The film and television industries have seen numerous delays in production over the past few weeks, thanks to the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has impacted nearly every industry in some way. But while many TV shows are at risk of pushing back their airdates due to filming delays, it doesn’t appear as if the second season of His Dark Materials will be affected by the outbreak in any way — at least, not yet anyway.
According to RadioTimes, the BBC series completed most of its filming during 2019, meaning there’s little reason the current shutdown of the entertainment industry would hold up the show’s new season. In fact, the cast and crew of His Dark Materials were already working on the second season before the first one even aired on BBC and HBO.
That means most of the work that would need to be postponed is already done. There are reportedly a few “pick-up scenes” that need to be completed before the series could move on to the next stages, however, but depending on when production can resume, there is still time to shoot those.
Given that the new episodes weren’t set to air until the fall/winter television season this year, RadioTimes also reports that the network doesn’t appear to have any immediate concerns about having to delay season 2’s premiere date. Depending on when the entertainment industry begins operating normally again, there could still be time to wrap up whatever work still needs to be done. However, of course, this is subject to change as the situation unravels further.
The second season of His Dark Materials will be based on the second novel in Philip Pullman’s series, The Subtle Knife. It will pick up after Lyra and Pan follow Lord Asriel through the gates to another dimension, and after Will Parry ventures into their world. According to the cast, the new episodes will expand upon the world introduced in the first season and take the characters to much darker places.
While no following seasons have been confirmed just yet, there’s also a possibility that we could see a third season eventually, something that would make a lot of sense given that Pullman’s story is a trilogy.
Until things go back to normal, however, there’s unlikely to be an update about the show’s future beyond whether or not it will air at the end of this year as planned.
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