southdavid

I wrote reviews for each season of "Halo" but now the series is cancelled, I'm free to put some thoughts here about my overall feelings about the show.

A battle between Earth forces and an Alien Covenant on the planet Madrigal unearths a mystery object. This artefact is linked to a second larger one, which together will reveal the position the Halo, a mythical structure and potential weapon that both the Humans and the Covenant want in their possession. Leading the battle for the UNSC forces is The Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) a soldier separated from his family and trained since childhood to lead the SPARTAN team, his contact with the first artifact though, reveals suppressed memories about his early life.

I should say that my experience with "Halo" is only playing through the first two games, I haven't yet got around to playing any of the subsequent titles in the series. I say this, because there are definite elements of this story that deviate from the plots of those games. There's no Arbiter character, for example, though some of that plot line might end up being done via Makee, a human character who lives with the Covenant and has a religious role, based on her connection to the Artefact. There's no connection to the Flood yet. The Master Chief takes off his mask, which I understand as a performance choice, but felt to me, like lacking in faith in the character. There's also a large secondary story that I didn't detail in the plot synopsis above, involving Kwan Ha, played by Yerin Ha, a Madrigal native who sees the Earth Forces take the artefact, but who the Master Chief connects with a former Spartan, and who returns to Madrigal to try and instigate a rebellion against the forces that rose up in the aftermath. This was, for me, not an aspect of the story I cared about and took time away from the Spartans, the UNSC and the Covenant storylines, that I was more interested in.

Away from thinking of it as an adaptation, I think, If I knew nothing at all about "Halo" going in, I'd come away having thought that the series was decent enough, though perhaps nothing special. The visual effects are good, the story isn't particularly original, but it makes sense and there are tensions being built.

My thoughts on the first season of "Halo" were that it was fine, but I didn't love it like I hoped I might. I did say that I'd watch the second season though and indeed I did. The first few episodes of the season were again a bit of a chore but then I felt it really picked up, so much so that I enjoyed it overall and would have been looking forward to season three.

I originally posted this review against the final episode of the show, but with confirmation now that it will not be returning, I've decided to add that review here also.

Five women from Birmingham travel to a remote North Wales cottage for a hen night. Unfortunately, a pandemic of crab measles wipes out much of human civilisation, particularly the men. Several weeks later, they risk a trip out to hunt for supplies but in doing so risk anyone they meet learning about their secret. That male stripper Drew (Ben McGregor) who visited that night is still alive and chained to the radiator for his safety.

The apocalypse is always going to work well on UK TV and films, because unless you want to do zombie hoards, the lack of supporting artists is going to keep the cost down. The characters are fairly broadly written to start with, but the longer the show goes, the more explanations you get for why people are as they are. After the first couple of epsiodes, the plot splits in two, as the main cast come to realise the "white gold" mine they have, with potentially the last man alive and try to convince the bride, Zara, that her fiancée is not coming to rescue her. They're all brilliantly played. Luzie Shorthouse, from "We Are Lady Parts" is Zara, Elizabeth Berrington almost steals the whole show as her mum, Bern - ostensibly the villain of the show. Callie Cooke from "Cheaters" plays her best friend Shelly and Lauren O' Rourke, from "White Gold" plays survivalist Veena.

But what I really liked was the other, madder plot, where Jen, played by Kate O'Flynn, is driven mad on a combination of pain, infection, loneliness and probably some mental illness to begin with, and goes on a fantasy quest with Danny Dyer, playing himself in "ultimate geezer" mode.

As I say, it's more amusing than funny, and if you want to argue that time is too short for all but the pinnacle then I'd say this isn't the one for you. If you're prepared to invest a bit of time in the character though, the returns are there.

I've written reviews for each season of "Hullraisers" that you can find against the show's final episodes. Now the show is confirmed as not returning, I decided to post something here, to sum up my overall feelings about it.

Toni (Leah Brotherhead) is a mother and aspiring actress, living in Hull. Her older sister Paula (Sinead Matthews) is married to Dane (Yanick Ghanty) and has two children of her own, including Ashley (Natalie Davies) who is almost an adult herself. Rana (Taj Atwal) is Toni's best friend and Dane's sister and who is enjoying her single, childless, life. Toni struggles to cling to her youthful optimism, as it's drained away by parenthood.

I thought that the first season of "Hullraisers" was fine. It's not particularly hilarious, but neither is it a disastrous debacle. I really liked the performances though from our three leads. Leah Brotherhead came to my attention in "Zomboat" a few years back, this is a somewhat more realistic role though and, to my mind, she acquits herself to it well. All three roles could, in another version of the show, been reduced to their one defining characteristic, Toni is unfulfilled, Paula is a fishwife, and Rana is a maneater but there's enough shades to each performance to move beyond that.

The Hull setting doesn't get that much play and, having spent a bit of time there, the accents are a little more "generic Yorkshire/Lancashire" than specifically Humberside. I do like that its set in a more realistic working-class background and not extreme poverty though.

I would say that I thought the series improved in the second season, so much so that I would have looked forward to a third run.