The Diplomat: Season 3 – TV Review

TL;DR – While there is joy in watching this cast eat up the screen in every frame, this is a messier season as they try to transition to something different.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Military Helicopters flying over Big Ben.

The Diplomat Review

My background is in International Relations, and it does not come up here as much as I would like, other than the occasional The Hitman’s Bodyguard jaunt. Well, today, given the situation of the world, I thought I would take a chance to have some wishful thinking in a world where the right things still matter, integrity still matters, to pretend for a couple of hours that everything hasn’t just gone to shit everywhere. But to understand why Season Three feels so volatile, we need to look at where Season Two left us.

So, to set the scene, at the end of Season Two, things went from bad to worse when the person, Grace Hagen Penn (Allison Janney), behind the scheme that blew up the British Ship in Season One has become the new President of the United States after the former suffered a heart attack during a conversation with Hal (Rufus Sewll). What was the conversation you ask? Well, it was informing him that his Vice-President may have committed a terrorist act on an ally, that very same Vice-President who is now the President of the United States. This is not a good day for Kate (Keri Russell) because the person she wanted removed just became the most powerful person in the world. Now, from here, we will be looking at the series as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Reach – TV Review

TL;DR – The Halo series has done something I never thought it would or even could do. It made me care.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The fall of Reach.

Halo Review

When I think back to the first season, sure, there were the significant changes everyone talked about, Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) taking off his mask and all that. But that never bothered me because adaptation to a new medium necessitates making changes. After all, it is a new context. My biggest problem was that the story, while satisfactory, did not make me care all that much about the characters in the show. Well, if nothing else, Season Two has fixed that problem.  

So to set the scene, in last week’s Visegrad, we discovered that not only does The Covenant know where Reach is, and that the authorities know that The Covenant knows where Reach is, but they are already on the planet and their main invasion is imminent. Queue the explosions. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Visegrad – TV Review

TL;DR – In what might be the best episode of the series so far, we ratchet up the tension, and give some real danger.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this episode.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

Reach before the fall.

Halo Review

When you have a whole galaxy to play in, it can be hard to find your focus. You have so many competing demands on your story where you want to give it depth, but then all you do is bring complexity. Science Fiction shows can very much fall into this trap, but when it all fits together, well, you get today’s episode.

So to set the scene, in last week’s episode, Sword, we discovered a genuinely horrific fact: not only do The Covenant know where Reach is, but they are already on the planet. Given that The Covenant has been glassing every planet they find with humans on it, this is a bad, bad, bad thing. Thus, we find John-117 (Pablo Schreiber), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu) & Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy) making their way through the Visegrád Sector to a comms relay that has gone dark, hoping to find the Cobalt team alive. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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