It’s really hard to create new, compelling characters, let alone to get people to watch them, especially in a franchise like this with so much historical baggage. Andor created at least two new compelling characters, which is amazing. Timothy Zahn did it as well in the 1990s. But… that’s pretty much it for post-Lucas Star Wars in my opinion (although I haven’t read most of the latter-EU or seen many of the cartoons, so maybe I’m missing out). I liked Seasons 1 and 2 of The Mandalorian, but I have to admit it wasn’t really because of the character work. But maybe IG-11 should get an Emmy.
God, Andor is so freaking awesome. I wish more people watched it so it would have more influence steering the future direction of Star Wars. But then, maybe if too many people watched it, the executives would start meddling with it, and start demanding they insert Baby Yoda into at least 2/3 of all scenes. Then we’d end up with Season 2 of Andor starting out, and Baby Yoda is just there with no explanation. Then after Cassian Andor is captured by the ISB and interrogated/tortured, we regularly cut back to Baby Yoda eating cookies, then back to the Imperial torture droid.