the Mandalorian

[The Cat]

Coruscant is a great setting. I mean it's full of possibilities for action set pieces. I thought even the prequels underused it. One of the few additions to the special edition I like id showing the celebration on Coruscant at the end of Jedi, even if they did omit the original Yub Nub song.

I love the undercity in coruscant.

 

[The Cat]

Y'all I really think a streaming series for the underworld on corscant would be pretty cool. especially if they arent afraid to make it dark and fairly gritty, and sexy would also be nice, but that's just me.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I love the undercity in coruscant.

Yes. We barely see that in canon films. I think they visit it in Clone Wars? Apparently Coruscant is just layer upon layer of cities, and the lower levels are not a nice place to visit.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Y'all I really think a streaming series for the underworld on corscant would be pretty cool. especially if they arent afraid to make it dark and fairly gritty, and sexy would also be nice, but that's just me.

Make enough noise about it and maybe they'll actually feature it in the next season.

I want to see more Hutts too.

 

[The Cat]

Yes. We barely see that in canon films. I think they visit it in Clone Wars? Apparently Coruscant is just layer upon layer of cities, and the lower levels are not a nice place to visit.

The young Han Solo Trilogy by AC Crispen has some of it, and some other EU stuff. There was also this book out where it took you in depth in character into the history and ecology of some of the featured worlds in the SW universe. Pretty cool.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yes. We barely see that in canon films. I think they visit it in Clone Wars?

They do.

It's my understanding that the canceled live action Lucas was working on before he sold Star Wars would have been set there. A lot of ideas from that though have been used already. Rogue One and Solo emerged out of that series, and I suspect the Mandalorian owes something to it as well. We very well may see something like that at some point.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My favorite episode is probably the one with Natalie Tena and Bill Burr, followed by 3, and then the finale.

IMO... 4 and 5 are the weakest of the bunch. I suggest sticking with it after those. But there are things I like even in those episodes. I'd rate 5 higher except the guest star really doesn't work for me, although I like them in other things.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Bill Burr is a surprisingly good actor. Liked him in Breaking Bad too, wonder if he's going to be branching into more film and TV roles now.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Actually not featuring the Hutts in this season was probably by design, since people would expect it in a series delving into bounty hunters and the criminal world and it might seem predictable. But I won't be surprised one bit if a Hutt makes an appearance in the next season.

 

[Totenkindly]

Bill Burr is a surprisingly good actor. Liked him in Breaking Bad too, wonder if he's going to be branching into more film and TV roles now.

I forgot who he was, but yeah I remember now -- Huell's more whimsical pal. They were a great duo.

 

[Totenkindly]

Burr was in episode 6.

I finished the first season last night.

My main criticism (aside from the occasional "Buck Rogers" feel, a few episodes felt about on par with the Gil Girard series, just updated to modern sensibilities): It felt like the season was either not long enough or too long, for the throughline story.

Episodes 1-3 established the main storyline. Then we get 2-3 episodes that feels more like the "wandering hero" that are episodic in nature and do very little to advance the plot. The first one was okay because it introduces an ongoing character (the Gina Cararo shock trooper) and it establishes that there is no safe place to hide The Child. The next two episodes felt completely detached and just one-offs, and I didn't really care much, as much fun as it is to watch Burr and Clancy Brown and others chew up the screen.

Then finally episodes 7-8 get back to the main storyline and they're pretty compelling -- meaningful life, death, heroics, actual tension, culminating of the "Act I" storyline and now we're on to Act II. A big bad gets established as well.

Anyway, it was like they didn't want to do a six-episode season, but then just tossed in two completely random episodes to "pad" the season out which were more distracting than anything. The series wants to be episodic? Or does it want to be ongoing? X-Files did a lot of one-offs and then included an overarcing series of lines (which was pretty new at the time, back in the 90's, I remember thinking how cool it was -- now it's become a mainstream thing). If they want more episodic things, then they needed to make it more episodic. Or otherwise just focus on the arc. Or at least (like episode 4) tie the episode to the main arc SOMEHOW.

The last episode actually had some great parts to it. To be honest, my favorite part (along with IG-11, who is amazing and hilarious in its ability to save and destroy) is the opening of episode 8, with the two troopers sitting there alone debating how long to wait and what to do with The Child. Jason Sudeikis was one of the guys (they're both masked). The banter is hilarious. But it felt a little tonally off from the rest of the series. More of that, please.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It's not unlike the later DS9 seasons, where there would be multi-episode arcs punctuated by silly one-off episodes. I don't mind that too much, though it can be a bit jarring to go from a heavy dominion war arc right into an episode about Quark and Rom's moogie or holodeck baseball games.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's not unlike the later DS9 seasons, where there would be multi-episode arcs punctuated by silly one-off episodes. I don't mind that too much, though it can be a bit jarring to go from a heavy dominion war arc right into an episode about Quark and Rom's moogie or holodeck baseball games.

I dont think it's the same, because it was only an 8 episode series, the series is still trying to set its tone, and the one offs were clumped in the middle so it wasnt clear whether they were one offs or something else.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I dont think it's the same, because it was only an 8 episode series, the series is still trying to set its tone, and the one offs were clumped in the middle so it wasnt clear whether they were one offs or something else.

That's always what they'd do on DS9, they'd usually start/end seasons with big heavy arcs, then litter the between with unrelated one-offs and a handful of episodes that might tie into the main arcs.

 

[Totenkindly]

That's always what they'd do on DS9, they'd usually start/end seasons with big heavy arcs, then litter the between with unrelated one-offs and a handful of episodes that might tie into the main arcs.

Deep space nine's first season had TWENTY episodes (and they're longer). I've already said twice that this caused confusion because there are just 8 episodes in this series. And they didnt mix them around to set a pattern, or rather it was setting a confusing pattern based on how they were clumped. Damn, man.

It's not like I am even criticizing the show. In general, I enjoyed it.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Deep space nine's first season had TWENTY episodes (and they're longer). I've already said twice that this caused confusion because there are just 8 episodes in this series. And they didnt mix them around to set a pattern, or rather it was setting a confusing pattern based on how they were clumped. Damn, man.

It's not like I am even criticizing the show. In general, I enjoyed it.

I know, I'm referring more to the general structure than the number of episodes. You yourself compared it to X Files, a contemporary of DS9. Both of those shows were part of that weird 90s transitional phase in TV where soap opera style arcs were becoming more popular but you'd still see standalones littered in the middle of a season.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I liked the Burr episode for a few different reasons.

I liked the concept of a prison ship that's mostly staffed by droids, and I liked the look of it as well, and I feel it fit the fact that it was suppose to be a New Republic ship.

I also like they we learn more about the New Republic; that's probably the thing that's most off-putting to the trilogy as a whole is how much of an afterthought it actually ends up being, but I've gone on and on about that now. Because of the time period involved, they can actually do stuff with it and hopefully add some on screen intelligibility to that whole business. Dave Filoni's Clone Wars helped make up for some of the deficiencies of the prequel trilogy (which treated the Anakin and Obi-Wan relationship as an afterthought until the third movie), so here's hoping that either this or some other series can make up for deficiencies of the sequel trilogy. (In an ideal world, the movies would of course do something to address this, but we can't all have nice things).

I liked seeing another alien of the last minute Devil Guy species from the cantina sequence (they're called Devaronians, btw). The series Filoni has worked on has been really good at incorporating stuff from different facets of Star Wars in a way that makes sense and expands the universe rather than feeling fan-servicey. Like, for instance, having the clones use shiny new Y-wings in the Clone Wars.

I also liked the fact that even though they were working together (at least at first), they didn't really get along.

Bill Burr's backpack blaster is also pretty cool.

I guess it is a disposable stand-alone episode, and maybe in this age, that feels out of place to some, but as a disposable stand-alone episode, it gave me everything I wanted.

 

[Fluffywolf]

I was pretty stoked by the good reviews and stared watching the show.

I dropped the show after episode 2. I might give it another chance some other time, but episode 1 didn't really pull me in much and then episode 2 left me very dissappointed.

The deus ex machina was strong, plot and storytelling aspects were subpar. It made the whole show feel unbelievable, and so far the only charm of the show has been baby yoda. And it feels like the writers think they can get away with everything else because of it.

Maybe I'll have a slow sunday coming up soon on which I'll feel a bit more forgiving in order to continue watching the show, but so far I am not impressed.

 

[Totenkindly]

I was pretty stoked by the good reviews and stared watching the show.

I dropped the show after episode 2. I might give it another chance some other time, but episode 1 didn't really pull me in much and then episode 2 left me very dissappointed.

The deus ex machina was strong, plot and storytelling aspects were subpar. It made the whole show feel unbelievable, and so far the only charm of the show has been baby yoda. And it feels like the writers think they can get away with everything else because of it.

Maybe I'll have a slow sunday coming up soon on which I'll feel a bit more forgiving in order to continue watching the show, but so far I am not impressed.

well, it's not Breaking Bad. It's not even ST: DSN.

But coming off ROS, it was a step up. I never watched The Adventures of Hercules with kevin Sorbo or the Xena Warrior Princess shows, but I was feeling like it was more on that level.

I think if the episodes were an hour, I wouldn't have finished it. But for eight 30 minute episodes, it had a few fun moments.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

30 minutes is good. Guess this makes me sound shallow, but these days I find hour-long episodes of most series to be overlong. Usually what needs to be said can be said in 30 minutes, and if it can't, then that's what two-parters and multi-episode arcs are for. The show Atypical features fairly short episodes for a drama, but I think they're perfect. This occurred to me last time I rewatched Star Trek TNG, how much filler there was in many of the episodes. And those were generally only about 44 minutes, but I think a lot of them could've been trimmed down a bit, but you know, the writers had to have enough to fill the timeslot.

I suppose there's a few exceptions to this, like when I watched Mindhunter I always felt the episodes ended too quickly because I was so drawn into it. I also wished some of the interview scenes with the serial killers went on a bit longer. And I liked Black Mirror doing what felt like mini-movie length episodes, but it usually worked given the standalone nature of that series' episodes.


It is odd in the era of streaming how many series made for streaming are still being made with episodes adhering to a strict set length.