Thanks to its presence at a (virtual) panel for Comic-Con@Home, there's a lot of news arriving about the second season of His Dark Materials, the Philip Pullman adaptation which aired earlier this year. The first big announcement is the addition of Terence Stamp, Jade Anouka and Simone Kirby to the cast.
The second batch of episodes has, of course, already been shot (with one exception; more on that in a moment), so Stamp and the others have already been filming. Season 2 finds our heroine Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen) exploring a strange new land and finally meeting Will Parry (Amir Wilson) even as the Magisterium closes in and forces rally against it.
Stamp is Giacomo Paradisi, the bearer of the Subtle Knife who lives in the Tower of the Angels in Cittàgazze. Anouka is showing up as Ruta Skadi, a witch Queen who joins forces with Serafina Pekkala (Ruta Gedmintas) against the Magisterium. And finally Kirby will be seen as Dr Mary Malone, who heads up the Dark Matter Research Team at an Oxford university in our world.
In other casting news, as revealed at the panel, Phoebe Waller-Bridge has a small voice role, one that reunites her with Andrew "Hot Priest" Scott, as the Fleabag creator and star will play his character's Daemon, an osprey named Sayan Kötör.
Yet the series has not been without bad news – one entire episode (fortunately a stand-alone featuring James McAvoy's Lord Asriel that doesn't affect the plot too much) had to be excised after the Covid shutdown meant it could not be shot. McAvoy talked about it on a recent Empire Podcast, which you can find right here.
Finally, the Season 2 trailer dropped during the presentation, so watch that and the panel below.