His Dark Materials boss says it was “really upsetting” to lose James McAvoy's standalone episode

Radio Times

McAvoy won't reprise his Lord Astriel character for a special episode in Season 2, as originally planned, because of the coronavirus shutdown. Showrunner Jack Thorne told Metro UK that the episode is now unlikely to see the light of day: “I don’t think that would be quite right," he said, adding: “It was the hardest thing I’ve had to write for His Dark Materials by quite some distance, and we got four hours in and then it was like, shutters. Which was really upsetting but we were so much luckier than most, so we can’t complain.”