Developed by Kyle Killen and Steven Kane
1.09 “Transcendence”
Written by Steven Kane
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring Pablo Schreiber, Yerin Ha, Danny Spani, Natascha McElhone, and Jen Taylor
All episodes available on Paramount+

by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

There’s not a lot more to be said about the first season of Halo other than that it was, unsurprisingly, a huge disappointment. I think a lot of my critiques about the show over the last two months remain true, and I find many choices in both plot and character to be baffling. But it’s also par for the course in terms of both adaptations and, very specifically, live-action video game adaptations. Halo was not here to save the live-action video game story, and I wish it didn’t shake my faith in the many others that are coming in the next two years… but it does.

The plot of the finale of Halo consists of a lot of naked exposition, unceremoniously thrust onto the characters and the viewers. And it’s the messy kind, where one of those parties (us, the audience) already knows a lot of the information being given. But the characters don’t, so it’s time to waste the audience’s time, not to mention the studio’s money, on delivering what end up being weak motivations for characters to get involved. Or potential setups for season two, though with how the creative team seem to zig-zag in and out of actual game lore and setup, it’s impossible to know what’s actually set up, and what’s just a pandering easter egg.

And, sure, the big action scene at the end is cool and fun, but good god that cannot be the only thing Halo has to offer. It’s a world so rich in story, both before Bungie left and when 343 Industries took over, that it almost feels like choice paralysis was making all the decisions in the show. Like, were there too many cool things to do? Perhaps, but I wish they’d opted to do even one of them.

Instead, Cortana fully takes over Chief’s body (I truly can’t even express my negative feelings about that), Makee dies (I’m confused by this choice on a really profound level), and the whole ending bit of finding the hidden planet so they could get the map that would lead to the Halo Array felt too much like Rise of Skywalker for my taste. Messy, unclear, and without any deep purpose, I finished season one of Halo wondering what Killen and Kane were even trying to do with the series.

Because the first game is pretty cut and dry, with a simple story at its center. The games get more and more complicated as they go, both because of heightened storytelling and advancements in technology, but even with all the ancient aliens, rogue AI, and Chief’s possible destiny, Halo is about a man and his AI companion stopping universe-destroying forces. So, while I wasn’t expecting the Flood to make an appearance… I was kind of hoping we’d make it to the Halo Array, not just see it in Makee and John’s mindscape.

Between watching the finale and writing this review, we watched Halo: Legends. It does a similar thing as Star Wars: Visions, where it’s a bunch of stories vaguely set in the universe, where each one is in a different animation style, by a different studio. It’s from 2010, and it still rules, over a decade later. I highly recommend that series, as well as Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, which is about a young Lasky (a character that hasn’t made it into the live-action Halo series yet, in part because they haven’t done anything with a single frigate in the show).

I mention them both because I’ve realized, after watching the show and processing all the extended-universe media that I have seen, that I don’t actually want Master Chief at the center of the Halo show. I think it’s a mistake to make John-117 the focus of the series. I understand why they did it, but I also think it’s easy to see the fatal flaw in that decision with the way the first season went. Ultimately, we have enough media about Chief - including media where you’re controlling him and identifying with him because of that. But I think if the show followed ODSTs, or general Marines, or even just Kwan trying to fight the good fight in the Halo universe, that would have been more interesting. And it’s better to have Chief pop into the series as a legendary force, then… whatever the hell Paramount+ just made.

However, since season two has already been greenlit, I’ll just echo the ever funny and observant Jacob Harrington. For season two, I think they should try and make the show good. It’s a bold dream, but it’s, quite honestly, totally doable. Here’s hoping!