Well, some sort of licensing deal with Paramount+ has kicked in, and the cancelled Halo series that originally aired there has now hit Netflix. Halo ran from 2022 to 2024, a live-action adaptation of one of the most storied franchises in gaming. And it was mostly a disaster when many video game projects finally seemed to be finding their footing.
Right away, you could see the central issue there, that the show abandoned the entire concept of Master Chief being a super-soldier whose face we never see. Instead, Chief is played by Pablo Schreiber, who I have nothing against, but the man spends 95% of the show out of his armor to the point where it often barely feels like a Halo show at all.
A warning here is that if you like Master Chief as a character and want to preserve that image of him in your mind, you may not want to pollute it with this bizarre variant that was created for this series. That said, if you want to see what all the anti-hype was about, it’s sort of something you must see to believe.
The show pulls an Iron Fist, actually. The first season is outrageously awful, but season 2 sort of gets things together more. Not enough to save the series, but they tried.
Spoilers follow, but man, what a wild ride.
A central storyline of the first season is the existence of a human Covenant agent who is working with the hostile aliens to the detriment of humanity. Eventually, she’s captured, and some sort of innate bond is struck up with Chief. The two eventually end up having sex while she’s a prisoner of war in what is easily the weirdest moment in the series, and really any video game series I’ve seen. The show also became a running joke for showing nude butts pretty much every week. The name “Master Cheeks” was born. What was this show?
Season 2 was better. It did weird things like totally change its version of Cortana (who was actually pretty good). I still didn’t like Schreiber’s Chief, but the show at least was attempting to get back on track with the games, and there were some cool action scenes. They did, however, screw up the lore of The Fall of Reach in a way that very much annoyed fans. Then, upon reaching the titular Halo, the show was canceled. So yeah, the whole thing did not go well.
One interesting Netflix connection here is that a mostly useless character in the show, Kwan Ha, was played by Yerin Ha, an actress forced to have the most ridiculous haircut I’ve ever seen. However, Yerin Ha is now starring in season 4 of Bridgerton as the central love interest, a huge leap into the mainstream. Good for her!
Honestly, I’d recommend it. There are some cool Halo parts. There are some parts so ridiculous it will make you laugh out loud. Let me know what you think.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
