I'm so happy - the TV series is everything I hoped it would be and feared it wouldn't be.
I loved the film.
I loved the first two series but worried that the finale couldn't work.
I'm jumping ahead (just watched Show 6) but so far it's brilliant.
I absolutely adored the books in 2001.
And the TV is working superbly.
WOW!

Loved the books as well but haven't caught any of the TV as yet. Mrs Wyot dominates the television in our home and pulls faces if any material of a "fantastical" nature appears on the screen in place of gritty crime dramas or romantic comedies. Spirit deamons do not cut it with her....

Well I've watched the entire series and it's fantastic but very different from the books. Since it's 22 years since I read them, time to reread I think.

Philip Pullman is the third great fantasy writer associated with Oxford after CS Lewis (I went to Keble as he was there in the University Air Squadron during WWII) and JRR Tolkein (I played in a prog trio with a rhythm section from New College and the bassist's father had been a friend and colleague of Tolkein's and I drank in the Eagle & Child and the Lamb & Flag because that's where the Inklings met).
I loved the Golden Compass film, but less convinced about the BBC adaptation as Lyra is nothing like I imagined her (Dakota Blue Richards was great casting and I love her in Endeavour, another Oxford classic). Also you can't beat Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby and Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala. I loathe Daniel Craig as Bond but he was perfect as Lord Asriel and all these roles are filled by insipid nonentities in the BBC version. Ever since Merlin which took a huge wizz over our Arthurian heritage for the Yoof and Diversity vote, no one at the BBC seems to read the source to cast the show. Too busy totting up their BAME score!
Having said that, the Marie Antoinette I'm currently watching is so much better than that terrible Sofia Coppola movie a decade or so ago. But I put that down to Canal+'s involvement and so far only a violinist is black...
I'd much rather watch black people playing black historical figures like in the superb The Woman King of which I attended the American premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood at the AFI Film Festival. Amaxing film if you've never seen it.
Can we have a new rule... White people play white people in historical and cultural British material
Black people play black people in historical and cultural African/Caribbean material
Repeat for Asian, Latin American and all other ethnicities. I'm tired of the Blue Mink approach (they should all play Smurfs (or Stroumpfs)

The complete BBC is fantastic Wiff; watch all 8.