Turns out HBO is actually perfectly capable of letting its relationship with a series adaptation come to its natural conclusion, so get off her back. HBO and BBC have announced an official renewal of His Dark Materials—based on Philip Pullman’s bestselling fantasy novels—for a third and final season. Each of the first two seasons have largely covered the respective novels in Pullman’s series, while the third will cover the last installment, The Amber Spyglass. The season two finale of His Dark Materials aired this week in the U.K. and is set to hit HBO and HBO Max next week.
His Dark Materials stars Dafne Keen as young protagonist Lyra Belacqua, Ruth Wilson as the sinister Mrs. Coulter, some dork named Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby, and Andrew “Hot Priest” Scott as John Parry. Here’s a quick season two synopsis from HBO:
The series follows Lyra (Dafne Keen), a seemingly ordinary but brave young woman from another world. Season two began as Lyra, distraught over the death of her best friend, embarks upon a journey in a strange and mysterious abandoned city. There 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.
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Recently binged S1 and whatever is released out of S2. It’s a well made show with a good cast but the story is so dreary and heavy-handed. I can’t tell if I really like it or not, but I’ll keep watching.
I loved the books when I was younger, and the new ones too, but this adaptation has all the hallmarks of the Hobbit movies: well cast, drearily written and overstuffed with ‘extras’ to the detriment of the core story. The writing really lets the side down
I feel the same. Just finished season 1, I like the cast, setting and amount of polar bear content. I find it extremely difficult however to follow each characters motivations or even understand what dust is or what the magisterium is/wants
Based on S2, the magisterium are just a bunch of religious zealots. They’re not remotely interesting as characters or threats so they’re just kind of there to hit you over the head with a message of “religious extremism is bad”, taking time away from more interesting plots and characters.And should note, I agree with that message. It just is detracting from the show in the way it is being executed. Seems like it is just an issue with the source material itself.
Seems like it is just an issue with the source material itself. Hardly, given that the show is manufacturing all the extra Magisterium storylines to create “epicness” that actually no one cares about.
All the attention spent on the Magisterium is an invention of the adaptation, presumably to give Dafne Keen’s dad something to do instead of waiting around for her to shoot her scenes.
That’s a relief. It would have been a real dick move to cancel the series when there was just one book left to adapt. I hope they get to shoot the Asriel-centric episode that was originally intended for season two but got scrapped due to the pandemic.
The show runner has said that the Asriel episode is just not happening anymore, and considering the budget they’ll need for s3 stuff, it would be quite a shock if they managed to do it now. I’m super bummed about missing it though and hope they could at least release the script of it or something.
Yeah, a few hours ago I read some Jack Thorne tweets where he said the episode would have only fit in season two. Still, I wish they could shoot it and air it as a special months before whenever season three will premiere.I also missed an interview early last month where producer Jane Tranter was already talking about season three as if it were a done deal. She said six of the eight scripts were being worked on, and that they were looking to start shooting next spring.
Jack Thorne has never read the books (from what I understand) so it’s hard to know where his head is on all of this except at cranking out material that is an empty shell compared to the source. They’ve taken out all feeling and emotion and are leaning on Ruth Wilson way too much. (And I love Ruth Wilson, she just isn’t in book 2 all this much)
If I told you that it turns out God is basically just a sick old man, I’ll have saved you seven or eight hours, but I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I won’t.
I’m not convinced that ‘s what we’ll see, but if God is Michael Caine, I’m game.
I’m kinda bummed they’re not going to keep this going with the release of the sequel series
I wonder how they’ll get around the fact that the actors playing Lyra and Will are so much older than their book counterparts? I believe they’re only supposed to be 11 or 12 in the novels, which is kind of a critical to the story, whereas the actors will be 16 and 17 if they film next year.