BBC drops new trailer and featurette for the upcoming His Dark Materials S2

His Dark Materials, the BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman’s classic fantasy trilogy, received mixed reviews for its first season, although it still warranted an honorable mention in our 2019 year-end TV roundup. The second season debuts next month. HBO dropped the first S2 trailer in July during the virtual San Diego Comic-Con@Home and a second longer one in August. Now BBC has released yet another trailer that includes a short featurette, with cast interviews and some cool glimpses behind the scenes.

(Spoilers for S1 and the Philip Pullman books below.)

As we’ve written previously, the three books in Pullman’s series are The Golden Compass (published as Northern Lights in the UK), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. They follow the adventures of a 12-year-old girl named Lyra, who lives in a fictional version of Oxford, England, circa the Victorian era. Everyone has a companion daemon in the form of an animal—part of their spirit that resides outside the body—and Lyra’s is named Pantalaimon. Lyra uncovers a sinister plot that sends her on a journey to find her father in hopes of foiling said plot. That journey takes her to different dimensions (the fictional world is a multiverse) and ultimately to her own coming of age.

The first season mostly covered the events of The Golden Compass, although it also included characters and events from The Subtle Knife. Most notably, S1 introduced the character of Will Parry (Amir Wilson), who befriends an on-the-run Lyra (Dafne Keen) and has possession of the titular knife, which can cut the curtain between universes.

In the S1 finale, Lyra finally finds her father, Lord Asriel (James McAvoy), but she is horrified when he sacrifices her best friend, Roger. In the process, he severs the boy from his daemon and kills him—all to channel enough energy to open a bridge between the worlds of the multiverse, thereby furthering his research. Lyra follows Lord Asriel across the multiverse bridge to another world, just as Will finds his own way into that same world.

S2 picks up from there, covering the remaining events of The Subtle Knife, which establishes Lyra’s central quest and sets up the climactic showdown portrayed in The Amber Spyglass. Both strangers in a strange new world, Lyra and Will team up to reunite him with his own father, a quest they believe is linked to whatever destinies they are each meant to fulfill. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) has tasked Lord Carlo Boreal (Ariyon Bakare) of the Magisterium, who has found his own gateway between worlds, with finding Lyra and bringing her home. And the Magisterium is determined to maintain its power, putting it in direct conflict with Serafina Pekkala (Ruta Gedmintas) and her coven of witches, among others.

“We’re connected to this place. We’ve got something important to do,” Lyra tells Will in this new trailer. Her intuition is based on her reading of the truth-telling alethiometer. Fans of the novels already know that Will is destined to be the bearer of the subtle knife, the only known weapon capable of destroying anything, in addition to being able to cut the curtain separating the many worlds. With war brewing between Lyra’s people and the Magisterium’s forces, both sides are eager to acquire said knife, including Lyra’s ally the aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda), who teams up with a man named Stanislaus Grumman (Andrew Scott), aka Col. John Parry—Will’s long-missing father.

Complicating matters are the soul-eating specters from the book. They prey on adolescents and adults, and they eventually come under the control of Mrs. Coulter (because of course they do). We also get another brief look at Simone Kirby as Dr. Mary Malone, a physicist (and former nun) who has built a computer that can communicate with dark matter—which appears to be the same thing as the mysterious particles linked to consciousness known as “Dust” in Lyra’s world.

The second season of His Dark Materials debuts on HBO and HBO Max on November 16, 2020. UK viewers with BBC iPlayer will be able to stream the new season a bit earlier on November 8, 2020. Here’s hoping the show connects with its intended audience and we get the final installment in the trilogy, because it would be a shame to leave Pullman’s vision incomplete.

Listing image by BBC