Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
HBO’s His Dark Materials follows the adventures of a rebellious young girl named Lyra Bellacqua (Dafne Keen), but is it really meant for kids? Dark, heady, and full of dread, His Dark Materials feels like it could be a thematic successor to Game of Thrones, but it’s also based on a best-selling series of fantasy novels that were gobbled up by millennials when they were adolescents.
Since His Dark Materials is airing stateside on HBO, it’s hard to know if it’s okay for kids to watch with their fantasy-inclined parents. After all, HBO’s primetime line-up isn’t exactly known for its squeaky clean content. Just the other night, Jean Smart played with a giant blue sex toy on Watchmen while Kathryn Hahn stripped down and went skinny-dipping on Mrs. Fletcher.
Nevertheless, His Dark Materials is about children. Its source material, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass and its subsequent sequels, was marketed to older children, tweens, and teens. However, His Dark Materials is also about those children losing their innocence, being put in peril, and even dying tragic deaths.
So can your children watch HBO’s His Dark Materials? What is His Dark Materials rated? And what parts of it might be scariest for younger viewers? Here’s everything you need to know about showing His Dark Materials to your family.
What is His Dark Materials Rated?
So what exactly is His Dark Materials rated? According to HBO’s website, it’s TV-14. That means it might have some content and themes that could be upsetting to children under the age of 14.
In the United Kingdom, His Dark Materials airs Sunday nights at 8PM on BBC One, which means the Brits at least think it’s appropriate for a family audience. The BBC follows a strict programming rule known as “Watershed.” Nothing before 9PM can be lewd, violent, or otherwise adult-oriented. In fact, the earlier a show airs, the more it’s expected to be appropriate for younger viewers. Since His Dark Materials airs at 8PM, it suggests that the BBC thinks it’s okay for older kids, but you might want to watch it together as a family.
These ratings track closely to how the original film adaptation The Golden Compass was rated PG-13 in the United States and PG in the United Kingdom.
Is His Dark Materials Appropriate for Younger Viewers? Is There Sex and Violence in His Dark Materials?
As a childless adult who has screened the first four episodes of His Dark Materials, I didn’t notice anything wildly sexual nor did I see a bunch of crazy gore. However, I did see the suggestion of sensuality and an extra-marital affair, at least one assassination attempt, some rather disturbing scenes of torture (which I will get to), skulls and skeletons, deaths, and some dark and heady themes that might be too much for small ones.
The torture in question has to do with the specific rules of the fantasy world that His Dark Materials is set in. In this alternate reality, people’s souls exist on the outside of their bodies in the form of animal companions called daemons (pronounced “demons”). When people are children, these daemons can shape shift, but during puberty, the daemons settle on a final fixed form. Most daemons can’t stray far from their human hosts, and any harm done to a daemon can be felt by their humans. That means if you kill a daemon, that person dies, too. Daemons can also fight each other. So, harming a daemon isn’t bloody torture per se, but it’s disturbing nonetheless.
All told, His Dark Materials is probably best for its reader base: tweens and up. I’d suggest that if your nine or ten-year-old is curious, watch the show for yourself to figure out if it’s too intense, or together as a family. But then, I’m not a childcare expert. I’m just a TV critic who loved Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass as a middle schooler.
