Star Wars Ahsoka: Dave Filoni Came Not To Save Star Wars, But To Bury It

There’s a chance, a slim chance, that maybe Ahsoka will find a way to become a better show before the finale (the first two episodes of its eight episode season are out now), but based on the first couple of episodes, I seriously doubt it.

Much like the other Disney+ Star Wars shows, instead of coming up with an interesting and original adventure for a fan favorite character that maybe explores some new aspect of that character, Lucasfilm took the road they’ve taken with all of the Star Wars properties to date: the lazy road.

Ahsoka isn’t compelling at all; it’s a bland, boring show that strips all personality these characters had in their animated versions, leans heavily on the same tired tropes every other Disney Star Wars property has used, and seems more focused on recreating a live-action version of the Dave Filoni’s Rebels show than anything.

How bad is it? In one of the YouTube video reviews I watched after watching the episodes for myself, someone had another video playing in the background that displayed one-for-one live action sequences of scenes that were already in Rebels.

But, Dave Filoni is going to save Star Wars, you say?

Yeah, no. He’s not. Whatever creative spark he may had that worked in the Clone Wars and, to a lesser extent, the Rebels animated shows has long since run out of mojo.

Star Wars is dead, but that’s not going to stop Disney and Kathleen Kennedy from picking up the body that they murdered in the first place and pulling a “Weekend at Bernie’s” to convince fans there’s still some life in that decaying body.

Sure, it looks like a Star Wars show. They at least had a decent production budget, unlike some of the other series (Obi-Wan, Boba Fett, etc). But there’s just this feeling that something’s… off.

It’s not as bad as Obi-Wan or Boba Fett – which tie for the worst shite Disney Star Wars has cranked out, but it’s not all that great, either.

Part of the problem is that Ahsoka assumes the viewer has seen both the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series. Like, I’m pretty sure that Lucasfilm actually posted a thing on social media with a complete breakdown of what you should have watched/read before starting Ahsoka.

And yet, even that’s not entirely useful because I believe this show takes place several years after the end of Rebels. You can kind of put together some aspect of the relationships (Ahsoka is a Jedi because she has lightsabers. She and Hera and Sabine all clearly have some sort of history, etc). There are hints of things that have happened between characters in between that time, but it’s barely even mentioned.

They could have done a live-action recap of the Rebels show – including showing the entire Rebels cast, what happened to Kanan and Ezra and Thrawn’s role in that show, and where the show basically ended. At least, then, there would have been some introduction to these characters and their history.

If you haven’t seen any of the animated shows, Filoni’s not going to bother to introduce these characters to you. Ahsoka just comes off as “stoic” — she’s supposed to because she’s a Jedi. You can plainly see that because she has lightsabers. But, Ahsoka is NOT a Jedi, and the show doesn’t bother to clarify any of this. Adult Ahsoka is also completely devoid of any personality that she had in the animated shows or even from the Mandalorian.

Hera is general in the New Republic, but you’d never guess that by looking at her. Or else, the New Republic is super casual about their leaders wearing uniforms because she’s wearing the same outfit, complete with the goofy head googles, from the animated show. It’s like Filoni thought the audience would be confused if the one green alien from the show changed her clothes, even though everyone addresses her by name. Okay, they do use her last name a lot “General Sindoula” — (I probably spelled that wrong and I don’t care) — but “real” fans would know her last name.

Actually dressing like a Republic general and flying around in a Republic ship instead of the Ghost (and she doesn’t even fly the Ghost — it’s the little shuttle — oh yeah, the Ghost is the ship that the cast of Rebels flew around in) might have made a difference. In the second episode, she tries to throw her weight around in a scene when the locals tell her some info is classified. When she declares she’s a general in the New Republic, you almost expect the guy she’s talking to, to roll his eyes and respond that if she’s a general, he’s a grand admiral (which actually would have been funnier than what happened next).

Then there’s Sabine. Even though the show is called ‘Ahsoka’ you could easily argue that Sabine is the star of the show. We’re introduced to Sabine in the first episode on Lothal, where most of Rebels took place. The main city is having a big ceremony to honor the end of the war and the rebel leaders who helped make it happen, including Sabine. And, she’s there, at the ceremony, up until they want her to give a speech. At that point, she bails.

The mayor? has to get the new senator to say a few words in her place, then he sends a couple of troops in ships to bring her back. That seems kind of extreme, but whatever. There probably should have been a scene where she made it clear she didn’t want to give a speech, or just not have Sabine at the ceremony at all. Anyway, the “cops” go flying after her as she cruises down the highway to nowhere on a speeder bike, order her to stop and even park a ship to block her way. She refuses, pulls a maneuver to slide under the ship and keeps going. The “cops” decide that this makes her cool, decide to give her a nod and just ignore their orders.

It’s all meant to make Sabine look cool because she doesn’t put up with “the man”, but it really just makes her look like an asshole. It also doesn’t help that Filoni decided that Sabine should look the same way she did in Rebels, so he cast a woman who could easily pass for 15-16. That would be fine if they were doing a live action version of Rebels from the start where I think Sabine was meant to be about 16, and then her behavior could be chalked up to being a teenage brat. But, Ahsoka takes place several years after the end of Rebels where Sabine was probably supposed to be 19 or 20, putting her current age somewhere in her mid to late 20s. Later, she even defies Ahsoka’s orders, because she can, and it’s just not a good look.

Another aspect of it is just this weird juxtaposition of integrating the Rebels show into the “real” Star Wars universe. Sure, it could work, but for reasons, Filoni decided that the animated elements of the show should look no different than their live-action versions. When we get to Lothal, the city looks like a cartoon city even complete with it’s weird “highway” — a single four lane road leading out of the city that’s technically a road to nowhere. There’s a “lothcat” that’s cgi but really doesn’t look any different than it’s animated version.

None of the three main leads are written particularly well, and all of them appear to be told to act with zero emotions. Lucasfilm can’t have these women getting all emotional in Star Wars for “reasons”, even when it’s clear that the topic/moment requires there to be some emotion.

Seriously, the only two characters who even show a hint of emotion are the two droids who are with the main characters, and that’s just sad.

Ray Stevenson makes a pretty imposing bad guy, but he’s only in the show for a couple of scenes. Even then, he’s not even the main baddie. The main baddie is a “Nightsister” – a witch – who wants to find a lost Imperial leader. The sisters are another batch of characters that were either introduced in a novel and/or the Clone Wars cartoon. Stevenson (I’m calling him by his real name because I don’t care enough to look up his character name), also has a female padawan, but she barely has more than a couple of lines of dialogue.

The plot is pretty straightforward up to this point. The bad guys are looking for a map to figure out where the Empire’s last Grand Admiral was banished/sent to? It’s not clear why he was sent off to the ass end of the galaxy, but now that there’s no Vader and no Emperor, the bad guys want to find him so he can rally the fragmented remnants of the Empire and usurp the New Republic before they can establish themselves.

Who’s Thrawn? Thrawn is a fan favorite villain from a series of books published in the 90s by Timothy Zahn. The Heir to the Empire series depicted the rebels trying to organize a new system of government  while the fragments of the Empire tried to rebuild with Han, Leia, Luke and the others in the middle of it all. Disney dumped all of this into the “Extended Universe” with all of the other materials after their acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012.

At least, until Dave Filoni needed a villain for his animated show Star Wars: Rebels. Then, he pilfered the character for use in his own series. The rumor for Ahsoka is that they’re effectively going to “borrow” most of the plot from the Heir to the Empire books and recycle it in the show, replacing the original Star Wars characters with the Rebels cast.

Of course, whenever there’s a character that needs to be found in Disney Star Wars, there’s a map. And, of course, the map’s not just anywhere. You can’t just look it up or go ask Bob for it. The map has to be hidden in some ancient ruin in some equally ancient artifact that is also locked and can’t simply be opened. Naturally, both the good guys and the bad guys are looking for the map.

The whole map silliness echoes both of the Macguffins from the sequel trilogy (one to find Luke, and then another to find the Emperor). So far, at least it hasn’t completely devolved into the cast finding a thing that requires them to find another thing that leads to yet another thing to unlock the first thing. Not yet, anyway…

That’s basically the plot. The bad guys need to find a dude. To find the dude, they need a map. But, the good guys get the map first. Bad guys take the map from the good guys before they can decipher where the dude’s location is, and now the bad guys know the location and can go get the dude. The good guys want to stop the bad guys from finding the dude, and so off they go.

That’s it. That’s the story. The trailers have already shown glimpses of Thrawn, so he’s going to at least make an appearance.

It also doesn’t help that the episodes are painfully slow. The first episode is nearly an hour long, and it makes you feel every moment of it. Conversations between the main characters take too long. Not because they have a lot to say, but because each time someone says something, they take a long time to say it, and then there’s a long pause before the other person responds.

There are more than a couple of moments where Sabine and Ahsoka are just looking at each other, to the point that you start to wonder if the writers are trying to hint that they were a couple, which was never in any of the shows.

Not surprisingly, as much as Filoni seems obsessed with recreating every visual aspect of Rebels as he can, he doesn’t seem to give a damn about preserving the lore from his own shows.

There’s a LOT of slowly walking to a place. Even the lightsaber fights are tedious. One fight is dragged out because they’re trying to build suspense of hoping that help will arrive (and how the character even knows that the other person is in trouble in the first place makes no sense).

And don’t get me started about lightsabers. Back in my day, if you got stabbed with a lightsaber, you didn’t get back up. That’s all I’m saying.

Even with all of that, there will be plenty of scenes that will immediately remind you of something that you’ve seen before and, more than likely, was done better in other Star Wars films.

Here’s another strange thing. There are several shots that seem to linger on Sabine’s butt. At first, you think, okay, why are there gratuitous butt shots in a Star Wars show. But, then, you realize, it’s not that. They’re doing it because they’re simply too lazy to have a second camera switch to another point of view. Maybe they didn’t want to show Sabine staring off into space, only, she does plenty of that as it is.

Later, after watching some YouTube videos, I learned that at least two of the shots are like that simply because they’re recreating an animated sequence straight out of Rebels.

Another big problem with this show is what’s NOT in the show.

“He Who Must Not Be Named”

Technically, this takes place at some point after the destruction of the second Death Star, Vader and the Emperor. So, at this point in time, the original Star Wars characters are very much alive and kicking. Don’t expect there to be a single mention of them, and especially Luke, hero of the Republic and the last true remaining Jedi. I would also expect the Republic in general to be left out of this, even though technically the return of the last Imperial Grand Admiral could represent an existential threat to the New Republic. Instead, I expect the trio of main characters to go chasing the bad guys on their own.

Die hard Rebels fans and/or Dave Filoni fanboys will probably love every minute of the show. Filoni throws plenty of elements from the animated shows in here. Even so, I can’t imagine even those fans would be all that excited to see their favorite Rebels characters completely neutered from their animated counterparts.

If you never watched the animated series, though, I’m not sure you’ll find much here. There might be something in the later episodes if you’re a fan of the prequels. There are rumors that there may be a couple of flashbacks between Ahsoka and Anakin (oh yeah, spoiler — Ahsoka was Anakin’s padawan during the Clone Wars).

Filoni desperately wants the show to be taken seriously, but at the same time, it clings to its animated roots so much that you can’t take the show seriously at all. It’s certainly no “adult” Star Wars; Filoni doesn’t have the writing chops that Andor creator Tony Gilroy does.

In fact, if you want to see an original take on Star Wars, skip Ahsoka and go watch Andor (who was Andor? Remember Rogue One? Remember that guy with the cool robot sidekick? That’s him. Don’t watch it for him — the larger story is way better).

Or, if you want to learn about Thrawn, skip all of Disney Star Wars and go pick up Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire series. It’s way better than anything Lucasfilm has cranked out in the last decade since Disney took over.

But, if you simply want to watch more bland, boring shite with the Disney Star Wars name attached to it, Ahsoka can fill up a few hours of your time while you reminisce about the good old days when Star Wars was actually good.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan – A Complete Waste of Time

The day Lucasfilm announced a live-action Obi-Wan series, I, like many Star Wars fans, were incredibly excited about the possibilities of what they could do with the show. Maybe they’ll pick a time during the Clone Wars when he’s a general and fighting, or training under Qui-Gon, or borrow one of the story arcs from the Clone Wars animated series. 


Instead, the creators specifically pick one of the least interesting times of his life; the period where Obi-Wan is hiding in the sands of Tatooine and keeping an eye on the “boy” in order to protect him.

We more or less knew that going in, especially after the trailer. So, okay, maybe the show will be a character study, with Obi-Wan trying to deal with the aftermath of the war, Anakin’s betrayal, the end of the Jedi, etc.

Maybe it won’t suck.

The first two episodes of the show premiered this week on Disney+, and while I didn’t have high hopes for the show after the trailer appeared, I was pretty bored by the end of the second episode. 

It’s so bad that I half hope/wonder if Lucasfilm will pull a Book of Boba Fett and have a couple of episodes where Kenobi isn’t even in them. 

Instead of crafting a series around one of Star Wars favorite heroes, the current stewards of George Lucas’ legacy are dead set on destroying Lucas’ creation. We waited decades to see a live-action Star Wars television series, and now that it’s here, you find yourself wishing they’d just stuck with the animated shows.

That’s not a knock on Ewan McGregor, who does the best he can with what little he’s given. Although you’d think even he’d have concerns with the approach to the character.

It’s not as bad as Fett, which was a complete mess. The first opening sequence was great, if not unfortunate, due to recent real-world events. We then move onto a second opening that introduces the Inquisitors and Reva, the only bad guy with a name, so she’s clearly going to play a major part in the show. Finally, we move onto the third opening, which takes us to Obi-Wan.

Two episodes in, and the show already feels bloated. There are only six episodes, and it still feels like that the whole thing could have been condensed down to a film. There are a couple of good scenes, but those could have been kept in the film. The inquisitors try to be intimidating, but they can’t come close to Darth Vader, who is one of the best villains in sci-fi.

So far, there’s nothing all that interesting to see in Obi-Wan. While they’ve borrowed some of the elements from the animated shows and Dave Filoni, this series is completely in the hands of Kathleen Kennedy. The show runners can’t seem to make up their mind on what they want Obi-Wan to be, and so far, the main antagonist is as one-dimensional as they get. 

Strangely, Disney is already playing the race card on critics of the show before it even aired. If the rumors are true about the show, and based on the first couple of episodes, it seems like there’s a pretty good chance that they are, then fans will not be happy with how the series ends. Disney knows they have a stinker on their hands, and their already preemptively attacking “toxic” fans and blaming them in case the show bombs. 

I can’t really say much beyond that without getting into spoilers. 

I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not even sure I’ll finish the show. 

Besides McGregor, there’s no real reason to watch Obi-Wan. As much as I despise the prequels, I’d say if you really want an Obi-Wan fix, you’d be better off re-watching those films or watching Clone Wars. 

Okay — Spoilers incoming. Don’t read beyond this point if you don’t want the show spoiled.

You’ve been warned!!!

So, yeah, Obi-Wan is a broken man. 

Obi-Wan is plagued with guilt from both the betrayal  and the death of his “brother”, Anakin Skywalker. As we all know, Anakin succumbed to the Dark Side and betrayed his fellow Jedi by joining up with Chancellor Palplatine (aka Darth Sidious aka the Emperor). Anakin led the attack on the Jedi temple and killed both Jedi AND younglings. With Anakin at his side, Sidious was able to defeat the Jedi and take over as Emperor. 

Part of this feels deliberate; the current stewards of Star Wars (Kathleen Kennedy and her minions) are dead set on destroying any of the heroes from the original films. So, once again, we’re presented with a broken hero (arguably, over anyone, Obi-Wan has more reason to be broken than anyone else in Star Wars at this point in the timeline). 

Not that this is a bad thing; the show could have built an interesting story about Obi-Wan struggling to deal with his anguish of how things turned out and his duty to protect Luke.

But, no, Obi-Wan has abandoned his Jedi training, even hiding and backing down when there’s potentially bad things happening. Yet, he still clings to the duty that he’s to protect Luke and train him when the time comes. He’s treated like he’s a complete amateur when it comes to fighting and using the Force, and  he also seems to keep himself oblivious to the world around him. 

It all feels out of character for Kenobi. Even if he’s torn with guilt, his sense of duty to protect Luke would motivate him to keep up with his Jedi training and to be keenly aware of any threats that may head their way. He would know that he would need to be ready, and even after 10 years, he’s spent a lifetime training and fighting as a Jedi. He might get rusty, but the skills are still going to be there.

There are a couple of scenes that reinforce this idea that Obi-Wan, now Ben, is in hiding and will not risk revealing himself, even if it puts others at risk. A young Jedi is loose on Tatooine,  and he somehow recognizes Obi-Wan and pursues him out into the desert. Ben tells him the Jedi are dead and that the Jedi should bury his lightsaber out in the sand and hide. 

Then, Ben has a confrontation with Owen Lars, Luke’s uncle, and despite his anguish, insists that Luke should be trained (this is the great “like you trained his father” moment from the trailer). Owen is later confronted by Reva and the inquisitors while Ben hides in the shadows and does absolutely nothing while Owen faces off against them. Not only is Obi-Wan broken, but he’s now a coward. He defies the logic of the inquisitors, who tell us that “the Jedi hunt themselves” because they will always help someone in need even if it means putting themselves at risk.

But, the show doesn’t open with Obi-Wan. Instead, it opens back at the Jedi temple. We’re shown a group of younglings training with their master at the moment Order 66 is executed. It’s not clear, but it’s a safe assumption that Reva is one of the younglings. They have to watch as their master tries to save them from the clone troopers and ultimately sacrifices herself to protect them. 

Reva, strangely, seems to be obsessed with capturing Obi-Wan. It’s not clear why, but she’s obsessed to the point of completely ignoring the chain of command. The show could have tried to work this into a subplot, where maybe Vader shows favoritism to the inquisitors in a way to keep them motivated and to create a cutthroat level of competition between them, including the High Inquisitor. But, so far, the show doesn’t explain it. It just sticks with making Reva as unlikeable as possible with no explanation.

Speaking of unlikeable, the show does the same with young Leia. She’s a precocious 10-year-old, and the show tries to make her some kind of child prodigy. She’s taunted by a cousin, but she comes back with a long and bitter retort with a sense of perception and intuition that would make Sherlock Holmes jealous. 

But, even this doesn’t hold up, because when the plot needs her to be, she’s completely clueless, like when she runs right up to the kidnappers.

The entire Leia kidnapping subplot makes no sense. Bail Organa is well aware of Leia’s parentage; he and his wife are very public figures and appear to have Leia in public as well. So, it makes no sense that Organa has done nothing to keep his daughter safe. It seems like Leia would have been taught some awareness that there could be individuals in the galaxy who would do harm to herself and/or her family.

Reva hires thugs kidnap Leia. She somehow knows about the relationship between Organa and Kenobi. Reva also seems to  know that despite Organa’s wealth and resources, he’ll go to Kenobi for help. She expects Kenobi, being the Jedi that he is, to agree and ultimately fall into her trap. She also expects that her thugs will have no problems capturing a Jedi Master and General of the Republic. 

And this is where the show begins to fall apart. There’s an absurd scene where Leia manages to elude the kidnappers for several minutes. Organa, as predicted, reaches out to Kenobi, but he refuses. So, Organa shows up on Tatooine at Kenobi’s cave (if Reva had been so smart, she should have just tailed Organa  and would have been taken right to Kenobi). 

Kenobi initially refuses again, but then, he sees the young Jedi he encountered “hanging” in town (in a totally safe PG-13 way), and he changes his mind.

 Instead of discreetly transporting Kenobi to the planet where Organa has trapped the kidnappers, he lets Kenobi board a public transport ship carrying a lightsaber. Regardless of how clueless Kenobi might be about the Inquisitors, Organa would absolutely be aware of them and that both they and Vader have been searching for Jedi, especially Kenobi. So, it seems pretty dumb that Organa wouldn’t help Kenobi stay undercover because if he’s exposed trying to save Leia, it’s going to put Leia in even greater danger. 

But, nope, it’ll be fine. Kenobi goes to the planet, and despite keeping his cover about half the time, nobody seems to know him. He runs into a fake Jedi, and convinces him to show Kenobi where the kidnappers are. 

The fake Jedi guy is just odd. Sure, maybe this is still in the outer rim, but what idiot would run around pretending to be a Jedi when there are inquisitors, not to mention Vader himself, running around hunting and killing Jedi?

Kenobi finds “Leia” and springs the trap, where Reva’s thugs easily overtake him. But, luckily, Kenobi has an ace up his sleeve and escapes the kidnappers. Then, magically, he finds the real Leia. Does he use the Force? The show needs him to find Leia, so he does.

The writers could have played up that Bail told Leia stories about the Jedi and his friend Obi-Wan. She could have taunted “Ben” with “you don’t look like a Jedi” and be stubbornly unconvinced of his true nature based on her father’s stories. Instead, after seeing his lightsaber, she wants Kenobi to “make me float.”

And then, things get silly. The inquisitors arrive, and while the others are on the ground, Reva takes to the rooftops, for reasons. She also spreads the word to the criminal element of the town that Obi-Wan is there and puts a bounty on him. Kenobi and Leia discover this, and Leia, suddenly decides that the guy who is trying to rescue her must be one of the bad guys and runs off. 

So, once again, we get a ridiculous chase scene where a 10-year-old girl easily outruns an adult, a Jedi no less, and Kenobi runs around without any cover, so anyone can see who he is. Leia tries to jump across a wide gap between buildings and falls. Kenobi has to use the Force to save her, and the show makes it clear he struggles to access his power and barely saves her in time. Again, the show wants Kenobi to have abandoned a lifetime of training and is now, somehow, a complete novice in using the Force.  

Fake Jedi shows up and decides he’s going to help Kenobi and the girl rather than turn them in. He assures Kenobi out there that there are people willing to help the Jedi; he gives them a location to an automated transport that will get them off-world.

But, Reva, using all of her Inquisitor parkour skills, catches up to them. While they hide, she boasts to Kenobi the big, dramatic reveal of the second episode: Your boy Anakin is alive, and he’s Darth Vader. Obi-Wan is shocked, SHOCKED, to learn this.

I call bullshit. Kenobi saw the security footage in Episode III. He knows Anakin turned to the dark side. Even if he thought he’d killed Anakin on Mustafar, Kenobi should be able to sense whether Anakin truly died. Even if he didn’t, it’s hard to imagine Kenobi never heard anything about Darth Vader, the Emperor’s right hand man, and would have been able to put two and two together. 


If Kenobi’s duty is to stay on Tatooine and protect Luke, then you’d think that Kenobi would at least try to keep up with was going on in the galaxy. He’d want to keep himself aware of any pending threats that could come their way rather than just be blissfully ignorant of everything. 

Then again, how does Reva know this? Vader’s true identity is a massive secret, and both Vader and the Emperor have killed to protect that secret. So, why does she know? How is she not dead?

Anyway, the High Inquisitor shows up and challenges Reva. When she reveals that she has Kenobi trapped, he decides he’ll take Kenobi down himself and take all of the credit for finding him. So, Reva kills the High Inquisitor like a chump. 

This gives Kenobi time to hop on board the transport, and he and Leia escape while Reva impotently screams at the parting ship.

While he’s on the ship, Kenobi does something weird. He reaches out with the Force and says “Anakin”, and we cut to Vader opening his eyes in his meditation chamber. 

And… that’s it. 

Obviously, now Kenobi has made Vader aware that he’s very much alive, it seems like the show will likely lead to a confrontation between Vader and Kenobi. 

Will there be a fight? Maybe. If there is, the show is going to make sure Kenobi gets his ass handed to him, but somehow, he’ll be able to get away, and Vader will let him.

Speaking of, it’s hard to say if the show will bother to explain how Reva has all of this hidden knowledge and/or her obsession for Kenobi. Does she blame him for Order 66? Did she encounter him in the temple, and did he leave her? Is there some relationship between her and Vader, and she’s obsessed with Kenobi out of her desire to prove herself to Vader?

In the end, though, I suspect that the rumors about the show may be true. Instead of Obi-Wan being able to defend himself against Vader and successfully protecting the lives of Luke and Leia, he’ll fail. Then, for reasons, Reva will have a “moment”, and may discover (or already knows, since she knows everything else) who Luke and/or Leia are, and possibly what their future holds, and it will be her, not Kenobi, that saves the day. 

Reva will get a redemption arc that will end at the end of Vader’s lightsaber.

(Update: I’ve seen the third episode, and well, the episode was pretty trash. Obi-Wan gets to face off with Vader, and he gets his ass handed to him. They’re already dropping hints that Reva is having “doubts” about being an inquisitor but at the same time is sucking up to Vader. There’s no consistency. I’m now betting that Leia will somehow use her 10-year-old genius intellect to convince Reva to switch sides.)

Kenobi will then slink back to his cave on Tatooine, and for “reasons”, Vader will not be able to track him.  He’ll still be broken, and he may even be worse off knowing that when the time came, he failed in protecting those he was supposed to protect. 

And that’s exactly where Kathleen Kennedy wants hm to be.  Once again, the current creators of Star Wars are hellbent on destroying everything came that before because they want people to like their new creations. The problem, though, is that they’re completely unable to develop anything new that generates the same magic that caught the imagination of fans for the last 40ish years. The sequels were a joke. The Book of Boba Fett was a disaster. 

Only the Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, have even remotely come close to creating a true live-action Star Wars series that’s enjoyable to watch. 

Star Wars and Obi-Wan deserve better.

So angsty…

 I’m apparently on a streak of watching Netflix teen-angsty shows right now. The Society is another one of these shows that asks: What if X happened, but instead of it happening to everyone, it only happened to teenagers? 

In this case, a New England small town’s entire teenage population finds themselves in an “alternate” version of their town in which they are the only people living there, and possibly the only people anywhere. So, it’s up to the teenagers to figure out how to cope with being in a world without parents, or laws, or internet. They have to try to rebuild a society (roll credits!) of their own in order to survive long enough to figure out how they got there and if or how they could get back home. 

Basically, it’s like a lite version of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, but filled with teenage angst instead of adult drama. It doesn’t go as dark as King’s version, and there are certain elements that the kids don’t have to deal with at all, but it’s very similar.

The show takes place late in the school year (likely May), and the town has a strange smell permeating the area. Apparently, it had appeared before recently, and the town leadership hired someone to “clear the air”, but, now, it’s back. 

For reasons, the town decides that they’re going to pack up all of the high school kids and ship them off to a nearby camp for 10 days, while everyone else stays behind (adults, all the little kids, pets, etc) to deal with the smell. I know. I know. 

Anyway, the kids load up on the buses in the evening, and while they’re driving around that night, there’s a big storm. Then, the buses stop, announce that there was a mudslide blocking the road to the camp, so the buses have brought them back home. 

It’s the middle of the night, and nobody is there to greet them. Parents are also not answering their cells. The kids simply shrug this off and head home for the night. When they get home, they can’t find anyone there either. 

The next morning, the kids regroup to try figure out what’s going on. Nobody can find their families, they can’t reach anyone on their cell phones besides each other, and there’s no internet!!! Someone gets smart and hops into a car, figuring they’ll just drive over to the next town and see what’s going on. They get to the town’s border to find that the road is gone and blocked by a massive forest. The check the other end of town and find the same thing. In fact, it appears there’s a forest surrounding the entire town (there’s a dramatic pan out to show a nearby bridge with train tracks crossing underneath, and we’re shown that the tracks now end in forest).

Dun…Dun…DUUNNNNNNN!!!

Oh, man, what on Earth are a bunch of teenagers alone in a town with absolutely no adult supervision going to do???

(Throw a HUGE party, of course)

After a few days of partying, one of the main characters, Cassandra, who is quasi-popular but also the student body president, decides that they should probably start thinking more about how they are going to survive long term. She starts setting up work assignments, consolidating the housing (which the rich kids hate sharing their mansions), etc.  They assign a group of kids to start investigating what happened and why they’re where they are. 

They’re worried about the food supply and kind of worry about the water and electricity. Although they do guard the local grocery store, nobody seems to follow up on how they’re getting water or electricity and what they might need to do to keep all of that running. They pick up trash, but there’s no discussion of where it goes (I figured the town landfill was likely outside the town, and they wouldn’t have access to it)

Two kids do find out that there was a deal between the town and a man who was to be paid $1.5 million to get rid of the smell. For whatever reason, once he did his job, the town leaders (some of the kids parents) decided not to pay the guy. Some other details are revealed, but the show doesn’t follow up on them at all until the last episode. 

To help the kids adjust, Cassandra and her friends, who have basically become the leadership, decide to have prom, and it’s a good night for most of the kids. Then, someone decides to murder their leader, Cassandra. What are they going to do now?

So, yeah, there are some interesting bits to the show, as the kids decide how to try to organize some type of society and a set of rules to live by. Most of the drama, though, spends a lot of time on who’s trying to hook up with whom. Sometimes, the decisions don’t make sense.

For example, for reasons, they decide to put Cassandra’s little sister, Allie, in charge. Why her? Was there not a student-body vice-president or another senior that could have taken over? Or, simply, nobody wanted the responsibility.

So anyway, on top of trying to deal with all of this responsibility dumped on her head, Allie’s also presented with a possible suspect in her sister’s murder. She now has to figure out how to arrest the suspect, detain him, set up a trial for the accused, and then, figure out what the convicted killer’s sentence should be. 

In other places, the situations fall flat. One night, a storm causes a blackout, and suddenly, some of the teenagers decide to loot the local hardware store for all of its flashlights. Other teens show up to stop them, and a major fight breaks out. Only… this is supposed to be kind of a rural small town, so blackouts from thunderstorms, and equally likely, snowstorms, would be a thing. Most homes in the area probably have plenty of flashlights, and lanterns, and a few may even have generators. The point was to illustrate what would happen if chaos took over the town, but it just felt like a really weak example. 

Although Allie has a pretty good character arc, most of the characters are pretty one dimensional, and it’s a shame that they couldn’t have at least played with creating some before and after situations. Like, for instance, one of the guys is revealed to be an actual diagnosed psychopath. Why not give him a redemption arc in this new world? Instead, he’s stays true to type. 

Daybreak, another teenagers in a impossible scenario series, at least manages that. All of the major characters in that show have a pre- and post-apocalypse life, and sometimes, it creates tension between the characters.

The series ends with the town getting ready to have elections for a new mayor and, for the first time, a town council, and looking for some land to farm because they’re realizing they’re going to run out of food. There’s a huge twist though.

There’s also a mysterious ending that will have viewers wondering what is really happening – even possibly wondering if the kids are all dead? We won’t know until season two.

It’s not a bad show. Allie is great to watch, and a few of the other characters are interesting. Campbell, the town psychopath, oozes menace in every scene he’s in, and Elle, who enters into a relationship with Campbell (and everyone forgot to mention to her that he’s crazy), is fascinating to watch as she struggles with being stuck in this situation with Campbell. But, most of the characters are pretty basic. Most of the guys are all brainless or douchebags. Harry is a rich asshole. The football players are all dumb jocks, except for one, who has a BIG secret (and I bet you can’t guess what it is!) Even Will, who is supposed to be the “poor kid with a heart of gold” – the resident “nice guy” – spends a lot of time trying to get laid. 

Most of these characters are what I would consider to be “upper middle class” who have likely never worked a day in their life. So, there’s some fun in watching them trying to figure out how to do certain things, and begin to understand that there’s a lot of stuff that happens that they simply never appreciated. A couple of the characters realize that someone needs to learn to be a doctor/nurse to all of these kids. Next season, they’re going to have to figure out how to farm, and it’s not clear if the town contained a tractor supply or anything that might have farm equipment for them to use. They’ll likely have to go “old school” on farming. 

The only other disappointment about the show is that it really loses focus on anyone looking into where they are and/or why they’re there. They tried to explore the woods in the first episode, but unfortunately, a girl is bitten by a snake and has an allergic reaction to the poison and dies. So, for that reason, they simply abandon investigating their surroundings until the last episodes, when, over five months later, a small team goes looking for farmland outside of the town limits. The mystery of how they got there in the first place doesn’t really come up again until the last couple of episodes.

But, overall, it is a pretty decent show. I think the show could have been a lot better if they had focused more on the kids actually dealing with their situation instead of just the usual teenage drama. The five month time jump between episodes six and seven is pretty jarring. The show is certainly setting up that things will be harder for the kids in season two, so maybe the show runners will find more things for the kids to do and and find some personalities for the other characters.

Daybreak Review

Have you ever wanted a Zombie apocalypse show more in the vein of comedy-horror like Zombieland instead of The Walking Dead?

Have you ever wanted to throw in a whole bunch of teenage angst into said zombie show?

If so, then Netflix’s Daybreak might be for you. 

At some point in the near future, some world leader or leaders decide it was time to start a war, possibly via Tweet, and they nuke California (and presumably, other places). The “nukes” were destructive, but somehow only killed off most of the adult population. The rest roam the streets as “Ghoulies” – basically zombies that mindlessly repeat the last sentence they said before dying. For example, the characters encounter one Ghoulie who was thinking about “10% off yoga pants.” But, basically, the only people who survived the bombs more or less intact are all of the teenagers. 

Oh, and no guns, because California, I guess? And, pets, have mutated. The only real example they show is a pug that has mutated to maybe 10 times his normal size.

Josh, an admitted “C-level” student who moved to Glendale from Canada, has found that he may have been a bit of loner and bullied and had no friends in high school, but he kicks ass in this new post-apocalyptic world. Like Zombieland, Josh and other characters constantly break the fourth wall and converse with the viewer. Like Zombieland, Josh has a list of “rules” for surviving in this new world.

It’s been six months since the attack, and instead of uniting together, the teens have carved out territories that match the same cliques they had in school. The Jocks have taken over the high school campus, and have built a “Mad Max” inspired gang lead by the school’s best football player. The 4-H’ers are off in another part of the city. The cheerleaders have declared themselves “Cheermazons” and took over the country club. One social outcast had the foresight to take over the local mall. There’s also a mysterious boogeyman called Baron Triumph that rides a Triumph, captures kids and eats them.

Josh, though, continues to run around on his own, but he has a mission. The girl he likes, Sam, apparently left him a Post-It Note at his apartment shortly after the attack, and his mission is to find her and save her. Early on, the show is pretty vague about whether or not this is a mutual relationship.

Josh eventually does make a couple of friends. One is Angelica, a 10-year-old super-genius who is a sociopath that Josh used to babysit. The other is Wesley, a black jock who previously bullied Josh, but who left the Bro Jocks and has now declared himself a Ronin on a mission of redemption for his past mistakes. Wesley was inspired by watching “kung-fu” movies, but constantly references Japanese concepts. 

The first couple of episodes mostly establish the world, and most of the other episodes flesh out the back stories of the various characters. There’s definitely plenty of teen drama, but the show doesn’t take itself that seriously. The only “new” aspect I can say about the drama is that Josh is written with the basic premise that all white teenage boys, even the “nice” ones, are jerks. Seriously, the character feels like he’s been pulled out of an 80’s John Hughes movie dropped into a modern teenage drama, like 13 Reasons Why. It really stands out when all of the other major characters feel more “modern” than Josh, especially with regards to his relationship with Sam.

For some extra meta, Matthew Broderick appears as the boring old school principal in flashbacks, which should be amusing for Ferris Bueller fans. He probably has his best moment in episode four, where, in a flashback, he deals with parents and a kid who want to buy his way into better grades in order to maintain his football eligibility. Broderick plays the character so straight it’s hard to tell if he’s enjoying the role.

Overall, though, as long as you can set aside your suspension of disbelief (and the show will stretch it — like when the nuke goes off within visible range of the homecoming game, and everyone just ducks and covers to protect themselves from the blast winds), it is overall pretty entertaining. It has more than enough funny moments to offset the cringe-worthy ones, there are a few decent twists in the overall story, and you may only find yourself yelling at the TV a few times (mostly at Josh). 

The show also leaves itself wide open for a second season, provided Netflix gives them one.

While it doesn’t break any new ground, Daybreak is an uncomplicated comedy-horror show that’s worthy of a weekend of binge-watching. To me, after watching some of the more recent and more serious teenage dramas (13 Reasons Why, Euphoria), that’s not such a bad thing.