The Halo TV show is dead in the water after two seasons under Paramount. A controversial adaptation of the iconic video game franchise, Halo Season 2 ended on a huge cliffhanger that finally put the iconic Master Chief on the titular ringworld.
Despite its incredibly rough first season, Paramount’s Halo season did have some redeeming qualities. For starters, the action scenes—even in the pilot episode—were brilliant with Season 2’s battle against The Arbiter being one of the most engaging sci-fi scenes in modern TV. Unfortunately, the show was held down by its character development, mostly surrounding the behaviour of its Master Chief.
In a review by our sister site Gfinity, our reviewer said: “[Halo Season 2] uneven experience, even if it sets up a bombastic third season.” With some fantastic set pieces, strong character development for its secondary cast and an intriguing finale that moved closer to the games, a third season could be something truly special. However, it needs a new partner to do so.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Microsoft is actively shopping the TV rights to the Halo series for either a continuation of the current show or another take on the franchise. Furthermore, Paramount Plus is said to be “supportive” of the idea of the show continuing outside of the Paramount brand.
With this in mind, Halo could benefit from being picked up by a media company that actually knows what it's doing, and isn’t afraid to splurge a little extra to give fans the action and quality they deserve. Amazon already has experience with saving sci-fi TV shows and giving them a huge budget, namely with The Expanse.
While originally made by Syfy, The Expanse was cancelled after just three seasons. However, Amazon picked up the show and continued it until the sixth and final season in 2021. It just so happens that The Expanse is also one of Amazon’s most successful shows of all time. Alongside titles such as The Boys, sci-fi action shows are the bread and butter of the Prime streaming service.
Despite its mass hatred by fans, the Halo TV show has proven to be popular with mainstream audiences, beating Star Trek as one of Paramount’s most-watched shows. In fact, while unconfirmed, the cancellation of the show is likely more down to Paramount’s ongoing financial problems instead of Halo’s performance. After all, it’s not like Paramount to end a bad show—usually, they give them spin-offs.
While the Halo TV show isn’t perfect—far, far from it—it would be nice to see the series continue with a stronger writing team that understands Master Chief. Deviations from core canon are expected in an adaptation—Wicked deviates heavily from The Wizard of Oz—but the misrepresentation of its protagonist as well as the focus on human-covenant Makee makes for a confused TV show.