Star Wars ‘Ashoka’ Season 1 Review
Baylan Skoll, played by Ray Stevenson, not only gave the best performance of the entire season, but he had the best character and best writing (barring the finale) of any character we were introduced to.
Though ‘Ashoka’ felt like returning home after a long time gone from a galaxy far, far away, reviving our favorite characters from previous shows and introducing new ones that are the most intriguing we’ve had since Cassian Andor and telling a story laden with real consequences, the season finale left us wanting - and not in the good way.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Most of the Star Wars shows and movies we’ve been given since Disney acquired LucasFilm 11 years ago have lacked the soul of what Star Wars is - a creative, innovative space fantasy with classical motifs that make the Galaxy Far Far Away feel like a new and exciting home. ‘Ashoka’ remedies this in a way that even ‘Andor,’ the only other show that scratches that quality writing itch that plagues me, could not do. ‘Ashoka’ is laden with cinematography and story motifs that echo through time and space of the original trilogy. The Force is ethereal, intangible, and mystic again - as Han Solo described it in Episode 4. The way Padawans, or at least our current excuse for them, are treated feels like they are being led to a belief rather than being told. Even the threat feels ‘normal’ again for Star Wars because Thrawn embodies the best of what Palpatine was - a hyper-intelligent, manipulative mastermind with enough of a chip on his shoulder to be menacing.
Yet, Thrawn, for all his anticipation and stellar performance by Lars Mickelson (no, he doesn’t look like the cartoon, and no, we shouldn’t care), was not the best villain we were given this season.
Baylan Skoll, played by Ray Stevenson, not only gave the best performance of the entire season, but he had the best character and best writing (barring the finale) of any character we were introduced to. Even Shin Hati, Baylan’s apprentice, who gave a convincing performance herself, rode the coattails of her master, who is promising to be the best new character in the Star Wars franchise since Cassian Andor. He’s so good, in fact, that my intrigue in his character, and his mission, totally eclipsed my excitement for Ezra’s reveal and multitude of reunions and almost eclipsed my excitement for Thrawn (and would have!... if Thrawn hadn’t been so damn good.)
Speaking of Thrawn being so damn good, his victory at the end of the season finale, punctuated by the best bad-guy-gloat in recent cinematic history, highlights yet another very positive point for the show - the reality of competent enemies and the consequences of actions. Everything from the death of Morgan Elsbeth (the result of trusting an ambitious sociopath like Thrawn) to Ahsoka and Sabine being left stranded on Peridia in a galaxy far, far away (and not the one we’re familiar with), the show is riddled with consequence that feels real due to magnitude and context.
Sadly, and despite the number of positives I’ve just listed, the season finale, and, therefore, the season as a whole, left me feeling dissatisfied and underwhelmed. For all its boons, ‘Ashoka’ still suffers from a major modern-Hollywood flaw - they’re scared to tell a complete story.
Riddled with pacing issues, wasted minutes, short episodes for lack of content, and a desire for unnecessary subplots (which seems to have been explicitly included to slow the show down enough to make room for two seasons), ‘Ashoka’ only tells us half the story. This would be forgivable if there were so much story to suggest that it would not be possible to tell this tale in less than two seasons; however, based on the empirical data given to us by the show itself (many points of which I have mentioned above), this is not the case.
Rather than spending six out of eight episodes waiting to reveal Grand Admiral Thrawn and alluding to some grand cosmic power that Baylan is searching for, only to have Thrawn chuck away Baylan and Shin, and then have Baylan chuck away Shin in the very next episode, followed by a finale where we get a total of 30 seconds between the two newest-and-most-interesting characters in the Star Wars franchise, all while wasting time Hera and Jaycen (who we are already endeared to) and getting to know a galactic political system that has little bearing at all on the story we are presently witnessing and useless cameos of characters from less-likable entries in the franchise, Disney should have done the following:
First, give the audience ten episodes instead of eight.
Second, make each episode an hour with an hour-and-a-half premiere as well as an hour-and-a-half finale.
Third, spend your first four episodes getting to Peridia in the new galaxy we’ve been given, revealing Thrawn, and starting Baylan and Shin’s side quests.
Fourth, have this eighth episode serve as a mid-season climax, with our characters being left behind, Thrawn posing a real threat, and Baylan approaching the Mountain of the Son (embodiment of the Dark Side).
Lastly, spend your last five episodes covering the plot that is planned with the Son, the Daughter, and Anakin (not representing the Father and Balance) to return to the known galaxy at the last minute, while in the known galaxy, we cover Hera leading a fight against Thrawn while Ezra trains Jaycen. Your true finale is a showdown against Thrawn that finishes that fight, completing a full story for Ashoka while setting up Ezra, Sabine, Hera, and Jaycen to usher in a new era of Star Wars Heroes that gives us the best parts of non-force-sensitive people like Hera, mixed with those that are force sensitive like Ezra, Sabine, and Jaycen. Sweeten the pot with a cameo of our deep-faked Luke at the new Jedi Temple. You’ve not only made the best story since the original trilogy, but you’ve laid the groundwork to tell an infinite number of stories that are still close to the ones that got us to fall in love with the galaxy far, far away.
Much to my and many others’ chagrin, Disney will not allow this to happen even if the storytellers are on board. Why, you ask? Because executives at giant conglomerates like Disney have forgotten the first rule as Storyteller’s of any medium - Love your audience.
