Star Wars: Ahsoka – Part Two: Toil and Trouble – TV Review

TL;DR – We move from making introductions to giving a plot a needed kick-forward, but I am not quite there with it yet.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Ahsoka feels the force.

Ahsoka Review

While Star Wars has arguably made several fumbles in recent years, releasing these first two episodes simultaneously was not one of them. They make an intriguing double act, one introduction, the other plot, one nostalgia, the other vibes. It also meant we didn’t have to suffer through a useless cliffhanger, which I always appreciate.

So to set the scene, at the end of Master and Apprentice, tragedy struck when Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) was stuck down by Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) after the mercenaries working for Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) stole the map that Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) recovered. The bad guys now have the map that could lead them to Admiral Thorn (Lars Mikkelsen), the last remaining Imperial heavyweight left after their defeat by the New Republic. The heroes are on the defence, but can they make up lost time? Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

Continue reading

Star Wars: Ahsoka – Part One: Master and Apprentice – TV Review

TL;DR – This was an exciting introduction that intrigued and frustrated me in equal measure

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Opening Title Crawl: The evil galactic empire has fallen and a new republic has risen to take its place.

Ahsoka Review

Ahsoka is an interesting series because it is the first Star Wars live action work based on a previous property with which I have no experience with. I did not watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels growing up, and sorry to be blunt, I don’t have time in my life to catch up on 208 television episodes before jumping in here. The question is: does the team behind the show understand that this is where a large, probably a majority, of their viewing audience is coming from? Well, that is what we will look at today.

So to set the scene, we open on a deserted planet full of ruins built by the Nightsisters of Dathomir. But somewhere in this ruin is an old map, a map to the location of a formidable enemy, and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) is here to find it. The only problem is that she is not alone, while she might have gotten good intel from Morgan Elsbeth Diana Lee Inosanto). The former Imperial magistrate is not without her resources, as the crew of the rebel prisoner transport discover when they are boarded by the Dark Jedi mercenary Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) and his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno). Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

Continue reading