The subtitle of Halo’s logo read “Combat Evolved” when the game first debuted on the XBox all those years ago – but when Paramount’s TV adaptation finally made its bow back in 2022, it seemed that the combat was the only thing that didn’t need evolving. While the scenes of the armored Master Chief and his fellow Spartans squaring up against the alien forces of the invading Covenant was everything this old Halo fan could have possibly hoped for, they were sandwiched in a more of sub-plots and convoluted threads that bogged down what should have been a relatively fast-paced, sci-fi war epic.
While some fans understandably couldn’t get past the audacity of Master Chief actually removing his helmet and being referred to as “John”, the real problems was the show getting tangled up in side missions involving brand new characters such as Kwan Ha and Soren and social commentary involving the human rights issue of turning a man into a hulking, armored plated war machine. However, with a new season comes a new showrunner, as scripter David Wiener hopes to improve in the frustrations of the first season and finally master a certain chief.
Months after the events of the first season, we find John (aka. the Master Chief) and his fellow Spartans Vannak, Kai and Riz still off active duty as the intergalactic war with the Covenant rages on and instead adding extra muscle to evacuation missions as the alien collective occupy themselves by “glassing” every planet they can find with plasma fire. However, while helping to get everyone off the targeted planet of Sanctuary, Master Chief breaks from the mission to save Corporal Talia Perez only to run into a group of Covenant Elites, who shouldn’t even be on the planet yet considering their army is about to nuke the place.
Despite being horribly outnumbered, John is surprised when the Elites suddenly back off when they get the drop on him, but upon reporting back to the UNSC, he finds that his new boss unwilling to take his report as seriously as they should. This is because the new head of the Spartan programme, James Ackerson, is actively trying to iron out the mess left behind by the programme’s creator, Catherine Halsey, who since has gone on the run due to various human right violations in the name of science.
In Ackerson’s defence, it’s somewhat understandable why he doesn’t quite trust John’s view of events as he not only is free of his controlling emotion inhibitor (like all the other Spartans) but he was, up until recently, sharing a skull with Halsey’s A.I., the chatty Cortana.
But while John actually is experiencing after effects of such seismic tolls on his psyche, he’s genuinely unsure as to which loss has effected him more: the warm, caring Cortana or the human turncoat Makee who sided with the Covenant in tbeir search for a mythical weapon that still roams somewhere out in deep space.
In season one’s bid to create a rich, bustling world of an unfeasibly epic space opera, it ultimately lost sight of what Halo fans wanted to see – an entrenched space war between the struggling human military and the religious fanatics of an alien species. However, as it continued to muddy the waters with awkward love triangles, clumsy meditations on the human condition and endless conspiracy subplots concerning the corruption within the UNSC, Halo veered wildly between genuinely rousing battle scenes right out of the game and a trudging, overabundance of plot that made the war a side story in it’s own show that caused it to be both nerve-searingly exciting and crushing boring.
However, it seems that season two us acting as something of a palate cleanser as, in an attempt to gain some much needed focus, a lot of the previous themes and plot points have been neutered in order to get things moving. The whole Spartans-get-their-emotions-back angle is pretty much resolved, with the military now seemingly fine with their hulking killing machines having free will and the sinister machinations of Natascha McElhone’s Halsey has been taken off the burner completely as both she and Cortana are merely only talked about.
Yes, the show still includes ex-Spartan space pirate, Soren, as he has a special, private interest in locating Halsey due to her experiments and after picking up a lead during a slave auction on Rubble by the name of Felix, he runs into a spot of bother and we also get a last minute nod to Kwan Ha in the dying moments, but the main drive here is most definately on Pablo Schreiber’s Master Chief.
So does this narrowing of focus finally tighten up what was a annoyingly loose show? Well no, no yet at least, because in an attempt to try and lay out it’s new direction, the season premiere, the episode ends up being as slow as some episodes of the previous season, and that’s even with one of Halo’s barnstorming action sequences opening the episode. While the sight of Master Chief squaring up to a battalion of Elites all waving energy blades in blinding mist gets the blood pumping just like it always had (we even get our first look at the fan-favorite Aribiter), matters slow waaaay down.
However, while there’s a sneaking suspicion that the new guard might be making all the same mistakes as the old, it’s worth remembering that not only is it early days yet, but the season may be building to something big and thus the slow burn could be utterly justified. Still, of all the balls the episode juggles, only around a third of them seem to truly be of much interest. Soren’s doomed search for Halsey, the hailing of Corporal Perez as a hero as further proof that the UNSC is bent as a nine bob note and the return of Makee all seem like season one problems that would probably best be quietly jettisoned. However, the fact that the Covenant is running secret training for their Elites, the continued lack of trust of John’s emotional state and the fact that former Admiral Margaret Parangosky has gone underground in order to put John’s intel to good use seems like that could have legs. Similarly, a passing remark from a shaman who refuses to leave the doomed Sanctuary intriguingly hints that Master Chief’s days are numbered unless he finds some kind of faith – which fits in nicely with the whole religious trend Halo has always played with.
Visually, Halo is as strong as ever, with the show feeding up innovative and impressive shots of the characters and action sequences looking impressively badass against colourful alien skies.
Where Halo goes from here is anyone’s guess, but I figure that even if Halo makes a miraculous reversal of fortune, it’s going to take at least a couple of episodes to get there.
It seems that Halo hasn’t found its sanctuary quite yet.
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