The second season of the Halo TV series has had some interesting moments, but many questions (and plenty of theories) were raised when the Fall of Reach (simply titled 'Reach' in the show) was limited to just a single episode.
Now, in this week's Xbox podcast, the show's executive producer and Microsoft veteran Kiki Wolfkill has admitted the budget played a part in its limited coverage, despite Halo being a massive hit on Paramount's streaming service. Here's what she had to say:
Kiki Wolfkill: "The battle for Reach is still going on, as we know from canon that actually is a very extended battle, and as much as we would have loved to have spend four episodes on it, 'A' we couldn't afford to."
The team also wanted to explore "more than just the battle" and some other themes "more deeply", so Reach was instead used to help "motivate" other storylines in the show (note: Season 2 spoilers ahead):
"And 'B' - we wanted to explore more than just the battle, we wanted to explore, what is the impact on everyone of such a momentous event for humanity at both that humanity level and the personal level? And what is the impact of losing your brother and your family in Vannak. What is the impact on someone like Riz?... And at the same time how do we also explore all this political intrigue that has existed in Halo... all those things are things we got to dig into a little bit more...We needed the moment on Reach to help sort of motivate all of these other storylines...But that's really the thing that kicks off that race to the ring.
So, there you go Spartans, that's some insight as to why the Fall of Reach was just one episode in Halo: Season 2.