One full year has passed since the series finale of His Dark Materials aired to complete the TV adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel trilogy, deliver the heartbreaking endings for Will and Lyra, and undoubtedly leave plenty of fans in tears. I was certainly one of those fans, even though the final season didn't include all of the book moments I'd been hoping for. On the anniversary of the finale, I thought back to my interviews for the third and final season, and comments from James McAvoy just make me wish all over again that there was a way to get the missing Asriel episode.
The missing episode actually isn't one that was meant to be part of Season 3, but was cut from Season 2. It was intended to cover what Asriel had been doing between the end of Season 1 and where his story picks up in Season 3, since James McAvoy was absent for almost the entire second season. Unfortunately, the episode was intended to film in March 2020, and COVID production shutdowns meant that Asriel's adventure never made it to screen. Even now, facing the 2024 TV schedule, the plan sounds too epic to never see the light of day.
