It was a feature of the Halo video games that its protagonist, the towering super soldier named “Master Chief,” lacked both a face and a personality. If Mario is a plucky plumber thrust into the role of knighthood and Lara Croft an adventuring archaeologist with thigh holsters, then Master Chief is — to borrow from a certain big, inescapable hit movie from last summer — “Just Soldier.”

The intention behind the game’s anemic characterization of Master Chief was to let players imagine themselves as Earth’s hero in a futuristic fight for survival. In the live-action series adaptation for Paramount+, efforts to give Chief actual distinction — as necessitated by the innate differences between a video game and a serialized TV drama — renders the franchise’s staple feature into a bug. Even in its brightest moments, Halo cannot surmount the challenges presented in its protagonist’s glitchy point-of-view.

There’s a lot worth celebrating about True Detective: Night Country. From Jodie Foster’s commanding, icy performance as Liz Danvers to its clever, thematically rich connections to the HBO series’ past seasons, Night Country has packed itself full of enough satisfying, intriguing details to make viewers feel safe about giving it both their time and attention. The further into its story the True Detective season gets, the more ingenious its perpetually nighttime setting seems, too.

Ever since it began with Ennis, Alaska’s final sunset of the year, Night Country has fully lived up to the promise of its title. Its exterior scenes have all taken place under the same dark sky, while its interiors have been devoid of any natural light. The result has been disorienting, to say the least. The lack of any daylight has made it impossible to keep track of the passage of time — and therein lies the true brilliance of the season’s lightless environment.