So. That was that. First impressions immediately after watching. Please recall I have watched this show once through, and not with insanely close attention, so if there are actually explanations for the many things that annoyed me, great, but they weren’t clear enough for me to catch in one viewing, which is a narrative problem for the show.

SPOILERS FROM HERE. Halo the TV show did as I feared, offered up no answers, only new more dramatic unknowns. We have the flood, and no explanation of Kwan’s abilities or link to the protector/vision quest lady. (Or why Kwan was once protector of Madrigal specifically, now, not so much. Just forget about that.) We have the Halo installation, and no explanation of who built it, and still no explanation of why John and Makee are important to it and can use the Mcguffins either by direct touch, or touch through armor. We have Makee suddenly knowing a whole lot more than John, (when she’s spent this season being ignorant and knowing nothing, and her life literally depended on knowing more, but she didn’t and Cortana had to save her butt, but now, on the halo, she gets a random internal info dump. Aye right.) because that is a way to have her say dramatic sounding things. We have no explanation for how John found Cortana’s broken disc (so no signal, presumably), but then it didn’t matter because he could smash his hand into a console and somehow she could then interface with his armor, or him, not sure which, and I no longer care either. We have magical “shoot flood zombies at close range but have no biological spatter onto the shooter effect” – plot armor decrees who gets infected or not. Don’t touch anyone, until you need to frisk a contaminated corpse for a key, (or a gun earlier). I did have Kwan as the winner of the plot armor sweepstakes until I saw Kai floating in space. Kai was one of the high points of the series, but really she should not survive that. Vannak was obviously a total loser to just get shot and killed if you can survive two ships ramming into each other. But she did have her armor, plot and story-based, on. He, sadly, did not.

What else? Oh Dr. Halsey got the disease, one way to finally stop her pontificating on at maximum patronisement levels, but of course Miranda puts her in a freezer. Which was handily right there. Of course next season Miranda will get out of the locked lab surrounded by alien spore zombies, probably off screen, which is how Soren tends to get from one place to another.

There is one credited story editor, or writing co-ordinator. I put my hope in that. So wrong. This is a mystery box apocalypse and I’m not going to be insulted by it any longer. I love my space and guns, but I’d like it to be coherent.

The last fight between John and the Arbiter. Why didn’t the Arbiter finish him off with a power sword thingy? John was down and out, and the Arbiter just assumes him dead? Seems foolish for an experienced soldier who really wanted to kill John, having been denied the chance before. Just silly, so we have a Rocky style off the ropes and roaring comeback, with use of new rope-a-dope tech that I didn’t recall being used before. Blah. Better to have John get beaten to a pulp but show it as a plan to get up close to the Arbiter and take him out, eyeball to eyeball. The Arbiter would respect that more. Why can’t he leap off the ground and have a magical second wind like John did? Because. Why does John let Mackee run ahead? His armor is broken in that particular way, but he can still walk freely? How convenient. He’d better not run fast or do any crazy jumps any time soon next season, or that won’t make any sense!

And Kai’s kill shot was awesome, but that turns the tide of battle? Ehhhh. Ok. That was the least of my gripes TBH, more human fleet had arrived, so ok. (But why pull in more human fleet if your plan is to have everything in the system destroyed, including those ships if they join in? (Other Spartan 3’s are still pursuing the spike objective at this point, presumably – but that’s a guess, so who knows.) Would you not keep them in reserve: this is a large scale multi system war after all, don’t blow up all your hardware at once. Wait, why am I bothering to ask that?)  

Enough. I didn’t know the lore, enjoyed the space special effects and the guns, liked Silver team and the camaraderie, but this show got annoying by the end. This is Alias all over again, on steroids. Screw that. They could have provided a partial answer for why John and Mackee can interface with artifacts, they didn’t. They could have at least indicated if Kwan’s legacy was from the flood or the other ancient aliens, probably the AA, but no reasonable connection is made or explained, you just have to, in classic mystery box style, assume something that might not be there, fill in the yawning mystery gaps yourself, because that makes for viewer engagement, speculation, and theories, all of which get undercut by the next random revelation. Speaking of – the old gal with the symbol between her eyes – she was physically on the planet in S2 ep1, but now is a vision quest person. How/Why? Oh wait, I don’t care anymore, the mystery boxing has enraged me. I do not like to speak ill of my fellow writers, but gorram it, this was a complete fail. I do not expect a next season to save it, because that is what folk thought with Lost, what I imagined for a bit with Alias, until I realized I was being strung along for nothing, no payoff, no resolution, just more mystery boxes and conveniently forgotten plot threads. Not going there again. I hope these writers prove me wrong, and if I hear that they have, I shall return to eat humble pie and sing their praises. I can honestly say there is nothing I’d like more than to be able to do that. But I’m not watching any more to find out. I’ll let the internet tell me of their triumph first.

I’m going to play the games instead.