The third installment of Disney+’s Star Wars Boba Fett series was a bit of a disappointment. There was a chase scene that came over as slow and poorly choreographed, more like cut from Back to the Future II than the French Connection or Ronin, two movies with great chase scenes. Even the brief one in Solo was better. There was a confrontation with the Hutt twins, quickly dismissed. There was a battle with a large Wookie, also quickly settled and with minimal bloodshed; if you want to kill someone in a Bacta tank, shoot them or chop them with an axe, don’t haul them out and throw them across the room. Then there was Fett’s Tusken tribe, which met the fate of Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle.
With four episodes to go, it seems like the show it setting up some “big-bad” confrontations or build-ups for future seasons, not an arc for the current season. A crime syndicate has been making headways on Tatooine, and this syndicate, the Pikes, seems to be those big-bads. There are rumors that someone else is behind them, possibly someone from the Solo movie, which makes the show less about Fett and more about pleasing the fans again with easter eggs and nods to other movies, or books or comics. Just tell the freakin’ story without weaving in every possible thread from elsewhere so the “true fans” will nod and point and say “That’s so and so,” with a knowing wink. At least, that’s what I think, and I’m far from a Star Wars fanatic. The “new story” aspect is what made The Mandalorian great, at least until it introduced some more famous Mandalorians, and even some noted current and former Jedi, which then switched focus away from the titular person, and onto the cameos from more well-known characters.
There a degree of tension, though, with Disney+ releasing new episodes every week, vs. the “dump ’em all” philosophy of Netflix. Recently I watched season two of The Witcher, a Netflix show. Even though all episodes were available, it took me a few weeks to watch them all. Still, I did like the fact they were all there, vs. the wait one week method with Disney+; they did the same thing with Hawkeye, the only Marvel series I watched, as well as The Bad Batch, an interesting though uneven show. This is the way it was done with traditional TV, though most traditional TV isn’t episodic, like these shows. You had to wait a week until the next one, but for the most part the episodes were disconnected. I remember Babylon 5 as something unique (at the time), while most other shows on broadcast TV that I watched were just brief flashes—fun, yes, but still only flashes. Meanwhile, Babylon 5 set up a long arc, and most (but not all) episodes were connected. Then again, I watched Babylon 5 in reruns, with “new” episodes each day, a schedule that can be tough to meet. That was back when you either recorded to VHS or Tivo, or made sure you were in front of the TV when the shows aired. None of this “on-demand” stuff of today.
At least with the Disney+ shows you don’t get gaps with re-runs (for now), but can depend on new episodes dropping each week, until the limited run of episodes ends. It’s a shame these shows run only 6-8 episodes. They seem all too brief, unlike the Marvel shows that came out on Netflix (until they were cancelled, of course). I’m talking about Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Punisher. Those shows combined the best of both worlds: all available to binge (if you so wished), and all more than a dozen episodes per season. I miss those shows.
