And so, after 17 years of false starts, numerous failed attempts at feature films (including a Peter Jackson venture), more than 265 drafts, a reported budget of $200m and a production schedule in Hungary decimated by the pandemic, we are finally set to see a TV series of the video game Halo. Will it have been worth such perseverance? Since the release of the first video game in Microsoft's crown jewel franchise – 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved – the series has sold more than 81m games, generating in excess of $6bn. If a network sticks the landing, a Halo TV show could be a significant weapon in its arsenal. For the uninitiated: Halo takes place at a time of intergalactic war between humans and a collective of quasi-religious alien species known as the Covenant.

Welcome once again to Video IRL, where several of our editors talk about what they've been watching in their spare time. This month brings a mixed bag; while one of us dived into season one of Starz' series American Gods; another is obsessed with a quirky UK game show that will make the jump to America soon; we've given anime another chance and last but not least, there's even some robot-enabled larceny. A decade after slowly drifting away from watching anime as a genre, I've somehow found myself with a Crunchyroll Premium subscription. It started when my wife wanted to watch the 2014 Sailor Moon reboot, continued as we stumbled into the addictive absurdity of Food Wars and became a paid subscription somewhere between starting Rin-ne and catching up on new episodes of Dragon Ball Super. Somehow, we became anime fans again. It's good to be back, too -- but it's not the high-profile, weekly simulcast adventures of Goku that keep me coming back to the anime streaming service.

You live, it's true, in a Golden Age of Television, and at least some of that gold comes in the form of lucky coins from leprechauns that reanimate unfaithful dead spouses. Which is to say, some of the most premium-est of premium TV right now is genre--science fiction and fantasy. Not long ago, Mad Men got the recaps, after-shows, and literary-minded critiques; now, those hosannas go to squabbling deities, swords-and-sorcery, zombies, killer robots, and raptures. It ought to be a fan's dream. Yet, the relentless grimdark of those shows, and the grinding search for Meaning, can be numbing.

Belief is power in the world of American Gods. In Neil Gaiman's beloved novel -- and the lavish new Starz adaptation from Bryan Fuller and Michael Green -- gods exist because people believe in them, and as soon as we stop believing... well, you remember what Peter Pan told us about fairies. Unfortunately for the Old Gods -- mythological deities like Odin and Anubis, who were worshiped in earlier periods of civilization -- humans typically have a short attention span, and we're increasingly turning away from the holy figures of our pasts in favor of smartphones and binge-watching. Technology has become our new god, and that tension between the old and the new drives a lot of the drama in American Gods, as these mythic figures battle for relevance and the attention of humanity. SEE ALSO: 'American Gods' gives classic art a tech twist, because it already knows us way too well Our hapless protagonist, ex-con Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), will meet dozens of gods on his journey, and we're not going to reveal them all here.