I last read the books ages ago, so my memories are vague, but the trailer seems to capture the atmosphere of wonder and danger I seem to recall. The effects look decent, too.

Given the casting of Lord Azrael, I will be very disappointed if we don't get at least one song out of him. {; P

~Neshomeh

The new TV series isn't the only His Dark Materials-related release this autumn - The Secret Commonwealth came out a few days ago, and I've literally just finished reading it.

Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage! Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage!Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage!
Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage! Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage!Spoiler warning! This post will contain spoilers for The Secret Commonwealth and also La Belle Sauvage!


(hoping that's a large enough spoiler block)
So I was very intrigued to see what was going to happen here, and what's happened to Lyra, Malcom, Alice and everyone else in that world in the last eight years.

I certainly wasn't disappointed! There were several things which surprised me, and a few "that's not what I expected" moments, but nothing which really made me hate it. The only thing that disappoints me is that I have to wait over a year for the third book in the trilogy!

More specific thoughts:

Mrs Lonsdale is Alice? I did not see that coming, but in hindsight it makes a lot of sense...

The whole thing about rationalism and imagination is interesting... I feel like I'm kind of on both sides of the argument at once. The disagreements with daemons part was very interesting - it's nice to see these things explored a lot more, although I'm not entirely convinced by Pan's leaving Lyra.

And Malcolm is in love with Lyra? I'd thought about that before reading this and decided it probably wouldn't happen, since there was a lot of Malcolm/Alice ship-teasing in La Belle Sauvage. Although the relationship between Malcolm and Alice was something I quite liked - for me there isn't really enough of "man-and-woman-are-very-close-without-being-in-love" in most books I read.

I guess I never really considered that there were a lot of people without daemons in Lyra's world - but it isn't the severing seen in Northern Lights… The darker side of all this, though, the trying to buy daemons, it seems pretty horrible but I could definitely see it happening.

I was definitely intrigued by the introduction of Marisa's brother and mother... I may or may not be slightly obsessed with Asriel and Marisa, so any information I can get on them is precious, particularly with the fanfiction I'm writing about them at the moment. I would definitely like to see more of (what's-his-name...) Marcus Delaware, and find out more about his backstory with Marisa.

The politics of the Magisterium worked well for me, as well. I could definitely see that level of ruthlessness...

To get back to the thread's actual topic, I also thought the trailer looked really good. I'm not really a massive TV fan but will definitely be watching this - and hopefully it will keep me going until the third book comes out!