Production has kicked off on the second season of Paramount's Halo TV series, and the cast has picked up a couple of new additions, Deadline reports.
The next season of the Halo adaptation is currently being shot in Iceland before moving to Budapest later this year. Joining the cast is Joseph Morgan (who normal people will apparently remember from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, but who I only know from an appearance in 2003's Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World) and Cristina Rodlo, from last year's No One Gets Out Alive. David Wiener—who served as showrunner on Brave New World—replaces Steven Kane as the series' showrunner.
Morgan will play James Ackerson, a career-minded UNSC intelligence operative, while Rodlo will play Talia Perez, a rookie linguistics specialist. I didn't even know Halo had languages as such. Can I take a course in grunt-speak on Duolingo?
The first season of the Halo TV show left us feeling very underwhelmed: trying to cram vibes and mystery of the Halo games into a structured, watchable narrative ended up producing a staid and predictable sci-fi show. Marcus Lehto, former Halo art director, noted the differences on Twitter, saying it wasn't the Halo he "helped make".
I'd be lying if I said I had high hopes for the next season: the short blurbs describing the new characters—"career-minded rank-climber" and "rookie who hasn't seen real combat"—sound like tropes that could fit into pretty much any military narrative. On the other hand, maybe Master Chief will get it on again. That would probably justify another $200 million.
It'll be a while until we find out. The first season aired in March this year, and the second is still being filmed, so it's unlikely we'll see anything of the new season before mid-2023. Who knows—maybe a new showrunner is just what the series needs to pull a new season out the bag, but I'm keeping my expectations tempered until it airs.
