Unlike many of my gamer peers I never fell in love with Halo. Maybe it was the fact that my main gaming platform was PlayStation, maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t a science-fiction fan growing up. Whatever the reason, I passed by Halo without a second look.
Unfortunately for me, Halo has evolved from a game into a story that spans multiple types of media that expands on the lore of the universe the story plays out in. What this means for folks like me is that Halo can feel like an impenetrable fortress when it comes to just simply following the story.
When it was revealed that a Halo TV series was in the works I was both interested and apprehensive because for all intents and purposes, I know little to nothing about Halo lore.
Ahead of the Halo TV series’ debut next week, Showmax gave Hypertext access to the first two episodes of the show and I am now fully invested in the story of Master Chief, the Spartans and the Covenant.
Spoilers will not feature in this first look.
The show stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief / John-117 and we are introduced to him the best way possible – through him dispatching aliens during an attack.
From the off it becomes clear that Master Chief isn’t the mindless killing machine Spartans are portrayed as. Perhaps it’s Schreiber’s performance here, but we meet Master Chief at a moment in time where he is questioning his entire existence. We are treated to a series of flashbacks and while we’re somewhat lost as regards what these mean, they do help to show a time before John-117 was the war machine he is now.
During the first episode we also meet Kwan Ah played by Yerin Ha and her performance is spectacular. We are reminded of Leah Harvey’s portrayal of Salvor Hardin in Foundation and we hope to see more of Ha in future episodes. While Kwan Ah’s introduction is particularly violent (seriously there is a lot of blood and gore in the opening moments of this show), the character helps give Master Chief a bit more humanity. It’s a dynamic that works rather well on screen.
Other standout performances include Nastascha McElhone as Dr Catherine Halsey and Bokeem Woodbine as Soren-066.
As you might expect, Halo is brimming with CGI and the quality here drifts between scenes.
When we’re looking at big set-pieces that are created with CGI, things look good, great even. However, there are moments where the CGI could have been polished just a bit more. For instance, in the first encounter with the Covenant, one of the Elites we see looks rather out of place. It’s a short moment, but it’s the smaller instances of CGI where things look slightly off.
While we’ve only seen two episodes of Halo, so far it’s an intriguing romp through space that also touches on some tough subjects. We don’t know whether fans will enjoy the show, but as a viewer who has a minimal understanding and interest in Halo’s lore, it’s a great sci-fi series.
Whether you’re a superfan or a noob like me, Halo arrives on Showmax on 25th March with new episodes dropping weekly.
