Info on this season’s lost His Dark Materials episode all about Lord Asriel
This season, His Dark Materials had to cut an episode all about Lord Asriel (James McAvoy), but elements from it remain…
The COVID-19 health crisis has caused delays and cancellations aplenty in the world of TV. Luckily, the second season of HBO’s His Dark Materials was just about ready to go when things began shutting down. The creatives behind the series did have to scrap one episode, however, that would have heavily featured James McAvoy’s character, Lord Asriel.
They got about a week into filming on this episode before they had to shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions. It would have offered some insight into what Lord Asriel has been up to while the other characters dealt with witches, Spectres, and the Magisterium. This storyline didn’t occur in Philip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, but according to executive producer Jane Tranter, it received the author’s go-ahead before it was written.
Given that it was more or less a standalone episode with little bearing on the rest of the plot, it’s easy to see why the series went forward without it rather than waiting for restrictions to be lifted. Still, with an actor like McAvoy on board, it no doubt would have proved a compelling addition to the season, especially since we haven’t seen Lyra’s father all year.
Russell Dodgson, VFX supervisor for the series, spoke with Metro about the Asriel-centric episode that never was. “We had more Spectre stuff in there, and it had more about the history of Cittàgazze in it, you got to see a bit more,” he said.
"It was a bit of a shame. We managed to take kind of all the best kernels of the ideas that we had from that and still have them in the show as best as we could."
While it’s good to hear that some of the ideas behind this lost episode survived, you have to wonder what we’re missing out on.
We’ll no doubt be caught up when season 3, which will adapt The Amber Spyglass, arrives — but it still would have been nice to see Asriel’s story expanded upon, much like Mrs. Coulter’s has been. Hopefully, when the third season arrives, it will give fans plenty of McAvoy’s character to make up for this season’s loss.
Next. His Dark Materials VFX team on making the Spectres. dark
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