Finally got around to watching last week’s episode. I knew it was bad news, even before I saw @divedivedive’s post because Paramount+ had been advertising that the after-show was featuring the Kwan Ha actress.
I still think Kwan Ha is an entitled, annoying brat. But you were right, it was as good as one could possibly hope for with a Kwan Ha episode with no Master Chief. I actually enjoyed a lot of it.
My understanding is that Soren is a character from the Halo books — not that I’ve read the books, but so say various Halo TV Series reviews I’ve watched. Wiki says that there’s at least one short story with him in it, although it sounded like there were at least a fair number of Soren fans out there — more than I’d expect from just one short story, so perhaps the fan Wiki isn’t complete.
So I skipped episode 7 as I just don’t enjoy the REBEL stuff. It turns out episode 8 just picks straight up from episode 6 and as far as I can tell, was not impacted by 7 at all, which makes 7 completely skippable. That’s good - maybe at some point I will give it a shot but I was happy to just not have to care.
Episode 8 was quite strong. I have issues with the show in terms of too much REBEL!! stuff and too little Halo Action, but what has surprised is the quality of the writing and the quality of the sci-fi content in the main plotline of the show. Pablo Schreiber continues to excel, and although Halsey is a mustache-twirler at this point, Natasha McElhone is selling the “fanatic for power in a good cause that goes WAY TOO FAR” vibe really well. Charlie Murphy as Makee had a strong episode this week. I did have issues with how rushed the Makee plot was, but the Spartan Fight, the Inevitable Cortana Developments, and more lead-in to the main event all made it a strong episode. Cortana in particular has grown on me - her debut was too much close up and emphasized the uncanny valley but after that they’ve used her as a smaller model or off to the side so she’s more of the familiar AI sidekick and less CANNOT UNSEE! They did some Cortana close-ups this ep and they worked fine b/c I had built up a familiarity with her as the AI sidekick.
TLDR version: a number of flaws but overall the core sci-fi content and quality of the show is higher than I expected. For me that results in a thumbs up.
I did not have ‘Master Chief gets laid’ on my Halo bingo card.
Surely Cortana could have given Chief a few pointers during that scene as well! He’s not exactly a lothario.
You might have put it behind a spoiler, but I’m seeing headlines about it on The Verge, Kotaku and Eurogamer this morning. No need to even click on the story! It’s all there in the headline.
As someone who hasn’t played any Halo other than the Games for Windows Live version of Halo 1 and thus has no particular interest in the franchise or the characters, I’m fine with the Master Chief getting laid. That doesn’t redeem the rest of the show, though. Other than some action sequences, the villainous blonde doctor, and the black pirate guy, this show sucks rocks. Any scene with that korean girl just sucks the life right out of me. I hope she gets disintegrated by a needle gun.
Who sounds just like Dave Chappelle to me. I keep anticipating every one of his lines will be punctuated with a “god damn”, kind of distracting.
Fair enough - I find it utterly impossible to try to anticipate what people will get worked up over regarding plot details, so I just try to err on the side of caution.
I haven’t really popped into this thread much, but I gotta agree. It’s web show level fine, I guess. Mostly coasting on fanservice and stunt/fx sequences. It feels like Corridor Crew (I know they didn’t work on this) got dumped with a fat sack of cash, told to make a Halo web series, and they subcontracted some CW-level folks to do the drama stuff while they shot all the action.
I guess it gets points for not being terrible, which is honestly what I expected from a Halo series.
To me, it feels like a Syfy show from the early 2010s with a much larger budget.
They spent money on it, but it mostly looks like crap. The dialogue is terrible, the script drifts along, there are entire episodes with that horrible korean girl, and other than those three people all the acting is hilariously bad.
Actually I love the crazy black guy who scampers around like Gollum, he’s great. So make it four.
I think it’s a good show, and I’ll keep watching. Still think it should be the Kai show though, she’s a lot more fun than John.
Man you guys hate everything haha.
I’m enjoying this show a lot. It’s way better than Discovery, which I’m still working my way through but clearly peaked in Season 2.
What’s the bar for a good sci fi show? Stranger Things? This is a show about roided up space marines shooting aliens what are you expecting? Maybe more shooting aliens, that’s all I got by way of complaints.
I actually would be much more entertained if it had more action scenes, yes. The show does them pretty well.
I did laugh out loud during this latest episode when Halsey remarks about Makee that 'John has a girlfriend now. How … ordinary." Also - and maybe I missed this during an earlier episode - I did find it a bit unsettling to learn that Halsey’s plan all along for Cortana was to ‘pilot’ Master Chief, and possibly all the Spartans. Not just to exist as a possible override in case they go rogue.
You did, that was really explicit and tough to miss. Maybe you left the room to take a leak.
That’s how she sold the brass on the Cortana project, it was a way to control Master Chief after he disobeyed orders to save Kwan.
Yeah, I guess I interpreted that as a means of keeping Chief in line, like when he tried to attack Halsey, not just completely turn him into an RC car.
If you’re in it for the action, then the next episode (last of the season) looks like it will have you covered.
I definitely rate it in the “solidly fine” category, which is much higher than I expected from a Halo show. And frankly it’s a masterpiece next to the most recent sci-fi show I watched before it, which is to say Book of Boba Fett. But, you know, low bar.
Despite Halo mega-fan complaints (I am not one) it does seem like it has a reasonable amount of canon pulls, too. I don’t need Master Chief to be a messiah figure linked to some magical artifact and some blond chick the Covenant indoctrinated, and I don’t need Kwan Ha at all, and it’s kinda weird making Miranda Keyes basically just backup scientist, but Halsey, the Covenant, even Cortana except for her being explicitly in Chief’s brain from the start, and things like Soren (I guess?) seem reasonably faithful.