The first new trailer for the second season of His Dark Materials has been released, through the online convention of Comi-Con@Home, with the great news that the new episodes will show on HBO and the BBC later this fall. The trailer subtly teases what’s to come in the new season and its new cast members.
At the end of the first season, Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) had opened a bridge to a new world. The season ended as we saw Lyra (Dafne Keen) follow Asriel into this unknown other world. The second season will pick up from there and continue Philip Pullman’s story, from his second book of the His Dark Materials series, The Subtle Knife.
As the trailer shows, Will (Amir Wilson), the boy from our world looking for his father, will meet Lyra in a mysterious abandoned city, called Cittàgazze—a key location in Pullman’s second novel. Meanwhile, numerous other characters from multiple worlds are after Lyra, as Mrs Coulter points out in the trailer. Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson) is herself still determined to find Lyra and bring her home, while Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda), who vowed to look after Lyra, is also searching for her.
The trailer shows glimpses of all the new characters who will be introduced in the new season. John Parry (Andrew Scott) is explaining the power of the Subtle Knife to Scoresby as they fly together to track down Lyra and Will. The trailer also reveals images of Lyra’s first meeting with scientist, Mary Malone (Simone Kirby), an expert in dark matters from our world.
Only seven episodes, out of the planned eight, will air in the fall however. At Comic-Con@Home, executive producer Jane Tranter explained that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the production was not able to shoot one of the episodes. The filming was stopped when the U.K. went into lockdown in March. The episode was meant to be a standalone story about Lord Asriel, played by James McAvoy. This story does not feature in Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, but was penned by screenwriter Jack Thorne, with the blessing of the author. The standalone episode “looked at what Lord Asriel had been doing between going through the anomaly at the end of season one and when we see Lord Asriel at the beginning of book three The Amber Spyglass,” Tranter said.
Fortunately, all the filming had been done with the main filming unit wrapped just before Christmas 2019 on all the other seven episodes, and so post-production could continue on those. This means that, unfortunately for James McAvoy fans, the actor will barely feature in the upcoming season 2.
Another piece of news revealed during Comic-Con@Home about this second season will please Fleabag fans. Andrew Scott told fans that Phoebe Waller-Bridge will play the voice of John Parry’s osprey daemon Sayan Kötör. Other new cast members include Terence Stamp, who will play Giacomo Paradisi, and Jade Anouka, who will play the witch queen Ruta Skadi, joining forces with Serafina Pakkala against the Magisterium as hinted in the trailer.
His Dark Materials is produced by Bad Wolf for the BBC and HBO. Last year His Dark Materials was the BBC’s most expensive show, and was a big success with millions of viewers watching the series on the BBC each week. Judging by the trailer, the second season is looking to be just as visually stunning as the first.
The eight episodes of the first season are still available to view on the BBC iPlayer. If you’re in the U.S., you can catch the first episode of season one for free on HBO.
I am a film historian, interested in the history and theory of cinema, as well as the technology behind the making of films. I specialize in European cinema, in
I am a film historian, interested in the history and theory of cinema, as well as the technology behind the making of films. I specialize in European cinema, in particular French film history.