Review Tuesday: THE MANDALORIAN, Season Three

 

 

THE MANDALORIAN

Season Three

The continued adventures of Din Djarin and Grogu. 

The flagship of Disney Star Wars, THE MANDALORIAN, finally returned for its third season. Even while Disney continued to dump out sub-par projects, Mando was something the fans always felt like they could count on. After all, it was the best Star Wars title to come out of Disney. The trick was, patience. Each season seemed like a series of side missions with some big pay-off in the season finale. It was never a long wait either, as each season only runs eight episodes. 

 

The big mission this season seemed to be less centered around Din Djarin and more about Mandalorians across the galaxy reuniting and retaking their world. I was fine with that even though many fans weren't. What was wasn't fine with, was some bad writing, inconsistencies, and guest stars of the week. 

 

Examples:

• Mando's tribe decided to settle down in a cave on a shore on a ruthless and inhospitable plane that dinosaurs seemed to content to use as a feeder. Why THIS spot? Why no defenses?
• Their jet-packs seemed to have a very limited amount of fuel so their range was also limited. They couldn't pursue a flying reptile that took off with one of their children.
• They took a full day expedition to recover that child. Good thing the flying reptile chicks weren't very hungry! 
• In another episode those same jet-packs seemed to have endless range!
• In ONE episode: Lizzo and Jack Black AND Christopher Lloyd (whose character had GREAT potential but was severely under-utilized.)   
• The Dr Pershing episode was a throwaway. An entire epsiode that served little to no purpose in the story arc for the season. 
• Introduce the Mythosaur... for no good reason at all!
  

...To name a few...

I was fine with the main plot for the season. The re-unification of Mandallore is a great idea! The side quests, this time around, weren't great and the finale didn't have that big Luke Skywalker moment to it. Not even close. I was fine with Bo Katan and her story-line, but it was just one of the several story-lines that this season introduced, but also seemed to be the only one they actually bothered trying to tie up.  

 

For teh most part, since it was usually under 40 minutes each week, I was okay watching this, but even as I watched it I spent a lot of time wondering WTF were they thinking while they were writing this. You can't blame the stream of guest directors, Mando always had this aspect. This falls at the feel of the writing staff. There were some really fun moments, excellent special effects, and some cool things on screen. But they were dragged down with the problems. 

 

This makes me wonder, if THE MANDALORIAN was the flagship for quality Star Wars for Disney, and they abandoned the good writing in the third season, can we look forward to this with the other shows? Book of Boba Fett was bad from the start, so was Kenobi. But can we expect Ahsoka to get this same treatment? Will Skeleton Crew be watchable? I have a bad feeling about this.