Skeleton Crew, the latest and newest Star Wars show on Disney+, wrapped up its first season this week, and it was unexpectedly wholesome and delightful.
I've repeatedly preached about how I want Star Wars to be more than the same old callbacks to the Skywalkers and the Force, but even with that in mind I've got to admit that I wasn't immediately sold on the concept of this show. The trailer looked kind of weird to me: Goonies in space? Not off-putting exactly, but I didn't quite know what to make of it (I know it's considered a cult movie, but I wasn't actually a big fan of the Goonies myself).
That impression was largely confirmed throughout the first episode, where I couldn't have pointed out anything as objectively bad, but kind of got the impression that it was perhaps more squarely aimed at younger audiences than I had expected. (To be clear, there's nothing wrong with that; it's just not what I'm looking for in my TV nowadays.) However, once the kids in the show got out of their comfort zone in episode two, my interest increased exponentially, and I was soon actively looking forward to the newest episode every week. The child characters are both well-written and well-acted, which is to say they behave appropriately childlike without being dull or annoying, and Jude Law's Jod makes a great foil for them throughout. SM-33 is also easily the best droid sidekick Star Wars has had in ages (and droid sidekicks are pretty much always fun), a bit like K-2SO from Rogue One except more whimsical and pirate-flavoured.
Narratively the show doesn't do anything revolutionary, in the sense that the plot is fairly straightforward with no major twists and turns, with each episode slowly laying the groundwork for what's going to come next while exposing the child protagonists to different situations for character development. However, all of this is well executed, with a good mix of action, emotional moments and humour, and simply having the story set in the Star Wars universe (while also infusing it with a pirate theme and a certain 80s aesthetic) provides enough novelty to keep things interesting.
Ultimately it did end up being a fun-for-the-whole-family kind of show, though I've read that younger viewers in particular loved it a lot, even if they weren't into Star Wars before - I could easily see Skeleton Crew end up being the next generation's Clone Wars, in the sense of being many children's entry point into the wider Star Wars universe.
As it stands though, reports seem to indicate that Skeleton Crew has been the least successful of the Star Wars live action shows so far in terms of viewership, and I think that's a shame, as its quality definitely deserves better. Even if it doesn't seem likely at this point, I'd love to see a season two. (I wasn't sure how well that would work initially, but after seeing the last episode of season one I could immediately imagine some interesting angles for a follow-up arc, even though it does wrap things up nicely.)
One can only hope that good word of mouth might eventually lead to the show finding a wider audience, after perhaps being a bit of a hard sell and difficult to market initially. (Jude Law is great for example, but I thought the choice of thumbnail for the show being a mugshot of him staring vaguely menacingly wasn't exactly very representative. Should've tried putting Neel or SM-33 on there!)
I'm surprised it hasn't done better, because I have read nothing but good things about it. That's one of my top four SW shows I am looking forward to if and when I ever get Disney+ and/ or when the Blue Ray set is available at a good price.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some blame a lack of marketing, while others claim that the show is paying for The Acolyte's mistakes - I obviously find the latter a bit unfair since I found The Acolyte quite enjoyable, flaws and all, but the shitstorm that was conjured up about it online was certainly loud enough that it wouldn't surprise me if the general, context-less vibe of "this new Star Was stuff is just bad now, isn't it" hadn't filtered through to the mainstream to some degree. I did talk to at least one acquaintance who hadn't seen The Acolyte either but expressed a similar sentiment.
DeleteI agree. I really enjoyed the series and hope it finds a bigger audience. For me, many of the twists and turns came from Jod Na Narwood. Jude Law's performace was great, and left me constantly wondering if Jod was a good guy, a bad guy, or what? Would he do the right thing in the end, steal all the treasure, or worse?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't personally describe it as twists and turns, but I agree that Jod was a great character. Very human in the sense that he wasn't an obvious stereotype and you were always kept wondering just what was going on in his head.
DeleteI watched the first episode and thought, "This is an 80s kids or coming of age movie". While not bad, that stuff isn't to my taste so I never got to the second episode. However, if things improve after that I'll need to revisit the show and give it a, ahem, second chance. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I'd definitely recommend watching at least another episode. It's still primarily a kids show (and it's fair if that isn't to your taste), but the first episode was easily the weakest in my opinion and things get a lot more interesting after that.
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