Halo: Season One

• Also known as Halo: The Series
• Developed by Kyle Killen and Steven Kane
• March 24, 2022 to Present
• Paramount+
• Based on the Halo game series by Xbox Game Studios

Main Cast

• Master Chief Petty Officer John-117/Spartan-117-Pablo Schreiber
• Teenage John-117-Logan Shearer
• Child John-117-Casper Knopf
• Admiral Margaret Parangosky-Shabana Azmi
• Riz-028-Natasha Culzac
• Commander Miranda Keyes-Olive Gray
• Kwan Ha-Yerin Ha
• Vannak-134-Bentley Kalu
• Kai-125-Kate Kennedy
• Makee-Charlie Murphy
• Young Makee-Zazie Hayhurst
• Captain Jacob Keyes-Danny Sapani
• Cortana-Jen Taylor
• Soren-066-Bokeem Woodbine
• Teenage Soren-066-Jude Cudjoe
• Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey-Natascha McElhone
• Laera-Fiona O’Shaughnessy
• Kessler-Tylan Bailey

Recurring Cast

• Vinsher Grath-Burn Gorman
• Dr. Adun Saly-Ryan McParland
• John’s Mother-Sarah Ridgeway
• John’s Father-Duncan Pow
• Voice of the Prophet of Mercy-Julian Bleach

Guest Cast

• Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood-Keir “2001 and 2010” Dullea
• Jin Ha-Jeong-hwan Kong

Religiously zealous aliens threaten human existence as they search for artifacts which they believe will usher in a new existence for them.

After viewing Halo: Season One I am left with mixed feelings about the series. I have enjoyed the direct-to-video releases and felt if they could make it work with those then it should no be hard to make it work with a full-fledged series. After viewing I found nearly as much to like as I did to dislike. It was good but not as good as it should have been or as an extension of the Halo franchise.

The first issue is with what should be the focus of the show-Master Chief/John-117 (Pablo Schreiber). Part of the broad appeal of the Master Chief character is that he never takes his helmet off in the games. Without a defined appearance it allows the viewer to more easily identify and connect with the character while also adding a bit of mystery and intrigue. It worked for Boba Fett.

I believe in Halo Legends they came incredibly close to him being seen without his helmet but it didn’t happen on camera. Here he takes it off willy nilly spending ever increasing periods with his face exposed. It humanizes the character and makes him less than. Master Chief’s image with the helmet on has in various ways entered into the general public consciousness.

When in character Pablo Schreiber is kind of bland and stiff. And not in the stern militaristic way that Master Chief is often seen. He’s just lifeless and uninteresting. Schreiber has confused cold with robotic.

And if you’re crafting a series off a famous game the best known character is probably the character you want to feature. Often though Master Chief gets pushed aside for Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) who is the daughter of Jin Ha (Jeong-hwan Kong) a dead insurrectionist leader on the planet Madrigal which supplies deuterium to the UNSC forces. Sadly the character’s existence opens up a few storylines that do not feature Master Chief or even concern the war with the Covenant. At least not after her initial introduction.

Kwan is often unnecessarily hostile to those around her-even in flashbacks. The unnecessarily hostile teenager is pretty common at this point. It’s practically a cliché, but as is often the case we get little context for her general hostility to everybody. Is it because mom is dead? Is it because dad is neglectful because of his leadership duties? Did the writers confuse jerky with strong willed? Whatever the reason she is unlikeable and her story takes up a significant portion of the show.

Despite starting Halo out as what appears to be her friends’ drug dealer/guide to getting high from local plants, she somehow becomes a keen military strategist and fighter based on…nothing. She just kind of is because of who she is related to yet there’s no indication she has ever fought. If anything she was an entitled brat of somebody important who lashed out with little provocation. Was her whole arc meant to show some kind of character growth? If so, it was done very poorly.

Master Chief goes off on his own (and faces minimal consequences) to whisk Kwan off to safety after ignoring an order to kill her. Strangely beyond a local bounty and some actions by the locals, nobody in the UNSC pursues her allowing John-117 to drop her in the lap of an escaped Spartan named Soren (Bokeem Woodbine) that nobody is looking for anymore for…reasons. They go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back since Spartan-117 was supposed to escape with him but instead gave him a head start.

How does master chief know where to find Soren? Has he been keeping in touch over the years? Is there existing UNSC intelligence on the location of Soren which begs the question why didn’t they go and get him back or kill him given the general attitude and actions of the blatantly authoritarian UNSC? It doesn’t strike me as all that possible that they were exchanging letters regularly. Yet Master Chief heads right to Soren when he is first affected by a mysterious artifact found in a cave on Madrigal.

We have the presence of Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) who spends a great deal of time pursuing her own agenda while keeping a hand in the Spartan-II Program. She has a dysfunctional relationship with her daughter Commander Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray) though you would be forgiven for forgetting they are related as the importance of the relationship comes and goes and the exact dynamic is unclear.

I could go on but there are numerous subplots both major and minor going on here like the human girl Makee (Charlie Murphy) who has spent years living among the Covenant because she can activate the artifact and they cannot. Murphy does well on her own but once she is paired with Schreiber she fails to elicit any chemistry with a character she is supposed to have a romance with. And Master Chief gets a love life. Huh?

I’m also trying to figure out where Makee got hair dye. Seriously. In the flashback scenes she’s a brunette with long hair. In the present she has a punk pixie cut and platinum blonde hair. Really? How do a predominantly hairless group of people have haircare products like hair dye? Do they bleach their follicles? Seriously.

For 9 episodes running around 50 minutes each, they have a large cast and juggle many plots. The characters suffer because there is not enough time for the viewer to really care about any of them. Once something starts to possibly get interesting they cut to another story. And few of those stories contribute to any larger narrative.

With some of the elements such as Halsey and her daughter and her husband and the interactions with the other Spartans, the dialogue and general execution feels like it belongs on the CW. While I haven’t played the games much, I have heavily watched other people play them and what I have seen demonstrated something a little more mature and involved than what we got here.

Rather than dealing with the consequences of the assorted conflicts as well as the possible situations that can be derived from them this show often delves into feelings leading characters to make stupid decisions. Not that you can’t make this stupid decision based on other than feelings but when the focus of your stories are feelings the characters react to that no matter what level of training they’re supposed to have.

Everyone has their own personal agenda and are at each other’s throats. Then again Halo: The Series is focused on feelings. Given how many competing agendas there are amongst the people in charge of conducting the war and dealing with insurrectionists as opposed to what we see of the Covenant it’s surprising the Covenant hasn’t been able to easily overwhelm UNSC forces. This war is almost secondary to everybody’s interpersonal conflicts. You’ve got a war going on! Use it in your show as the focus!

Big reveals or important twists lack impact. That is in part because anybody with minimal knowledge knows what is being hinted at but the reveals are fan service rather than important to the story. Nothing leads up to them.

The only thing that felt right was Cortana (Jen Taylor). That character with its appearance and actions felt like it was pulled right from the games. I dare say that was the one aspect closest to correct. Generally I was often left feeling like I was watching a weak imitation of Halo and not a translation of game to screen.

I’m not sure the people behind this appreciated the lore of Halo. I think you could have directly adapted each game as a different season of the show but such a one-to-one translation would take away much of any potential mystery or surprises. I guess what I’m saying is I’m not against minor alterations to the mythology to mix things up but things like Master Chief removing his helmet and often getting sidelined for some generic revolutionary kid who at points dresses him and others down feels like a bit of a bastardization of the mythology.

Respecting what others create before you is important and I’m not sure if that is happened here. They saw a property and had things they wanted to do on their own but decided to hijack this property instead. I’m not calling this bad, but it is so much worse than it could be. It’s almost mature, but not quite as mature as it should be. The thing is people seem to fail to realize that you can be mature without being inappropriate. Give it to the audience straight.

The effects that we see can be hit or miss. Sometimes the Covenant soldiers are fantastic. Other times they lack depth and texture. I’m wondering if the less visually satisfying ones were added at the last minute before this was released at the behest of some higher up that felt they needed more. It would explain the lack of quality in appearance. If you have to meet an immutable deadline sometimes you can’t produce the best work.

I think I would feel better about this if it weren’t named Halo. I think of The Magnificent Seven remake or the True Grit redo. It’s good, but it suffers from having from that name attachment. It’s an adequate product attached to something far superior.

Halo will satisfy your desire for space-based science fiction but if you enjoy the Halo games in any way you might have a few issues. Watch but watch cautiously.