Hey! What's up everyone! Dan here and today I'll be giving a review for season one of the Halo TV show on Paramount Plus.

If you haven't watched the show, spoilers ahead.

I want to start off by saying that this is one of few Paramount Originals on the platform because Paramount/Viacom have been late to the streaming game and they're playing catch up right now. They are competing with the likes on HBO MAX, Disney Plus, etc. and the content they have are just reboots or revivals of old properties. The Fairly Odder show is the perfect example of this problem because they made a generic show with a small budget and decided to slap of the Fairly Odd Parents brand on it for marketing and to draw in fans of the show but instead of doing animation, they did live action and cheap animation together. I already gave a review on the Fairly Odder show so if you want to see my full thoughts on it you can check that out, but yeah it was just garbage. It was rushed to meet a deadline with absolutely no care put into it. That's all these reboots and revivals are, just cheap cash grabs on old properties because they have hardly anything else for good content. Besides the crappy reboots and revivals, they do have some originals and this Halo TV show is one of them. Now Halo is a beloved Video Game franchise, it was one of the first FPS games to come out and an integral part of Xbox's success in the gaming industry. Now you'd think such a legendary franchise would be adapted well with as much of the source material involved right? Well....No.

(Link to Article here: Halo Article )

According to Variety in an interview with the season 1 showrunner Steven Kane, They didn't look at the games, they didn't talk about the games nor did they express any desire to play the games. I think this is why a video game has failed numerous times in the past. When companies are tasked with bringing a game franchise to Television or film, they don't respect the source material. On top of that, they hire people who either don't know anything about the franchise, don't care about the franchise or straight up doesn't like video games at all. They get people who have no desire or interest to bring a game into another medium, it seems they purposely hire people who think very little of gaming as a whole. Why not hire people who actually like, know or at least respect the gaming franchise you're trying to adapt? It's not that hard, I'm sure you can find one person who is willing to play or look at the games you're adapting. Now I understand not adapting a game one for one, that's setting yourself up for failure. However, game adaptations like the Sonic movies, Arcane, and even The Witcher proved that it can be done right as long as you get a dedicated team who respect the franchise and put the proper care and attention to the show bringing the universe and lore of the franchise to life. Not here though, they just hired whoever was available to make this show and it shows that they did not play the games or did that much research on the franchise.

Now I'll be honest, I'm not a huge Halo fan myself, I didn't grow up playing the games that much. I would play the games with my cousin at his house growing up because he was the only one with Xbox consoles. I never played the story modes but I would play multiplayer with him both Online and against each other. My favorite Halo game to this day is Halo: Reach. To me, that was peak Halo in terms of content and gameplay. Despite not being a Halo fan, I still looked into the lore of Halo and researched stuff like the Covenant, Spartans, Cortana, how to T-bag a player and so on. I would say I have a fair amount of knowledge on the Halo franchise to know that this show strayed away from the source material. I mentioned how the Fairly Odder felt like a generic show with the Fairly Odd Parents slapped on for marketing, and that's exactly how I feel about this Halo show. It didn't feel like a Halo show, felt like a generic sci-fi show but with the Halo name slapped on last minute for marketing. Now in the same article, they mentioned how they took inspirations from the books. That's at least a good place to start with research, but the books are just an extension of the main universe from the games. I'm willing to bet they didn't even read much of the books either, they probably skimmed over a few pages and thought "alright I think we got enough". This just feels like a show that was made to meet a quota and not really meant to entertain the fanbase of Halo.

(Link to the Video: The ART of Acting With No Face )

Now the Plot of Halo from what I read, it's pretty much a Mandalorian copycat with a few tweaks here and there. I feel as though this show was made to capitalize on the Hype of The Mandalorian, but it completely fails in that regard for a couple reasons. One of those reasons being that its Halo, not The Mandalorian. People want to see Master Chief fighting the Covenant and kick ass during the War between the UNSC and the Covenant. Instead, we go on this emotional journey of finding out who he is with...well John, he's not even Master Chief after the first episode he's John. We never see him being a true force to be reckoned with like he was in the games, he only showed us those spartan aspects in like 3 out of 9 episodes of the first season. We barely get to see him being the Master Chief we've all known.

This brings me to the other reason and that's helmet, what do I mean by that? Well for anyone who knows about Halo, Master Chief has never taken off his helmet in the games. I don't recall him ever showing us his real face in any of the games (besides his flashbacks as a child but that doesn't count). In the show, he takes off his helmet and reveals his face at the end of episode one. That is super underwhelming in my opinion and kills any excitement for the show, that alone proves this team didn't look at any Halo lore or respect the franchise. I left a link to a video made by GodzillaMendoza about the art of acting with no face and it's a well crafted video on the ability to act without revealing the true face of the person and how it elevates the characters more. This is where the Mandalorian shines because we never saw Mando's face in season 1 up until the last episode where it was a life or death situation for him. It was a build up to a dramatic moment in the series and it helped us connect with Mando on a deeper level. When we finally saw his face for the first time, we were shocked that there was a real flesh and blood human being behind the mask and we connected with him even more knowing this invincible warrior is human just like us. Obviously he was played by Pedro Pascal a human actor, but it was the way they portrayed the Mandalorian, his mannerisms, his body language, we questioned if he even was human but then we saw his face and it was truly satisfying. Halo TV Show did the exact opposite and killed Master Chief's core characteristic, thus killing the character of Master Chief in the show, he was just John after that.

As I mentioned, the plot was meant to be Mando inspired but with Halo's lore. To be fair, the action scenes with the Spartans against the covenant were the best parts of the show. The problem with that is like I said, the covenant shows up in like 3 out of 9 episodes mainly because of the budget this show had. the budget for it was 90 million dollars and for animation, CGI or any special effects, that's a little tight. Due to the budget, they couldn't really bring out the covenant too much because they couldn't afford to do so. The show suffers from a lack of passion and a small budget and it shows from this scene in episode one where they didn't even paint over the plasma pistol prop. There is also the scene with a rifle being badly animated but that's a little more forgivable. The first episode was meant to set the tone for the series and give us a glimpse of what to expect, the first episode was jam packed full of action and should have been the tone set for the show. But unfortunately, after episode one the rest of the show is just boring. Most episodes I struggled to pay attention because the drama in the UNSC was just boring and served hardly any purpose for the plot's progression.

One of the my biggest complaints for the show was Kwan Ha. Now let it be known that her actress Yerin Ha did her job and I hold nothing against the actress herself, its just the direction she's given. Kwan Ha contributed nothing to the main plot, she appeared in the first episode where Master Chief and the Spartans saved her on her home planet of Madrigal and took her in. You'd think she had something to do with the main story right? NOPE! She contributed nothing to the main story. John just took her to his old friend/former spartan Soren (who is my favorite spartan in this show played by Bokeem Woodbine) and left Soren to babysit her. Fun fact, she wears the exact same outfit for the entire series. She's never seen wearing anything else, she wears the same bloody outfit for the entire season despite everyone else getting at least a couple other outfits for the show. Also her haircut is stupid, I don't understand fashion, but she has an ugly buzzcut/ponytail combo there. She was basically the B plot of the series where her and Soren go to Madrigal and frees her planet from an evil UNSC Hitler character named Vinsher Grath. I don't understand her role in this show, she wasn't even from the games she was added for the sake of the show. Why? was it for a tokenism checkbox? I honestly don't get why she was added to the show. This makes me believe further that this wasn't originally a Halo show, just a generic sci-fi show with Halo slapped on for marketing.

Now I'll be covering Cortana and her relationship with John aka Master Chief

Cortana as everyone knows is Master Chief's quirky AI that sticks with him during battle and is essentially a part of him. Now when she was introduced into the show, I had mixed feelings about her appearance straight off the bat. She's suppose to be a hologram, but here she looks like a human with CGI to make her seem more hologram like. It's such an awkward look for her in the show but I digress. I think the relationship between Cortana and John in this show was done decent enough for a nine episode where she appeared in episode three so they developed their relationship in a six episode span. I wish we could have had more time growing their relationship because it feels rushed which makes sense since it is a short season. But I will say that Cortana did grow as a character, she looked beyond her programming and was able to learn about humanity through John and his heroic actions. She went against Halsey's orders and protected John and the Spartans in the last episode. Cortana was another one of my favorites in this show despite her design and her growth was one I did enjoy even if it was rushed.

Another character in the show was Makee, she's not from the games either, she was also made for the show. She's a spy for the covenant who refer to her as the "blessed one" and is a love interest of John. No joke, they get down and dirty while Cortana just stands there and watches like its a Voyeur porno. She had an interesting backstory and she was suppose to be a main villain, but you feel more sympathy with her. at worst, she's a sympathetic villain and is killed off in the most underwhelming way possible. She's another example of why this shouldn't have been a Halo TV show, should have just been a new sci-fi show. She has her moments and is a clever character but I felt she wasn't utilized well.

Now to the cast of the show, I hold nothing against you guys, you did your jobs and you did what you could with the budget and direction you were given. I felt this could have been a good video game adaptation TV show if paramount gave the project a bigger budget and got a team who at least respects the source material. This show was suppose to portray the covenant as the bad guys but honestly makes the UNSC and Dr. Halsey especially out to be the real villains here. Pablo Schreiber did a decent job with the character of Master Chief but the direction he was given weakened his performance as the legendary Master Chief. One other thing, stop showing everyone's bare ass cheeks every episode. I saw the master cheeks more than I ever expected to see.

I honestly wanted to like this show, but it's another example of companies taking a beloved video game franchise and pissing on it with a lackluster adaptation. There is confirmation for a Season 2 but I honestly could care less. Maybe I'll check it out to see if they improve but I doubt it. I feel bad for the Halo franchise right now, first Halo infinite is becoming more and more dead due to lack of content, then this show came and beat the franchise while it was down. Pray to god that Season 2 will get scrapped but it likely won't.

Giving this season a rating I give it:

4.5/10

If you're a Halo fan or a gamer then I would not recommend watching this show, but if you're just looking for a generic sci-fi show to mindlessly watch then it's serviceable I guess. But honestly just watch something else, it's not worth the boredom.

That's it, see ya!