Reviews

Had some good moments but wen't the wrong way completely... or, in other words, some shows have filler episodes, this was an entire season of filler content made from bits of Halo universe, but at the same time doesn't follow any rules set by said world that the whole fanbase is used to.

Just like with all the other recent "adaptations", this took character names but didn't take the actual characters from the established lore and created some sort of nonsensical abomination, which resembles a lot AI generated pictures - the basic building blocks are there, but often misplaced and attention is being drawn to the wrong aspects of the picture.

The show made John-117 into some sort of immortal magician, and they don't realize that it creates a huge problem - he cannot be killed, so ALL the drama from his combat scenes is immediately taken away - because we know he doesn't die, but not because of augments and skills gained, that came at the cost of losing his humanity, but because he is "special" and controls his fate. So essentially nothing that Halsey did mattered, the female SpartanII in the ship fight did not do anything worth mentioning and just provided moral support for SpartanIIIs, MC comes in and wipes the floor... good job destroying the lore they built during Season 1... because all we learn is that hard work and sacrifice means nothing, being born special > everything, which is NOT what you want to tell kids, you want to tell them the story that is exact opposite of this.

This brings to Halsey, what did she do in S2? Where was her genius? Because she did bugger all, survived something on Reach, went to "origin cave" just to find her daughter tell her that she's stupid, and solution was so simple, and then some other magical girl solves a puzzle that genius scientist missed completely - this is carbon copy of Disney's - lets turn Luke into demented old hermit to erase everything he did before and put some new, diverse characters in their place sort of thing, and to top it off - get her infected and put on ice, so the new diverse characters can save her... (slow clap)... couldn't make Halsey show some humanity and save one of the diverse new characters by sacrificing her somehow and getting hit by the flood to let the new diverse character escape? No, can't have that, instead lets continue destroying her character and talk only about how ruthless and single minded she is that she kidnapped children for a program that didn't even matter at the end, because magical, helm-less master chief is unkillable superhuman that can bang on a console and escape a spaceship crashlanding just because he wished it - can't wait to watch S3 where magical, helm-less master chief wishes Flood into non-existence, because he simply needs to wish harder, maybe together with the nonsensical blond arbiter chick, who we don't know what she is capable of because she just said so...

It would be great to see Kwans vision to turn out to actually be Gravemind playing tricks with pawns to show how really capable, cunning and dangerous it can be when it manipulates semi-main characters in undermining Chiefs work without them actually realizing that they are being manipulated, but lets face it - the talent to flesh out a plot like this for S3 just isn't here, and, considering modern politics, using the "diverse" characters in such a way is just plain unacceptable to the powers directing content creation there.

I'm totally amazed by lack of talent and direction in the writing room of this show, what a way kill off a guaranteed cash cow and flush down the drain another established franchise...

Imagine if John wasn't running around in pajamas and actually wore his armor and helmet, how much more sense that fight scene with 2!! Spartans in full armor would make, because him surviving any of that with no armor and no broken bones, dislocated joints and other severe injuries is just totally unrealistic, which in turn makes the whole armor thing much less meaningful, when in fact the armor was the great weapon, so powerful in fact, that they had to kidnap children, genetically modify them to have an actual chance of using said armor... instead we get some sort of x-men that are at 90% without the armor, which makes absolutely no sense at all, I get this isn't the "canon universe" the game was set it, but man do those writers are bad... Now the positive - John and Cortana developing symbiosis - that quite crude, but B for the effort, shame that it happens with John fighting his own, not the real enemy - that is about it of the "good" in this particular episode The covenant protege girl character is very confusing, I can't figure out if she really did turn to human side or still just pretending, plotting to gain trust and so on - imagine if they didn't waste the screen time on the useless kwan trash of a plot story and actually wrote more character development scenes for the ones we do want to see, how much better the show could have been... Halsey character kind of starts to make some sense if you think of her as the corrupted-turned-evil-Cortana of the game universe, and this Halsey I'm not a fan of - the brightest mind of human science bent on manipulating human genome, originally (in the game universe) she saw this as means to be able to wage effective war against an overpowering enemy in a currently very definite losing war against technologically superior enemy, and in such circumstances the whole Spartan program can be just about justified ethically, but that being a "simple" goal of hers, and Spartans being just sort of a byproduct, doesn't sit right by me at all.

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Tissaia told Yen never to cry, something that Yen then taught Ciri - never cry, there is nothing more pathetic than a crying sorceress, and lets just break that line of thought in first couple minutes of the new season... seems like "game of thrones" style writing is being employed - lets tell one story, and then contradict right after, because why not... The decision of including Ciri in Nivellens story would be fine, but the way it was done felt quite forceful, the whole - "different people" narrative especially, it doesn't need to be hammered home, it could have been subtle, and we would understand it - we, viewers, aren't so dumb... also Nivellens character arc was poorly thought out, it didn't need all those changes, he didn't have be an old buddy that doesn't realize who has come into his house and nearly kills or more likely would get killed right away, Nivellen cheating in the dagger throwing game that let to the witcher explaining few things that happened in S1 to viewers who might have not seen it - that was a nice touch, a bit crude, but ok, the only problem with it is that Codringher had a similar scene in the book, a quite funny one, but sadly that won't make it on to the tv it seems - too similar I wish I could forget the book to enjoy this tv series a bit more, but I can't :(