After those couple of out-of-order episodes in the last couple of days, I’ve now gone ahead and composed all of my sources in chronological order, and am starting a full review of each episode in order.
TARTAKOVSKY’S CLONE WARS (The Battle of Muunilinst Arc, transitioning into the Battle of Hypori Arc) - Important
Important because it gives some good context for the start of the war, introduces Ventress and Grievous, and knights Anakin. Stripped of the other arcs, it sets the stage well, and is more focussed than people probably remember this show being.
It’s great fun. One thing I wish the main show had leaned into more is the clones’ silent hand signals that Tartakovsky’s uses to such effect. I’m not entirely comfortable with Dirge, due to his unique body type and unconventional shields, the IG droid lancers (cute but not referenced again), and Ventress’ apparent shapeshifting. All fun, but I don’t think they serve the whole. I might just put the first scenes of Ventress right at the start of this arc, just to solidify her position as a key character in the clone wars (in which case this is probably vital).
TARTAKOVSKY’S CLONE WARS (The Battle of Mon Cala Arc) - Desirable
Just more Tartakovsky, but this is entertaining the whole time.
TARTAKOVSKY’S CLONE WARS (The Battle of Dantooine Arc) - Desirable
Totally OP stuff from Mace here, but I think everyone loves this, and I think we can get a little OP in the cartoon.
TARTAKOVSKY’S CLONE WARS (The Attack on Ilum Arc) - 3. Desirable
There’s some nice jedi texture in here, and we also see Barris finishing her training, and some Padme sass. Not an important episode, but good fun.
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These last three, I think, make a very good argument towards the inclusion of decent little bits, however small. And I’m leaning towards a grouped anthology format. For example, if we end up with seven seasons of roughly five to eight episodes each, it’d be nice to have an episode each season which collects these shorter tales. You can’t really justify keeping that Ilum arc on its own (it’s about six minutes long), but it’d be fun to have them peppered throughout. Especially the Tartakovsky arcs, since that way the return to them in a more major way in the later half won’t be as jarring.
The more I try to view this show as its ‘best whole’, the more I’m convinced that keeping our core elements well paced rather than grouped is the right approach. Compare again to The Mandalorian - you wouldn’t want to group just the Navarro episodes just because of the setting, nor just the Moff Gideon episodes because that’s where the plot is. These elements are far more enjoyable because they’re allowed to be growing slow burns.
Maul should be one such slow burn. We get the Nightsisters which end with the Maul reveal, then we should pace before Savage goes to find him, then we should pace before he takes over Mandalore, then we should pace before he’s broken out of Sidious’ prison, then we should pace before his return for the siege. The war shouldn’t feel like a series of battles, it should feel like an escalating series of moments that matter to our characters, to best set up an emotional finale which absolutely delivers. (And, back to my point of the little ‘Tales’ anthologies, these should be included for that same reason - where they help build to the best whole.)
Ultimately there’s only one metric - do I want to watch the next episode? If you read that Mandalorian was doing an anthology episode you’d be excited, if you read that it was doing a two-hour season finale you’d be excited, and you get excited about this week’s forty minute episode too. You need to want to watch the Clone Wars “this week” because you know you’re about to get a good quality self-contained episode, whatever it features.