His Dark Materials returns for its third and final season this December, and thanks to EW, we have a first look at some promo stills featuring James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, and the debut of this show's (or rather, author Philip Pullman's) interpretation of angels.
The season will adapt the most bizarre and complex of Pullman's novels, The Amber Spyglass, which finally pulls back the curtain on the story's many mysteries with the introduction of these heavenly beings.
"We all know what angels look like, don't we? We've seen them in religious iconography. They're kind of like us but with wings," showrunner Jane Tranter explains. "Then you think about it and go, well, they're not really like us with wings because they're nearly always some form of masculine. Philip Pullman's angels aren't based on a Christian religion angel. The religious aspects he talks about in the book are from his own imagination. How do they fly? How do they move between worlds? How do they communicate? That was the really big, juicy, magnificent, brilliant privilege that we had to untie that knot."
You can get a first glimpse of His Dark Material's take on angels below, along with some shots of McAvoy as the pragmatic (some might say ruthless) Asriel and his daemon Stelmaria, who will now be voiced by Victoria Hamilton following the passing of Helen McCrory.
We know that three of the rebel angels, Balthamos, Baruch, and Xaphania, will be played by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Justice League), Simon Harrison (Endeavour), and Chipo Chung (Into the Badlands), respectively.
What did you guys make of the first two seasons of His Dark Materials? Do you think they did a good job of adapting the beloved books? Be sure to drop us a comment down below.