2019 science fantasy, 8 episodes, Star Wars tie-in. After the fall
of the Empire, there's still work for bounty hunters.
Disclaimer: naturally I haven't seen this series, because since
I'm not an American subscriber to Disney+ there's no way for me to do
so.
The first impression is that there's an awful lot of front-loading of
things to remind the viewer that this is Star Wars™ not some other
sci-fi show: here's a landspeeder, here's the eyeball on a stick, here
are people frozen in carbonite, here's that antenna looking thing with
the three vertical bars round it, here's a floating interrogation
droid, here's a "high ground" reference, here's the round girder with
roughened bits that was in the trash compactor, Jawas, Tusken Raiders,
Tattooine, all the rest of it. Almost every time there's a choice
about what to show us, it's something we've seen before. It makes the
universe feel perversely small.
And at the same time it feels like pandering. Never mind the plot or
the acting, here's more stuff with Star Wars printed on the label. You
like stuff with Star Wars printed on the label. Slip me your wallet
and I'll give you more stuff like that.
And that's probably necessary because, apart from the silly names, it
pretty much is just some other sci-fi show. I mean, why would I
watch this rather than Killjoys or The Expanse? The acting's
OK-ish, the plots are recycled from Westerns and other media that
borrowed from Westerns (and, of course, Lone Wolf and Cub), and
really "because it's Star Wars" is about the only thing that's true of
this show and not of any of the others.
All right, mostly they don't do Force stuff, though it is the
universal get-out-of-plot-free card when the writers can't think of an
honest way to solve the problem.
Basically it's all nonsense. All the ideas fall apart as soon as you
look at them. The only way to watch this is to turn off your brain and
go "ooh, I recognise that" every few seconds. It's fine while it's
going on, even enjoyable, but the moment it's over it slides out of
your mind leaving no trace apart from a vague fuzzy feeling, like
mould.
Naturally, the audiences love it. Why wouldn't they? There's nothing
here with enough substance to object to; it's the same principle that
made American Budweiser popular. Zap zap emote zap boom. Yes, of
course there's going to be a second season.
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