This show was… good. It wasn’t an uneven mess and knew what it wanted to be. It had things like suspense and characterisation which have been missing from recent SW content, if it was ever present before in these terms. It also had some proper acting talent and proper dialogue instead of the nonsense in recent shows. The tone made sense and people behaved in ways that made sense. It didn’t feel cheap and wasn’t full of cringe references, despite a few name drops.

So it came as no surprise that people hated the pacing and the lack of action. Because for better or worse (it’s the former) this isn’t really SW at all in terms of things like escapism and adventure. SW as a continuation of THX or the crime dramas of the 1970s. After the awkward choppy flashbacks in the first 3 parts it all fell into place. So I fully expect season 2 to be tampered with to make it more appealing to a wider audience, i.e. things like Darth Vader and more deepfakes.

It’s these sort of things that mean I can’t yet accept this as enriching Rogue One after the fact. At least not fully. They could give three episode arcs to Saw and Jyn or to Maze and his pals, but it still leads to creepy CGI faces and Darth Vader’s ‘totally epic’ murder spree. Maybe LFL should avoid this and work towards common goals of quality output instead of just handing out jobs to everyone that is in vogue. It depends on if they recognise what they have here. Disney don’t because they buried it on the app front page.