Back when I reviewed the pilot episode of The Mandalorian, I wondered if Disney could do right by Star Wars. True, many talented filmmakers and storytellers want to work in that universe, but can they do so without seeming like well-meaning children playing with borrowed toys?
After finishing the first season of The Mandalorian, I don’t know that Disney can do right by Star Wars any more than I did before, but this was some mostly solid television.
That said, Mandalorian is far from perfect, and being good isn’t the same as being great. What The Mandalorian does well, it does very well. But there was something to the show that I felt was missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something to the show that kept it from being something I looked forward to week after week. I would watch them whenever a new episode dropped, but it never felt truly like appointment television. Truth be told, I tended to look more forward to new episodes of DC Universe’s animated Harley Quinn series which often dropped the same day.
Besides, for all the show was called The Mandalorian, we all know who the true star of the show was.
Yes, the mysterious child known colloquially as “Baby Yoda” despite the fact said baby is probably not named Yoda. Heck, the series never even seemed to get around to revealing the Child’s gender. Still, it’s an incredibly impressive puppet, and series creator Jon Favreau and the various directors who worked on individual episodes deserve a lot of props for making the puppet a true character.
But the main problem with The Mandalorian was the more episodic style of storytelling that suggested, particularly with the episode titles, that this was intended as one long story with individual chapters. It doesn’t quite play that way. And given how much Pedro Pascal’s “Mando” was inclined to stay silent, I was left with a feeling for most of the series that he was little better than a generic good guy. The last episode or two made up for that, finally putting a name and face onto what appears to be the Mandalorian’s major enemy going forward. With a second season already announced, we should learn more about the mystery Child, but so far, the kid’s still a blank.
All that being said, there’s a lot here to like for the Star Wars fan. Favreau uses a lot of the common sights of that universe, and the series feels like it could take place in a galaxy far, far away, but not in the same somewhat empty nostalgic way JJ Abrams did with Rise of Skywalker. The action scenes, which are frequent, are often well-executed, and many of the plots are clever. Mando may be assisting with a jailbreak or defending a farm village from some raiders with old Imperial tech, and it’s all fun but not much beyond that.
I will be along for season two, and I expect the series to be a lot of fun with great production design, but still feel something like empty calories. That’s fine, but it seems that defines the best Disney can do with Star Wars.
Though if we get more stuff like the bickering speeder bike troopers from the start of episode eight, I may change my mind on that.
Grade: B
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