TV Review: Halo
HALO is one of the all-time most beloved video game franchises ever made. It has a very simple plot that also has an immense amount of world-building. You are the Master Chief, super soldier in power armor, and it is your job to protect humanity from the evil aliens known as the Covenant. He has a spunky girl sidekick in his AI, Cortana, and there's an enormous ring-shaped space station called the Halo. These are pretty much the fundamentals of the franchise.
Unfortunately, Halo: The Series has very little fighting against the Covenant. Almost no enormous ring-shaped space station, called Halo or not. There's the Master Chief who often isn't in power armor. There's also way too little Cortana. Instead, there's a lot of focus on original characters who have nothing to do with the original movie and are mired in conflicts based on human vs. human colonialism metaphors. Which, fine, but isn't exactly what the original games are all about.
Like many, I was very excited about the prospect of a Halo television series but also somewhat wary. There had been a couple of direct to DVD Halo movies but while they weren't terrible, they weren't exactly good either. The Halo franchise had also suffered a downturn with its main line as Halo 4, 5, and Infinite have all faced significant criticism. Still, the IP had a lot of good will and things like ODST and Reach showed there was a lot of room for developing the world. Indeed, I'm a fan of the novels that have gotten deep into the universe's lore.
Still, I tuned into the first season and watched it every week to absorb what the vision of the creators were and how it made me feel as a longtime Halo fan. How did it make me feel? Ehh, I've seen worse. Which is not exactly touting its virtues on high. I don't want to be someone who just talks about how much they hate something, there's enough of that on the internet. I'm also not a person who thinks that Halo is some unquestionable masterpiece that should be adapted to the screen shot for shot. Except I kind of am. At least for the second.
The premise is that it is not yet the Battle of Reach in the Halo universe. Instead, humanity knows the Covenant exists but said dogmatic alien races haven't yet begun their genocidal campaign of extermination against humanity. Instead, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) is trying to bring all of humanity's separatist colonies under its reign. This may be motivated by their (justified) fear that all hands need to be on deck when facing an alien threat. However, the insurrectionists are all dicks and even when the SPARTAN II's (Master Chief's unit) save their lives, rebels like Kwan don't care.
It'd be simplistic and reductionist to say the primary problem of Halo is there's not enough shooting aliens but, eh, it's also accurate? I mean, the people who love Halo want to see the blasting of the Covenant and they want to see the Halo. They want to see Master Chief as a stoic reserved super soldier, and they want to hear Cortana snark while being an adorable waifu (sorry, but it's true). It's not a hard formula to work with and it's a wonder that people keep screwing it up.
The show provides, instead, someone doing a discount version of the Expanse where we're supposed to care about the dirty spacers and their desire for independence. Master Chief keeps angsting over his lost childhood and loyalty to the UNSC when humanity is under threat of extinction. Everyone else kind of just meanders through the plotline, doing things that get us no closer to killing more aliens or arriving on Halo. There's some good stuff in this season, most of it related to Jen Taylor's Cortana and the few times they do blow up aliens, but it's a lot of "ehh."
It's watchable but I really hope they do better in Season 2.
