Greetings, reader!
The first season of The Acolyte, the latest Star Wars spin-off series streaming on Disney, recently wrapped up its eight-episode run. Taking place in the High Republic era, about a century before the prequel trilogy, this was a new outlook on Star Wars lore, and one that split fan opinions in a manner that would be funny if it wasn't incredibly sad (I'm thinking about the anti-woke manchildren who saw the first episode, didn't like it, and instead of going "Hm, this isn't for me, better not waste my energy watching it", decided to hate-watch the whole thing so that they could make 30-minute video essays about just how terrible the series was and how their strong alpha male masculinity was hurt by the devastating blow of female showrunners and nonbinary actors).
Anyhow, I liked the show - it's not Star Wars at its best, but also not Star Wars at its worst, and an overall compelling addition to the franchise. Here's my ranking of the episodes!
8. Day (Episode 4)
This was the episode where I came the closest to agreeing with many the negative reviews - while Day isn't terrible, it is the only Acolyte episode of which I have more negatives to discuss than positives, as the episode was an overall disappointment after the level of the first three chapters (thankfully the quality picked up for the second half of the season).
While there are wholesome moments and cool visuals to make the episode memorable enough, the plot was a bit too bait-and-switch for me - I appreciate build-up episodes in general, but the way in which this entire episode was about the characters slowly being on their way to a confrontation with The Stranger, and then ends just as they meet and things are about to get interesting, admittedly felt frustrating (not in a good cliffhanger -sense, but in a "this could've been condensed to be the first 10 minutes of the next episode" sense).
Also, this is a very subjective criticism, but I hated the way they killed off Kelnacca (Finland's own Joonas Suotamo) - if you're going to introduce something as f**king awesome as a Jedi-trained wookie, and then kill him off after just a few tiny scenes and no exploration of the character, I see that as a massive wasted opportunity.
7. Choice (Episode 7)
I have mixed feelings about the show's penultimate episode - I see and can appreciate what they tried to accomplish with its narrative, but the execution definitely could've been better. That being said, it's good enough in the show's context to work as a deep dive into further backstories and points of view.
Many fans loudly hated the fact that we returned to the flashback narrative for a second time, but I found this to be a neat premise: the season's narrative works as a nonlinear puzzle box, and the bits and pieces of lore we find out in episodes 3&7 help shape the events and actions of the present-day storyline. Showing the moments from around and in between the scenes of the third episodes was a nice way of recontextualizing many of the events and character motivations, but like I said, it could've been done better - some of the transitions between seen-before and new material were a bit clumsy, and the premise left me waiting for a bigger reveal. All in all, a cool idea for an episode, and one that could've been amazing with sharper writing.
On the plus side, we got more Kelnacca thanks to the flashbacks, and even a badass action sequence with him!
6. Lost/Found (Episode 1)
I tried to be as tabula rasa as I could when watching the pilot episode, as I don't like letting expectations cloud my judgment of movies/TV but rather make up my own mind based on the viewing experience. It wasn't easy to do, as there were positives in my expectations (a series taking plays a century before the prequel trilogy, exploring an era of Star Wars we've never seen before on the big screen? Hell yes!) as well as negatives (the ridiculously low ratings and negative reviews the series had been getting). However, I kept my mind as open as possible, and reached a very unsurprising conclusion: the pilot wasn't as great as our first-ever look at the intriguing High Republic era could've been, but nowhere near as bad as the angry manchildren of the internet made it out to be.
So, yeah, the pilot is okay. It does a decent job introducing the main characters and general premise, but doesn't have anything as epic or majorly attention-grabbing as many Star Wars stories. It's tamer than what I would've ideally liked from the setting, but the story and especially the final scenes were eyebrow-raising enough to leave me wanting more (especially when considering that the pilots to the best Star Wars shows, The Mandalorian and Andor, were also quite tame in a manner that establishes the premise in a subdued manner and later starts to build towards the great stuff).
5. Revenge/Justice (Episode 2)
The second episode is slightly better than the first, as the pace picks up and fuel gets added to the intrigue of the story while the overall quality stays on the same level. There are important moments of character building, and exciting close calls that tease the level of action we'd see later in the series.
The highlight for me is the ending, where the dialogue mentions the wookie Jedi Kelnacca, and we see him roaming around in a scene that is epic both visually and soundtrack-wise. That character addition immediately made me more curious and excited about the next episodes, which makes it all the more frustrating that the character was killed off in such an anticlimactic manner just a few episodes later.
4. Destiny (Episode 3)
Funny how the show's most widely hated episode, scoring an abysmal 3.6 on IMDB, wasn't even among the show's worst offerings in my view. It's no masterpiece, but an all-around interesting episode, the hate for which seems to stem from preconceived attitudes. Sure, if you've set your mind on hating something before you give it a chance, things like "the fire wouldn't have realistically spread that fast" will be something you notice and angrily write essays about online. Then again, if one were to watch the original Star Wars trilogy (that the elitist fans see as a divine piece of perfection above all criticism) with that attitude, you'd notice stuff like the Empire Strikes Back timeline being illogical in order to make the events seem more dramatic or Obi-Wan keeping his last name despite being in hiding from the Empire. People love the original trilogy because it comes from a magical time when people watched movies and television, and bear with me here, in order to enjoy it.
When reading online reviews, it often seems like I'm the only one left still watching Star Wars for the mythical reason of liking Star Wars and wanting to see what the franchise comes up with next, as opposed to hate-watching and nitpicking by people who really should shift their attention from IMDB reviews and video essays to a therapist's office. Anyways, the point I was getting to was that the much-hated third episode of The Acolyte is a nice little flashback story, giving more context to the main characters while expanding Star Wars lore with neat worldbuilding.
A lot of people complained about the witch coven storyline, which I really don't get - from a storytelling&worldbuilding perspective, which is really more interesting: A) there's a magical energy field binding the universe together but it can't be wielded by anyone except one group who do it in one exact way with strict rules, or B) there's a magical energy field binding the universe together and there are different groups in the large universe who have found different ways to relate to it?
3. The Acolyte (Episode 8)
The season finale is what you'd expect, bringing various plot lines together for a climactic showdown while setting up a potential second season with Marvel-style Easter eggs. The action is solid, and while none of the events are revolutionary, the conclusion of the first season is decent enough. The emotional moments (such as Sol's (Lee Jung-jae) death) weren't as powerful as the more emotional moments in The Mandalorian or Andor, but still had me more invested than Ahsoka or The Book of Boba Fett, confirming the show's placement as a middle-of-the-road instalment for the franchise's TV spin-offs.
The Easter eggs didn't feel as epic as they could have, but they were still enough to excite the nerd in me - I'm a regular fan service enjoyer, so the live action debut of Darth Plagueis and the Yoda teaser were neat additions for sure. It's a standard season finale that does its job, leaving room to grow after an uneven but potential-filled first season!
2. Teach/Corrupt (Episode 6)
After the major villain reveal in episode 5, this was the first instance where Manny Jacinto really got to shine in the role of The Stranger. I've always enjoyed fantasy and sci-fi that take a morally grey approach as opposed to black-and-white hero-villain narratives, so seeing the power and philosophy of the Jedi questioned by a fleshed-out antagonist is much more interesting than the bad-guy-wanting-to-destroy-good-guys-because-evil narrative we often see in franchises like Star Wars. Hearing these ideas causes conflict in the protagonist Osha (Amandla Stenberg), while her sister experiences the other side of the coin as staying in Jedi company makes her re-evaluate her anti-Jedi alignment.
1. Night (Episode 5)
In the fifth episode, we follow up on the previous entry's cliffhanger, and Night sure delivers. It's an action-heavy episode, with some of the very best-choreographed action we've seen across the Star Wars TV shows. The lightsaber battles are directed with sharp precision and their unfolding is intense to witness, while the story also finds room to take turns, particularly with the reveal of Manny Jacinto's supporting character Qimir as the show's main villain, The Stranger.
Casting the goofy Florida guy from The Good Place as a Star Wars villain was a risky road to take, but Jacinto is immediately attention-grabbing and surprisingly frightening in the role. Between the exciting action, shocking plot turns and intriguing cliffhanger, I choose this as my favorite instalment from The Acolyte.
All in all, the first season of The Acolyte wasn't all that great, but still miles better than a majority of the reviews online let on. I swear, Star Wars fans just love hating Star Wars - I mean, one of the big complaints I saw about the first episode was that opening with a text screen that illuminates the basic premise felt like the viewers are being patronized and treated as stupid. Yes, you read that correctly - the same Star Wars fans who put the original trilogy on the highest possible pedestal declared that opening with a plot-explaining text is terrible writing. Those double standards are more ridiculous than any Star Wars movie or series (even the infamous Holiday Special) will ever be.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for a post requested by my girlfriend Martta: the best human/animal friendships from television.
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