Really? I recalled reading an article about season 2, when I tried to look up wtf happened bc season 2 was just so shockingly bad, and incongruously so seeing at how great season 1 was. Their relationship must have just been strained but not broken, or the article could have been making shit up, or perhaps over time I've misremembered things. But I definitely recalled how one or more likely both of them wanted to use puppets (in season 1) but then had to make that mess of a CGI crap monster in season 2 - as you say for the sake of the deadline (aka profits over the integrity of the storytelling process, if they could have taken the time to have done it right).