 1 Episode 4 Recap: "Armour"

Lin-Manuel Miranda arrives as Lee Scoresby in this week's His Dark Materials cold open, floating along in his hot air balloon and singing. It's the first time the show has seemed, if not cheerful, at least as if it has sprung into full color. It helps that the clouds are bright and warm, and his daemon Hester (voiced by Cristela Alonzo) is happy to sing along. That's a little misleading, of course; the show is only getting darker as Lyra and her team get further North. But it's also a reminder of what the show is missing in its quest to be taken ultra-seriously.

This is also the episode where Iorek Byrnison, the currently un-armored bear (voiced by Joe Tandberg), first shows up, marking the most massive talking creature on-screen to date, along with Scoresby's most considerable personality. It's also the first time the word "child cutters" is uttered, suggesting what the "experimentation" up here entails. But even as the show gets closer to the terror at the heart of the General Obligation Board's crimes, Scoresby's antics (and Hester's snarky cheerleading) finally elevate the show beyond the levels it has established as the baseline.

And that's without the appearance of Dr. Martin Lanselius (Omid Djalili) as the man who communicates with witches in hopes of bending the ear of Serafina Pekkala, the witch Farder Coram and Lyra are after. This is also when fans meet Kaisa, Serafina's daemon (voiced by David Suchet).