'Halo' OK for newcomers, maybe not longtime fans

Humans battle like-minded aliens in 2552

Kirk Boxleitner | Mar 31, 20220

Courtesy photo

The streaming series adaptation of "Halo" on Paramount+ takes its time to introduce its main players.

Not all nerds are nerds about everything, so while I'm a nerd about a broad spectrum of media, my one big shortfall is that I've never been a nerd about video games.

I'm prefacing my review of the "Halo" streaming series on Paramount+ by saying this so you will know I am reviewing this series from the standpoint of someone for whom this is an introduction to the "Halo" mythos.

Of course, I was aware of the "Halo" franchise and had even watched my younger cousin Shawn play a few rounds, so I got that this live-action adaptation of the video game was going to be a big deal, even before it broke viewer records for Paramount+.

What it's actually about, however, seems to be a reasonably well-executed remix of tropes from military science fiction, based on what I'm seeing in this TV series.

Like "Starship Troopers" and "Ender's Game," "Halo" appears to pit an essentially fascist, expansionist human empire (the United Nations Space Command, or UNSC) against a ruthlessly inhumane swarm of equally conquest-minded alien soldiers (the Covenant) who cannot be negotiated with, and like "Ender's Game," humanity has resorted to conscripting children into its cause.

There are also touches of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson in the UNSC's armored Spartans, who are so subsumed to their duties that their memories of their preservice lives are wiped.

But "Halo" adds a compelling triangulation to this otherwise binary UNSC-versus-Covenant conflict, as human insurrectionists settle frontier worlds to seek freedom from the UNSC's governance. I wonder whether Joss Whedon's "Firefly" TV series and "Serenity" film borrowed from "Halo."

All three of these interests are pitted against each other when, in the year 2552, the Covenant invades one of these independent human colonies on the planet Madrigal, only for Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and his fellow Spartans to arrive and fight alongside the human colonists against the Covenant.

Despite the Spartans' best efforts, all but one of the colonists, the teenage daughter of an insurrectionist leader, is killed, but Master Chief discovers a mysterious and powerful artifact the Covenant had been seeking on the planet, which awakens a few scattered seconds of his childhood memories.

Those fragmented memories are enough to evoke Master Chief's empathy when the UNSC orders him to kill the girl, Kwan Ha, after the UNSC fails to recruit Kwan into becoming its mouthpiece, to try and persuade the other independent human colonies to join the UNSC in fighting the Covenant.

At the risk of disclosing major spoilers, yes, the series shows us Master Chief's face, which even I, as a non-fan, couldn't help feeling disappointed by, since Karl Urban managed to go the full 95-minute runtime of 2012's "Dredd" without removing Judge Dredd's helmet.

Also, we see the first stages of what will become Cortana, who will apparently share a likeness with her creator, Dr. Halsey, played by the always capable Natascha McElhone.

This first episode didn't quite clarify what the deal is with the human young woman who's apparently collaborating with the Covenant against her own race, like Baltar with the Cylons in "Battlestar Galactica," but otherwise, as a pilot, I can attest that this brings folks who are completely new to the narrative up to speed on the basics they'll need to move forward.

Honestly, as a TV series, "Halo" isn't anything great so far, but it's solidly OK, and given the sheer scope of elements that have yet to be addressed, including the Halo Array for which this franchise is named, there's a decent chance I'll be checking out the next episode.