The next season of the BBC’s dream adaptation His Dark Materials (aired on HBO in the US) stopped on major cliffhangers for every one of its cherished main characters, and together with the explosive conclusion to the show on the horizon, everyone’s wondering if we’ll find out more of Lyra, her shapeshifting daemon Pan, along with their dimension-hopping friend Will Parry again. The fantastic news is another season of the series is on the way-that the bad news is that it could be a much longer wait than we needed to endure for the first two. Read on to check out what we know so far about His Dark Materials Season 3.

Has His Dark Materials Been Renewed For A Third Season?

Yep! The official His Dark Materials twitter account verified in December 2020 that Lyra, Pan, and Will would be back for one more round.

When Will Season 3 Come Out?

No one’s said exactly what the production schedule for another season will probably look like, and watching as it is adapting the wildest book of this trilogy, it is likely that the BBC will wish to wait to make certain they are not trying to picture a series at the height of a pandemic. The BBC has said that production will start in Cardiff sometime in 2021, but hasn’t said when, or whether the new season will be all set for a November or December 2021 air date (as Season 1 and Season 2 were in 2019 and 2020). Screenwriter Jack Thorne told The Guardian that he was “currently rewriting it” and, “We are pushing ahead with all the scripts since we need to be ready to film next summer,” so it is unlikely that we will see more of the show this year.

What Will It Be About?

The next season of the show will follow the third book in Pullman’s series, The Amber Spyglass, that not only introduces a bunch of characters, animals, and important places, but provides Lyra, Will, and Mary Malone their metaphysical test. Season 2 left off with Will, the bearer of the Subtle Knife, literally shooting up his shaman father’s mantle and falling out of this crossroads world of Cittagazze to some unknown place (where, if you read the novels, he will soon meet a set of angels that assist him on his quest). Lyra and Pan are secure, for now, in the clutches of this obsessive Mrs. Coulter, yet Lyra has odd dreams about Roger, the boy Asriel murdered to open his rip in the world, dropped in some dark territory. Meanwhile, Mary has entered a new world entirely, where she will soon meet the elephantine mulefa (likely the series’s most complex special effects), and Lord Asriel has succeeded in attaining the help of the angels in his cosmic war against the Authority.

Who Will Be In The Cast?

Everyone who survived the bloodbath at the close of Season 2 (so, not Jopari/John Parry, Lord Boreal, or Lee Scoresby) will likely return for Season 3. Including Lyra (Dafne Keen), Will (Amir Wilson), Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson), Dr. Mary Malone (Simone Kirby), Serafina Pekkala (Ruta Gedmintas), Ruta Skadi (Jade Anouka), along with Lord Asriel (James McAvoy).

It’s also likely that we will see armored bear chief Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Joe Tandberg) again, as he was noticeably absent for most of Season 2. New characters that have been throw include the natives Balthamos (Ikay Agu) and Baruch (Oliver Monaghan) and their leader Xaphania (voiced by Sophie Okonedo).