'Halo' TV Show on Paramount Plus an Ultra-Violent Assault on the Senses

'Halo' TV Show on Paramount Plus an Ultra-Violent Assault on the Senses

You could argue that Halo, the new Paramount Plus TV show based on the popular video game, is arriving 15 years too late.

Despite coming in the wake of Halo Infinite, arguably the best Halo video game in well over a decade, the cultural cachet of the franchise has been dipping since 2007, when Halo 3 was released and a generation of gamers sat transfixed in front of their consoles to "Finish The Fight."

Since then, we've finished that fight. We've finished a few more fights in the years following. In fact most of us, even the most diehard fans of the Halo series, are a little over finishing fights.

The original Halo game, released in 2001, was a vaguely jingoistic, post-9/11 tale of heroic UNSC soldiers battling against a hyperreligious (read: Muslim) alien race known as the Covenant. A race hellbent on activating a universe-destroying ring world -- aka the titular Halo.

Even nongamers will recognize the "Halo," an enormous, ancient weapon designed to make all sentient beings extinct. The game was a pretty straightforward, well-executed "good versus evil" story designed to efficiently get players to the good part: lobbing grenades and firing guns at an endless onslaught of aliens intent on murdering you and the entire human race.

But in 2022, in the wake of prestige TV, a pandemic and a society far less trusting of authority, that story doesn't exactly pass the vibe check. Particularly the jingoism and the mild space racism. It's for this reason that the Halo TV show, starring Pablo Schreiber as the protagonist Master Chief, with Natascha McElhone as his creator Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, wisely deviates from the video games in a number of smart ways.

In the TV show, Halo's soldiers are far from the good guys. Instead they're part of a fascist army hellbent on suppressing human colonies off-world. The Master Chief is their wrecking ball: an overwhelming one-man army capable of killing aliens and his fellow humans without mercy at the behest of his superiors.

But after touching an alien artifact that unlocks long suppressed memories, the Master Chief begins to slowly discover his humanity -- pitting him against not just the Covenant aliens, but the army that helped create him.

Despite tropes and some clunky expository dialogue, Halo is perfectly serviceable science fiction that borrows liberally from other influential shows. Its off-world rebel groups resemble the "Belters" from The Expanse, while its central emotional core, the burgeoning relationship between the Master Chief and Kwan Ha -- the sole human survivor from the show's opening battle -- borrows beats from The Mandalorian.

Master Chief and Spartans in the Halo TV series — Master Chief and his fellow Spartans are humanity's only effective weapons against the Covenant.
Paramount Plus

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Halo is compelling and barrels along at a friendly pace, clearly wrestling with its source material in fundamental ways, trying to make video game elements work in a new format. Not everyone will enjoy the choices made. After the release of the show's last trailer, fans went ballistic upon discovering that Cortana -- an AI character from the video games -- wasn't blue and transparent like she is in the original.

If that upsets you, then brace yourself. Wait till Master Chief removes his helmet -- probably the best example of the show literally and figuratively breaking free from the shackles of the video game.

But the show is faithful where it makes sense. Its action sequences are kinetic and incredibly visceral -- ultra violent even. Legs are blown off, bodies are ripped in half. Early in the first episode an alien mercilessly murders a group of small children cowering in a hidden bunker. Fans of the game may remember that Neil Blomkamp was slated to direct a Halo movie back in the mid-2000s. District 9 was born of the bones of that failed project and, ironically, the Halo TV show feels very influenced by Blomkamp and his work.

In the show, Covenant forces are utterly terrifying and completely indestructible until the Master Chief and his band of Spartans arrive. These encounters do a tremendous job of communicating what makes the game special. Fans complaining that Cortana is the wrong color will forgive it all when they see Master Chief hiding behind cover waiting for his shields to recharge.

But ultimately, whether fans like it or not, Halo is at its best when it pushes back. Dedicated fans may resent some of its braver choices, but it's undoubtedly for the best. Dialogue clunkers aside, Halo is a well-produced TV show with solid performances and brilliantly executed set pieces. Given the history of video game adaptations, I'm taking that as a win.

Halo might be 15 years too late, but better late than never.

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Halo TV Series Gets Explosive First Trailer

It's finally, actually happening. The first trailer for the Halo TV series exploded onto screens Sunday, and Master Chief finally looks set to complete his longest, most difficult mission: leaping from Xbox hit video game to live-action TV show.

The series will be available on streaming service Paramount Plus this spring. Set in the 26th century, Halo sees a brilliant scientist played by Natascha McElhone genetically engineer super-soldiers to fight an alien menace called the Covenant. One of these so-called Spartans, in instantly recognizable green armor and yellow visor, is Master Chief Spartan John-117, played by Pablo Schreiber, from Orange Is the New Black and American Gods.

The 2-minute trailer for the Halo series debuted Sunday, Jan. 30, during the AFC championship game on CBS and Paramount Plus. It's a fast-paced, action-packed intro to Master Chief -- "humanity's best weapon" -- and we get a glimpse of a handful of other Spartans, as well as McElhone's character, a suspicious general, a minion that Master Chief saves and a rather haughty, beshawled sort uttering softly, "Humans, surrender to the Covenant." It winds toward its conclusion against an ethereal cover of the moody Phil Collins classic In the Air Tonight and what seems like the show's mission statement: Find the Halo, win the war.

A title card gives us a rough date to mark in our TV viewing calendars: this March. A tweet from the Halo on Paramount account gives the date of March 24.

Microsoft has been talking about a Halo TV show for a decade, with Steven Spielberg attached earlier in the process. His company Amblin is one of those behind the project, along with 343 Industries, the current owner of the Halo game franchise (the game was originally developed by Bungie, but was spun off years ago so Halo is not part of Sony's deal to buy Bungie). In anticipation of the show, 343 explained that the series would have its own version of Halo continuity dubbed "the silver timeline," making it distinct from the backstory familiar to fans while still borrowing important and cool stuff from the lore of the games, novels and other spinoffs.

Interest in the Halo franchise has been running high since the game Halo Infinite arrived in December after a troubled development period and a yearlong delay. In his review of the game, CNET's Mark Serrels wrote, "No matter where you are in Halo Infinite's open world, everything feels designed for the player. There are no dud textures, no spaces where you shouldn't be."

The TV series was originally intended to air on Showtime before it made the move to Paramount Plus (formerly known as CBS All Access, and home to new Star Trek series, among other shows).

The show's cast also includes Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, Danny Sapani and Bokeem Woodbine.

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Halo Tv Show On Paramount Plus And Showtime