HBO's His Dark Materials introduces Cittàgaze in its first season 2 trailer
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As much as we enjoyed the first season of HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, we couldn’t help but deem it a missed opportunity. As Myles McNutt wrote in his review of the season one finale, the series felt as if it was made by “producers had read enough of Pullman’s series to deliver a close facsimile of the plot, but not enough to understand what was important to the heart and soul of His Dark Materials.”
That leaves us curious about its upcoming second season, which just received its first trailer in conjunction with the show’s Comic-Con@Home panel. The world-hopping journeys of Lyra (Dafne Keen) and Will (Amir Wilson) are peppered with glimpses of new characters played by Andrew Scott, Jade Anouka, and Simone Kirby, as well as the city of Cittàgaze. It looks beautiful, but that’s not surprising—the first season had plenty of problems, but the world remained immersive throughout.
Check it out below.
Here’s a synopsis:
In the second season of His Dark Materials, Lord Asriel (James McAvoy) has opened a bridge to a new world, and, distraught over the death of her best friend, Lyra (Dafne Keen) follows Asriel into the unknown. In a strange and mysterious abandoned city she meets Will (Amir Wilson), a boy from our world who is also running from a troubled past. Lyra and Will learn their destinies are tied to reuniting Will with his father but find their path is constantly thwarted as a war begins to brew around them. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) searches for Lyra, determined to bring her home by any means necessary.
Alas, don’t expect to see much of James McAvoy’s Lord Asriel in the second season. Speaking on the Comic-Con@Home panel, executive producer Jane Tranter revealed that a standalone episode following the character had to be cut due to the coronavirus pandemic. Luckily, its exclusion doesn’t impact the overall arc of the season, but it did chop the episode count from eight to seven.
Per Tranter: “It was separate from the other seven episodes because it was a standalone episode which [writer] Jack [Thorne] had written with the blessing and input of Philip Pullman, which 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.”
“It meant that we could continue post-production on the seven episodes that make up The Subtle Knife and just put the Asriel standalone episode to one side and maybe in the future we can revisit it as a standalone,” she continued.” “But essentially our adaptation of The Subtle Knife had been completed.”
Watch the full panel below.
No premiere date has been announced, but HBO is teasing a fall premiere.
11 Comments
Honestly surprised this got a second season. The first committed the most unforgivable of crimes: it was boring.
It was picked up for a second season before the first season aired.
Pretty sure the second movie was greenlit too
I guess I should have rephrased? The second season was picked up and already filming before the first season aired. Deadline said that most of the second season was already filmed when they broke for Christmas last year.
Ah, fair point. Well the second book is massively better than the first, so hopefully the second season will pick up a bit.
I didn’t make it througn the first season- the little girl barely felt like she was a character in her own story, or wanted to be. I noped out about 4 eps in.
Wow, that’s weird. I’m only just getting to the first season on my DVR now. I hope the second season is more than the just okay first.
Wait, this show isn’t about Vantablack?
It’s about the ‘dust, PCP
I’m tentatively excited? The His Dark Materials books have been my favourites for a very long time, and now the series itself has the opportunity to jump into pastures unknown. The Subtle Knife is probably the most straightforward of the three books to adapt: for the most part, its two (three if including Pantalaimon) stay relatively static, and it’s still more of a straightforward adventure story than The Amber Spyglass, where the show is really going to have to prove itself.The problem is, is that the first series has already pulled some of the best narrative twists with the introduction of Will and, to a lesser extent, Lord Boreal. The opening of The Subtle Knife is fantastic as it opens us up to this new protagonist and his (our) world, with this sudden introduction to the idea of parallel universes, and the show has already played this hand. I have to agree with a lot of the criticism that the show, despite all of this, is somewhat boring, even to a massive Pullman fan like myself (I have had no desire to rewatch so far), and while I have faith that the two leads will do a good job (I think Dafne Keen did a great job as Lyra, even though she’s clearly too old for the part), the second runs the risk of relying on probably its biggest misstep (Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby- I’m sorry, while I appreciate a bit of out-there casting, he’s a bit too ‘musically’ for my liking), and limiting its biggest success (Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Coulter). I could go on extensively, but I spent a lot of the first series comparing it with the film, which I initially loathed at first watch, but began to look upon favourably in comparison (sorry Lin-Minuel, but Sam Elliott has you beat, and the less said about that bear fight!). This second series thankfully doesn’t have anything to compare to, and they’ve clearly shown that they’re not going to ignore the controversial (brilliant) aspects of Pullman’s work. As a budding young atheist coming to terms with the world these books were my ‘Bible.’ Let’s see if the show can live up to this!
Is it me or does it kind of look like they changed it around a bit that Will’s father gives him the knife? Obviously I could be wrong on that but the way it looked he was explaining how it worked.