One of my best recent TV memories was meme-watching Paramount Plus’s Halo TV series, one that involved a Master Chief that refused to wear a helmet, got totally naked at least once, and had sex with a Covenant spy while she was being held prisoner as Cortana watched. Incredible stuff.
But the Halo show was renewed for a second season before the first even aired, and it seems to have…learned every lesson possible from season 1’s missteps, at least according to this shockingly great new trailer that shows the beginning of the Fall of Reach.
Why is this happening? Well, one of the reasons might be the fact that it has an entirely new showrunner, David Wiener, meaning yes, it’s possible that he’s changed the entire tone of the series into something…well, something more Halo-like.
The trailer is just stunning. I was not expecting it to give me literal chills, but when the Energy Swords sprung to light in the fog, that was something to see. There seems to be a lot more actual Covenant fighting this time around, as the focus on the Fall of Reach would suggest, and the action looks precisely like fans would hope a live-action adaptation of the games would feel like.
The central questions remain about Master Chief himself. We ended last season with Cortana, who is not seen at all in this trailer, piloting his body like a mech, so we’re not sure what’s happening with that bizarre development. But we also do see actor Pablo Schreiber without the helmet again, so they have not imposed some “leave the helmet on, Pablo” rule to fix that aspect of the series. I wonder if it’s in his contract.
I really don’t want to get my hopes up too much, given that even initially, I thought maybe the Halo show could be okay after an episode or two. But things went wildly downhill from there. However, if we’re starting from a baseline that looks anything like this trailer, and can keep Master Chief out of some sort of bizarre love story this time around, maybe we’re on our way to a quality season of Halo after a terrible start.
We don’t have to wait all that long for the show to come back. It’s hitting in less than a month with a two-episode premiere on February 8. I do believe there will be quite a bit of interest in this second season after this trailer is circulated. At the time I’m writing this, it has gotten 177,000 views in 20 minutes, with plenty more on Twitter.
God, I want to believe, I really do.
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