‘His Dark Materials’ Season 2 Trailer: HBO’s Fantasy Adaptation Introduces ‘Strange New Times’

Kristen Lopez
·2 min read

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It’s been over a year since audiences were transported to the world of HBO’s “His Dark Materials.” The adaptation of the Philip Pullman-based series of books isn’t letting the global health crisis stop it, as the first trailer for Season 2 was unveiled during Thursday’s San Diego Comic-Con virtual event.

The trailer doesn’t give us much more than glimpses at the “strange new world” Lyra (Dafne Keen) is inhabiting. There are mysterious people Lyra is searching for for reasons unknown, but the majority of the players from Season 1 are still swirling around her. We get glimpses of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Lee Scorseby, who is looking a little worse for wear and is determined to protect Lyra at all costs. We also get to see everyone’s favorite sexy priest, “Fleabag’s” Andrew Scott, as Colonel John Perry, and resident baddie Marisa Coulter, once again played by Ruth Wilson.

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Not much is known about the second season of “His Dark Materials” outside of the fact that Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be reuniting briefly with her “Fleabag” co-star Scott as the voice of his animal companion. The series was immediately greenlit for a second season prior to its first season premiere, but the pandemic ended up forcing the production to cut the season order from eight episodes to seven.

In her IndieWire review Libby Hill gave the first season a “B” review. “If you read the reviews of ‘His Dark Materials,’ you’ll see critics voicing a lot of the same complaints and lauding the same elements. Shepherded to the screen by showrunner and executive producer Jane Tranter and written by Jack Thorne, the series clearly understands Pullman’s novels and wants to share them with a larger audience, and have thus far done an admirable job,” Hill wrote. “It’s a series that’s not perfect and it isn’t the adaptation of the books that we deserve, but it’s good, and that’s a start.”

The series continues to show off its fantastic worldbuilding and in a world without “Game of Thrones,” fantasy fans have plenty of time to catch up with Season 1.

There’s no known release date for when Season 2 of “His Dark Materials” will drop short of sometime this fall.

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