Episode 1 Review - Pablo Schreiber IS Master Chief

For the last twenty-one years, the name Halo has been synonymous with video games. In those years, while there were attempts to branch out into other mediums like books, comics, animated shorts, a podcast, and two limited miniseries, those ever added to the pre-existing Halo universe. However, with Halo: The Series, Paramount+ and 343 Industries are trying something different: creating a new timeline set in the Halo universe but isn’t beholden to franchise rules or whatever the next game 343 is developing at the moment.

Set in the year 2552, Halo: The Series envisions the story of Master Chief as he’s thrust into a conflict between the UNSC and a new alien threat known as the Covenant.

While that might sound familiar to the story of the games, I would describe this rendition of the story as a “mix and match” situation. For example, unlike the games, Master Chief is leading Silver Team, a team of Spartans consisting of Kai-125 (played by Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (played by Natasha Culzac), and Vannak-134 (played by Bentley Kalu). As one can imagine, this changes the context in which we see Master Chief. No longer is he a lone wolf that’s the last of his kind; he’s got a team to back him up.

There’s also a reconfiguration on what the story is focused on - no spoilers, but this show seems much more concerned with broaching the topics of the horrors of war than even Earth-centered stories such as Halo 3: ODST than grand-scale tales of a one-person killing machine against an alien army.

However, Halo fans need not worry. If you love the series, there’s plenty you’ll catch onto about the series that newcomers to the franchise won’t get right away. As I can’t get into spoilers, I won’t say what the easter eggs are, but longtime fans will be rewarded for their knowledge of the universe.

While I expected to hate this version of the Master Chief story, I came away pleasantly surprised by the adaptation that Kyle Killen and Steven Kane wrote. Not only does this reward fans, but it adds so much new to the universe that it is able to stand on its own without any significant issues.

On the same note, the camerawork is impeccable. The fight scenes feel like they’re pulled straight out of the games, especially Halo: Reach, and static scenes feel dynamic through the subtle fact that the camera never lies still.

Likewise, the casting decisions are phenomenal. Pablo Schreiber feels like Master Chief while adding his own spin to the character, Natascha McElhone’s Halsey feels ripped straight from the games, and Yerin Ha’s character feels like the needed grounding force for the series. That said, there are some decisions made with the cast that didn’t quite click with me in the first episode. Silver Team and the Keyes’ feel like an afterthought at points in this episode. I get that these characters aren’t the ones we know, but it would’ve been nice to have more time with them before the episode concluded.

Another small problem I have is with Sean Callery’s score for the episode. The theme isn’t very memorable or evoking a Halo vibe to me. Instead, the vibes I got was generic sci-fi temporary music track.

I can’t wait to see what Steven Kane has in store for this Halo universe.

★★★★/★★★★★

Episode 2 “Unbound” Review – The Second Episode of Halo: The Series Gets Held Down by a Detour

In this episode, the series takes a sharp detour from what the series seemed to be about at the outset. Instead of focusing on the larger conflict between the UNSC and the Covenant, this episode focuses on John, Kwan, and Halsey.

Again, no spoilers, so I can’t get into the story-specific reasons why I didn’t like this episode as much, but I can be very non-specific about my critique. My main issue with the episode is that, while the introduction to Kwan is great in the first episode, here she feels like the writers didn’t know what to do with her character. She’s not given much to do other than hang out with John. I get it’s only the second episode of the first season of a multi-season show, but if she’s meant to be a grounding force for Master Chief, she should be given equal time to Chief. Speaking of Chief, his decisions don’t make sense even after watching the episode twice. On the flip side, Halsey gets a much-needed focus that was missing in episode one, but I understood the lack of focus, given the purpose of a pilot. Halsey is given so much more to do in this episode, and I think game fans will be pleased with the results.

Besides the character work, the narrative is much weaker in this episode. I still have questions about the structure of the UNSC, The Covenant, and what’s changed in the translation from the games to the movies. It’s all very confusing to the point where I am dizzy with questions, and I only seem to be asking more questions the more I see.

Halo: The Series starts streaming on Paramount+ on March 24th.

★★★/★★★★★