Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran

Without spoilers, the first few episodes are a bit rough, but the back half of the season comes together really well. And, I suspect, the first bit may feel less confused knowing what's revealed in the back half.

Even in the back half it's not perfect. I have criticisms. But I dig the ideas it's playing with a lot. And the mid-season has one of my favorite lightsaber duels fights in all of Star Wars.

. . . the show is named after the fucking Sith Acolyte prestige class from the d20 Star Wars TTRPG. I don't know why it took me this long to realize that. The Dark Side Sourcebook was one of my favorite TTRPG splats when I was a teenager.

Without spoilers, the first few episodes are a bit rough, but the back half of the season comes together really well. And, I suspect, the first bit may feel less confused knowing what's revealed in the back half.

Even in the back half it's not perfect. I have criticisms. But I dig the ideas it's playing with a lot. And the mid-season has one of my favorite lightsaber duels fights in all of Star Wars.

. . . there are two kinds of Star Wars fans:¹

• Fans who see Star Wars first as a mythic universe of good and evil, heroes and villains. Fairy tales in space.
• Fans who see Star Wars first as a believable, lived in space.

The first sort of fan reacts badly to shows like Andor that depict a grittier, more everyday Star Wars as well as media that shows the Jedi as flawed, like the prequels and The Acolyte.²

For what it's worth, I'm personally in the later category, but don't think either perspective is necessarily wrong. I think a major strength of the franchise is the synthesis of the mundane and the mythic.

1. There ware way more than two kinds of Star Wars Fans.

2. I don't think The Acolyte is good, but not because of anything to do with how it depicts Jedi. I'm also not sure I'd say I don't like it; just that I don't think it's particularly competently executed.