The Mandalorian airs new episodes weekly via the Disney+ streaming service and comes to the UK in March 2020.
Synopsis
The Mandalorian helps a rookie bounty hunter who is in over his head.
Review
The Mandalorian is becoming an incredibly divisive show for me. This week I find myself continuing to struggle with the lack of a strong overarching plot and the series’ continual reliance on a story-of-the-week.
Given that the series has struggled to settle on a run time, this being a particularly short episode by comparison, it’s a shame that it chose to go to familiar territory in an episode which feels so fleeting.
Of all the planets, in all the galaxies, Mando (Pedro Pascal – or is it?) just so happens to find himself on Tatooine, home of Luke Skywalker and one of the most visited locations in all of Star Wars.
Would we hear about the hero of Tatooine who became a Jedi and helped free the republic? Would Mos Isley cantina be filled with nods to the film which started it all?
That’s a no to both of those questions unfortunately.
Instead the episode chose to focus on Han Solo-lite character Toro Calican (played by Jake Cannavale) and go on a wild goose chase involving the introduction of Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand.
Shand is easily the highlight of the episode. Ming-Na Wen has never not thrown herself into a role with everything she has and Shand is no different. She’s cold, calculating and every word she speaks is carefully measured to maximise her personal gain.
She is by no means a complex character but by the conclusion of the episode her story takes a twist which could certainly prove interesting further down the line. It’s encouraging to see the show investing in a character outside of Mando and Baby Yoda.
Toro Calican on the other hand is unfortunately little more than a mere caricature of Solo. He’s a young hot head who dresses like Han, acts like Han and even carries a similar model of blaster.
Unfortunately his trademark arrogance is his undoing but thankfully this means he is a character that we won’t be seeing again in the future. All credit to Jake Cannavale for trying to do something fun with the role but the writing made it feel incredibly flat.
With only three more episodes to go my problem with The Mandalorian is how formulaic it has become in such a short space of time. Every episode is now following the same structure: Mando lands somewhere new, meets some new people, gets in to trouble, Baby Yoda ends up in danger, Mando rescues him and we move on and repeat.
Already the season is beginning to feel repetitive and stale which is not a good sign as we head towards the finale. Whilst I can appreciate way the show is constructed to mimic a travelling Western the storylines aren’t gripping enough to make The Mandalorian a compelling watch.
Verdict
The Mandalorian takes a knock this week as it squanders an opportunity to show reverence to A New Hope. Another interesting premise is let down by a shortened runtime for the episode despite an entertaining guest spot from Ming-Na Wen.
7/10
Written by Iron Man‘s Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, Omid Abtahi, Werner Herzog and Nick Nolte. The series debuts new episodes weekly on Disney+.
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