His Dark Materials producer: 'I wish I could have told the story across 9 seasons'
Jane Tranter has admitted she would have liked more time to tell the story of Philip Pullman's novels.
The upcoming third season of His Dark Materials is set to be the show's last, adapting the final novel in author Philip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy.
The BBC/HBO television series has adapted a book per season, but when asked by RadioTimes.com, executive producer Jane Tranter admitted that she would have liked more episodes.
Speaking at a panel at this year's Edinburgh International TV Festival, Tranter said: "Honestly, I would have told it across nine seasons if I could have done. There are so many stories that we weren’t able to do."
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She singled out a storyline in the fantasy drama's second season featuring Ruta Skadi (Jade Anouka) as a plot point that might have been expanded. "When Ruta Skadi meets the angels in season 2, it’s kind of like 'Oh look, there’s some angels, I’m gonna go off now.'
"In the book there’s this amazing sequence [with those characters] and there just isn’t time to do it."
Tranter added that the "real estate of television" often allows series adaptations to "slow everything down" and expand on the source material.
"I would have slowed this [His Dark Materials] down even more," she said. "But unfortunately that’s probably the wrong thing for an audience – some would have liked it, but it’s expensive and it’s a season-a-book and that’s that and now it’s finishing.”
Starring Dafne Keen, Amir Wilson, Ruth Wilson and James McAvoy, His Dark Materials follows Lyra (Keen), as she goes in search of a missing friend, uncovering a series of kidnappings and their link to a mysterious substance called Dust, all of which leads her on an epic quest.
The series is expected to return to BBC One and HBO later this year.
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For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide.
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Authors
Morgan Jeffery is the Digital Editor for Radio Times, overseeing all editorial output across the brand's digital platforms. He was previously TV Editor at Digital Spy and has featured as a TV expert on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 5 Live and Sky Atlantic.
