UPDATE
A day later, there are now 13 reviews of the season, and it’s up to a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes!
ORIGINAL STORY
If you look back at the history of certain TV and movie franchises, you’ll realize that not all of them started out on the “best foot.” There are plenty of shows that had a “rough first season” and then straightened things out in the sophomore and following seasons to help make them appealing. For the Halo TV series on Paramount+, the first season didn’t go as well as they’d hoped. There was critical and fan backlash that they allegedly took into account. That might be why Halo Season 2 is currently doing better on Rotten Tomatoes versus what the first season did.
We want to note right off the bat that Halo Season 2 only has nine reviews so far from critics. However, their scores have helped get an 89%! That’s far higher than the 70% that Season 1 got. Yes, that can change when more scores come into play, but for now, it is a good start.
Eight of the nine reviews praised the show and noted that it was a vast improvement over the series’ first outing, which might be enough to “entice” some fans to give the show another shot. There are some “sticking points,” however, mainly in that the reviewers agree that while the show is better, especially with its action sequences, the story still falters at times. Multiple reviews noted “head-scratching” elements and just bad storytelling overall in certain episodes.
However, they also noted things were more “fine-tuned” and that the action really helps carry things, so that might be enough.
The reasons that Season 1 was put down so much are multi-layered. First, the team behind the show didn’t look at the video games for inspiration, meaning they were doing certain things “from scratch,” and it showed. One such example is how they handled “John,” AKA the Master Chief. Not only did he talk, take off his helmet, and act in ways that the game character never did, but they gave him a love story and a love scene that even the actor behind the helmet didn’t want to happen.
The storytelling was also all over the place, and fans could hardly find traces of the gaming franchise that made this live-action universe possible. The show was only greenlit for a second season due to a contract, so how things are fair in fans’ eyes this time will help decide the series’ future. Since Season 2 focuses on the fall of Reach, there are more stories to tell. But will they get to tell them?
