Halo, Spaceboy

 

I know almost nothing about the Halo Xbox game. I know that there's a character named Master Chief. I know that he wears armor. Well, actually, I didn't even know that--I didn't know if he was a guy wearing armor or a robot. 

So that's it. 

But when I saw the ad for the Halo series on Paramount+, I thought that it would be something that my #2🌞 would like, since I was pretty sure that it would involve a bunch of guys shooting the shit out of some other guys.

So we tuned in to Episode 1 ("Contact") last night.

I was kind of put off from the get-go. The rebel miners on planet Madrigal seemed way too much like the Belters in The Expanse. And I was still mourning the ending of that show, so I surely did not need an inferior version of it. And you know, that Halo armor looks a lot like the Martian armor that Bobbie and her pals were wearing, too.

But of course I kept on watching, because Joe is an in for a penny in for a pound kind of guy.

The next scene shifted the focus to a bunch of the miners' kids, who were searching for something out in the wilds. Turns out they were looking for a plant which they could use to get high on. And then allofasudden they were being attacked by weird giant armored creatures. And then...kids were getting blown to pieces. What the fuck? 

And then the Halo guys arrived. And at first the miners were thinking, "Shit, now we have to fight BOTH of them!"...because the Halo guys were their enemies, too. But this time it turned out that the enemy of my enemy was kinda sorta my friend, and the H-Men started laying waste to the weird giant armored creatures. 

You know, it would sure save me a lot of trouble if I knew a little more about the background of this show.

ANYway...turns out that the real battle for the H-men wasn't these pissant miners at all, but these other creatures. They didn't so much rescue the miners...in fact, let's just say (without any spoilers) that that clearly was not their main goal...as destroy these other creatures. 

Okay, I couldn't take it any more. The weird giant armored creatures are a group called the Covenant. And they were on planet Madrigal looking for an artifact, which the Spartans (the Halo guys) then find. 

From there, let's just say that things took some unexpected turns, and that I found myself totally absorbed in this Nothing Like The Expanse tv show that I didn't think that I would care about at all. In fact, as the credits rolled I actually found myself thinking, "I have to wait a WEEK for the second episode??? That's not okay!"

So who knows if this show will hold up over time. All I can say for now is that I knew nothing about this material before I watched this show, and I am now really anxious to see the next episode.

P.S. "Hallo Spaceboy" is a song from one of my favorite David Bowie albums, Outside. The fact that I feel the need to explain the pun in my title is probably a good indication of how obscure this album is, I'm sorry to say.