Aleria

I'm really sad and ashamed to watch this knowing how much of a great story this could be. They've butchered the story, they don't know the lore, they don't even want to get to know the lore and they even can't comprehend the depths of these stories Is it that really hard to write a good story? If yes why they don't just remake the original story?

It's not even changing or disrespecting the lore, It's completely ruining a great opportunity. I really wish in future episodes they get better but I don't have high hopes.

This could be a great and phenomenal story about struggles of humans to exist, a tradegic war and hard choice between complex dilemmas, but instead they taken it down to a low quality sci-fi.

Dear Paramount. Thanks for following the trend of every other Hollywood production company out there. You are given the reigns of arguably one of the best lore rich universes out and you burn it to the ground with useless side stories and character contradictions.

The only thing resembling Halo about this show are the names and destinations.

Paramount will more than likely get at least one more season out in an attempt to save the ship that's already been sunk from the get go. Hopefully after that we can finally burry it where it belongs and move onto something better.

We are all watching the glassing of the Halo universe.

The previous episode, Reach, was epic. Aleria feels like a filler episode, necessary to tie up loose ends. Nothing much happens really, but we get closure for Vannak's death and Riz's already struggling story. When it comes to Kwan's story I have to honestly say that in the previous season her story didn't grasp me that much. But it seems like there's more to her than meets the eye. What happened to Kwan on Aleria is building up to something bigger.

Honestly the best parts of this episode wasn't the rather slow story, but the anticipation of what is to come. This episode made me excited for what happens next, and that's good enough for me.

I may be in the minority here, and maybe that's because I haven't fully played the games before, but I do like the character exploration of the Spartans other than their combat abilities. These killing machines that bring fear to the alien horde and are seen as superheroes in the Halo world get to stretch their humanity side and also asks what exactly are Spartans? Simple machine or human beings, or maybe a bit of both apparently. Even though Riz's development feel a bit rushed, I still feel it was effective. She has doubts, weaknesses, ambitions that set her apart from being a simple soldier. And of course Vannak's story was sad and ended way too short.

This episode felt down right small in comparison to the previous one, but a good chance to catch a breath before the inevitable big battle ahead.

I agree that season two have had a pretty slow start and that the first 2-3 episodes been okay/good and not better as one had hoped. But, as many I've been really excited by episode 4 Reach and hoped that it would kickstart from here.

Before watching episode 5 I read some reviews and saw the rather low rating and thought "oh no here we go again, another somewhat slow/mediocre episode incoming".

But, I really enjoyed this. Sure it wasn't as action filled as episode 4 but it added a lot of depth and quite emotional at times. Overall a solid episode, very good acting/effects and promising build up of what's to come.