The Mandalorian

[Velorath]

No more than Amy Sedaris imo. Or Tim Meadows. I was going to add Bill Burr to the list but he is a legit good actor.

Bill Burr surprised the hell out of me in this series. I was not expecting him to have depth in his character.

I mean, if there's someone who's good at channeling his bitterness and resentment, it's Bill Burr.

[Riggswolfe]

I've seen the usual suspects whining that "it's the Bo Katan show now and Mando is just a side character in his own show!" Which honestly, even if it were true I don't mind. I find her journey more interesting than Mandos now since he's fully reverted to Mandalorian who wears a helmet as his full personality.

[Khaldun]

I wish they'd pick somebody to be the main character, at least.

[Samwise]

[Threash]

I very much liked this episode, the buddy cop stuff was great and "you had me at battle droids" is probably the best line on the series.

[Riggswolfe]

I very much liked this episode, the buddy cop stuff was great and "you had me at battle droids" is probably the best line on the series.

It was a funny line but it is also a symptom of what I feel is wrong with this season, namely that Mando has reverted to Season 1 Mando for no particular reason.

[HaemishM]

No, this show is just a hot mess. The whole season has felt like RPG sidequest level of writing. The two main characters are background plot devices. I didn't mind Lizzo or Jack Black or Christopher Lloyd, nor their goofy roles or bad acting. None of it was the reason the episode was bad. It was all down to writing and structuring. The show went from feeling like a cool, Man with No Name Western to prequel-level hero's journey bullshit and the hero isn't even the show's central character.

The worst part, though, was the droids. Specifically the droid bar. Every single time Star Wars seems to try to explain the droids place in the universe, they make it worse. If the droids are as sentient as they keep making them out to be, with emotions and friendships and such, then that means every organic being is happy with enslaving other sentient beings. And making one "bartender" droid be the "but I loves to serve my massa!" type of apologist for that is jarring as hell. It's episodes like this whole season which gives the "Star Wars is garbage!" crowd the echo of truth.

In short, needs more Andor, less whatever the fuck this is.

[Riggswolfe]

No, this show is just a hot mess. The whole season has felt like RPG sidequest level of writing. The two main characters are background plot devices. I didn't mind Lizzo or Jack Black or Christopher Lloyd, nor their goofy roles or bad acting. None of it was the reason the episode was bad. It was all down to writing and structuring. The show went from feeling like a cool, Man with No Name Western to prequel-level hero's journey bullshit and the hero isn't even the show's central character.

The worst part, though, was the droids. Specifically the droid bar. Every single time Star Wars seems to try to explain the droids place in the universe, they make it worse. If the droids are as sentient as they keep making them out to be, with emotions and friendships and such, then that means every organic being is happy with enslaving other sentient beings. And making one "bartender" droid be the "but I loves to serve my massa!" type of apologist for that is jarring as hell. It's episodes like this whole season which gives the "Star Wars is garbage!" crowd the echo of truth.

In short, needs more Andor, less whatever the fuck this is.

Early Marvel comics from, I think, prior to Empire Strikes Back even coming out actually touched on this some. There was a plotline in one of the issues that was basically a nascent droid rebellion against organics but sadly it only lasted for an issue or two and disappeared. I've wondered ever since if Star Wars would ever touch on this but clearly it'll never happen.

It's odd because I think Jon Favreau wrote most of these episodes and he's done well in the past. My main suspicion is that Dave Filoni is busy with Ahsoka and we're seeing what happens when he isn't more directly involved.

[HaemishM]

This episode had Favreau as the only writer. It was not his finest moment.

[Setanta]

Season 3 is dead to me. Season 1 was great, Season 2 was watchable with the occasional mistake. Season 3 is absolute rubbish. There's no cohesion, and not in a good S1 Witcher way. It's all over the shop and the writing is terrible.

[Khaldun]

Yup.

[Surlyboi]

Nope.

[Velorath]

Some decent action here, but to be honest I kinda wish they’d move on from Moff Gideon as the show’s villain.

[Surlyboi]

They will, but this connected so much shit.

[Sky]

Some decent action here, but to be honest I kinda wish they’d move on from Moff Gideon as the show’s villain.

I know I hated how they kept bringing Darth Vader back. Stupid one trick pony, lazy writing.

Gideon is fucking awesome.

[Samwise]

Every time people talk to each other via holo-Zoom in Star Wars I'm distracted by trying to figure out what people on the other side of the conversation are seeing.  Did Gideon deliberately set up his meeting room with 360 degrees worth of holo-cameras so that he could force half the meeting attendees to be looking at his butt at any given point?

[Velorath]

Some decent action here, but to be honest I kinda wish they’d move on from Moff Gideon as the show’s villain.

I know I hated how they kept bringing Darth Vader back. Stupid one trick pony, lazy writing.

Yeah and wasn’t it awesome when they brought the Emperor back again in that last sequel movie? Or when they made a 3rd planet destroying super weapon? Star Wars rightly takes some shit over recycling a lot of the same ideas over and over, so no, I’m not going to excuse it here with “but what about Vader?”.

Gideon was good for a little while, but he was pretty definitively beaten in the last two season finales. Now it feels like we’re going to be closing out season 3 with yet another confrontation. Despite the stupidity the Mandalorians displayed here (I’m no military genius but even I could see they were being led into an ambush when the enemy started retreating) I can’t really buy Gideon as a credible threat at this point because he’s been beaten by Mando, transphobic UFC lady, and Apollo Creed before as far back as season 1. At this point for me it’s just “oh, this asshole again”.

Vader at least got to beat Luke pretty soundly in their 2nd confrontation.

[Sky]

I already liked Gideon a lot (actually started a portrait of him a while back), and of course the actor is top shelf...but I realized when he donned his beskar helm why there is an additional layer of awesome design: they pulled from Baron Karza, one of my favorite action figures back in the day.

[Threash]

That whole episode was a big action figure "look at all the stuff you are going to buy" showcase.

[Sky]

So it's classic Star Wars.

[01101010]

I feel too old to watch this any more after this season.

[satael]

I know I'm losing the interest in the show since my bad habit of nitpicking rears its ugly head;

I really hated how the bad guy had to have his cliche bad guy monologue so the good guys now know exactly what he is planning and can tell it to everyone else.
It didn't help that it was followed by the trope of leaving one guy behind who managed to kill all the baddies except the special ones who the good guys didn't know of (also the jet packs seem to be purely a plot device since the guy didn't even bother to try and fly away from the three melee baddies).

[Phildo]

This is what I was getting at when I said this is a cartoon a few weeks ago.  It has its' main villain(s) and we'll be recycling them forever until the eventual cancellation.

Every time people talk to each other via holo-Zoom in Star Wars I'm distracted by trying to figure out what people on the other side of the conversation are seeing.  Did Gideon deliberately set up his meeting room with 360 degrees worth of holo-cameras so that he could force half the meeting attendees to be looking at his butt at any given point?

Would actually love something like this where it cuts away to him unplugging from the Star Wars equivalent of the Metaverse, complete with clunky headset.

[HaemishM]

The 360 degree Zoom meeting had me asking the same questions. I'm like "Why aren't all those other guys twirling around dramatically?"

Best part of Ep. 7 was Grogu mashing the "Yes" button on the IG-12. I'm more amused by a goddamn muppet in a droid exoskeleton than a whole army of fucking Mandalorians.

[Sky]

Great finale, loved it. Hope all the haters don't sink the series next season.

[Threash]

Same, this season had a couple dud episodes but overall I enjoyed it just as much as previous ones.

[Samwise]

I liked that they ended with a setup for season 4 to reset to more or less the season 1 formula and make a clean break from all this Mandalorian politicking stuff.  

Also, not gonna lie, Grogu getting involved in the climactic fight scene and becoming A Mandalorian worked for me even though it was cheesy as fuck.

[Sky]

Also, not gonna lie, Grogu getting involved in the climactic fight scene and becoming A Mandalorian worked for me even though it was cheesy as fuck.

This. I hated jumping Yoda in the prequels and still do. So I was kinda amazed when I chuckled at Grogu's hopping around out of reach, that scene just somehow worked. And then the next segment with Grogu taking on a proper support role, and really the way they showed the kid flexing his basically single power of force push was a good take on a padawan-esque level force user. Suddenly I went from being unsure how the duo would work overall going forward to seeing how it can be really awesome.

But bring back Dark Gideon, hopefully there was another clone facility hidden away somewhere (hey it worked for Jorus C'baoth eh). There needed to be more Vader-esque scenes with Gideon helmeted with the voice modulation and menace. The fact that he was working on force clones kinda jibes with the whole C'baoth thing, too, since he was trying to kidnap Leia's force-powerful kids to augment his experiments, and here we have someone trying to kidnap a kid for force clone experiments...

[Velorath]

Better than the previous episodes of the seasons but still highlighted what a disjointed mess the season overall has been. Granted, I never really understood what retaking Mandalore meant to begin with considering there wasn't any known occupying force on the planet and it seems like everyone just assumed it was a radioactive ball of rubble that couldn't support life, but nobody actually thought to check.

But then what is presented as some sort of monumental task gets resolved over the course of a few episodes, even with the surprise involvement of Gideon. The Mandalorians even managed to merge two different factions and unite behind a leader, because we all know how easy it is to smooth over that level of deeply ingrained cultural division and borderline cult fanaticism.

I don't know, it felt like they were trying to tie up every incomplete storyline, either to reset the show to more of a season 1 premise like Sam said, or because they're trying to get everything set up for the Mandoverse movie they just started talking about. Also seems like they just finally needed to get Gideon of the board and get ready to set up Thrawn being the next placeholder big bad until things get to Snoke and the First Order.

I... was not a huge fan of Grogu jumping around but whatever. At some point though they're going to have to figure out how he can operate machinery, like a droid body, but can't manage verbal communication beyond baby talk.

[Samwise]

At some point though they're going to have to figure out how he can operate machinery, like a droid body, but can't manage verbal communication beyond baby talk.

Six hundred years old Yoda was, an English sentence he still could not form.  All fucked up, this species' neurological development is.  

bring back Dark Gideon

No.  

That was another instance of fourth-wall-breaking that I appreciated.  "See all these clones of Moff Shitteon?  ALL THE CLONES that might have justified some future hack writers resurrecting this character?  They're all SMASHED now.  Okay?  No coming back!  And we're dropping an entire fucking spaceship on the original one just to make sure he's REALLY GONE."

[Threash]

That was another instance of fourth-wall-breaking that I appreciated.  

Not as good as Mando calling himself a contractor though.

[Abagadro]

Yoda was 900 years old in the movies.  Still, the kid is supposed to be 50 or so, so I agree he should at least be at the point of being able to verbalize some words.  I'll chalk it up to just wanting to have fun with the YES/NO button which was one of the better bits of the season.

I liked the finale although I think they wasted Giancarlo a bit by just having him menacingly monologue his evil plans. He's most famous for playing a slow-burn, quietly terrifying monster so lean into that if you hire the guy.

[HaemishM]

It was the best episode of the season, mostly because Din Jarin actually had something to fucking do. That said, the season was a mess and I'm glad it's over.

Using Giancarlo Esposito to monologue with the most moustache-twirling way possible. It felt very much like a cartoon or a video game, and I don't mean that in a good way. The absolute best parts of the season was Grogu mashing the YES/NO button and joining in the fights. The rest of the season was just a drab, poorly paced mess. Hopefully next season will get back to that Lone Wolf and Cub vibe without the big bad.

The power creep of "Dark Troopers in Beskar Armor" really didn't help dispel that video game writing vibe.

[MahrinSkel]

Especially since they were such 1:1 knockoffs that Mando could just slot in the jetpack.

It felt like Filoni got distracted, then came back and just wanted to make the mess go away.

--Dave

[Velorath]

The power creep of "Dark Troopers in Beskar Armor" really didn't help dispel that video game writing vibe.

Especially since it seemed inconsistent from scene to scene how hard they were to take down.