Editor’s note: Some mild spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian and Star Trek: Discovery.
As The Child, more commonly known as Baby Yoda, squeaks and squeals in the second season premiere of Disney Plus’ flagship series The Mandalorian, it became crystal clear just how big of a sucker I am for this dang show.
And that’s OK. It just works so well. And not just because of the little green ball of adorableness (although that definitely doesn’t hurt).
At its core, The Mandalorian is an old-school western with sci-fi dressing and the first episode of season two leaned into that with great effect. Our anti-hero, a gruff, hardened bounty hunter with a heart of gold, heads to a desert town in the premiere, where he runs into the local marshal/sheriff.
Said marshal, Cobb Vanth, (played by Timothy Olyphant) is wearing a familiar piece of armour. This goes entirely against the Mandalorian’s warrior code and he demands he returns it, plus the armour could also help return The Child back to its home.
But Vanth bristles at this, saying he’d only give it up if the Mandalorian helps the town defeat a menacing monster that has been disrupting their supply lines and could prove dangerous to the local population. It’s a transaction that could fit in any western, Arthurian tale or samurai movie.
For the first half of the premiere episode, things are relatively reserved and held back, there’s an emphasis on the sparseness of the desert planet Tatooine. Ironically there’s very little space to speak of in this first ep, although I’m sure that will change as the season progresses.
Things pick up once the heroes team-up with some former rivals to fight the big bad together in a gorgeous standoff, seemingly shot with an IMAX camera. It’s a major set-piece scene that will likely live on as a top Star Wars moment in countless YouTube videos on the topic.
The season two premiere was a perfect encapsulation of what makes The Mandalorian one of the best parts of the Star Wars universe: A simple, old-school story within a much larger world. Add to that some stunning visuals and evocative scoring, what’s not to like?
There are of course hints at the wider Star Wars canon, with cameos and references and props to make the fans speculate on Reddit for hours and that’s all well and good. The Mandalorian in many ways surpasses the source material and is quickly becoming a highlight of the whole franchise.
Baby Yoda also helps.
The Mandalorian airs every Friday on Disney Plus.
Discovering its footing
In another storied science-fiction franchise, Star Trek: Discovery is also back for another adventure in the stars, now into its third season.
Unlike The Mandalorian, Star Trek: Discovery is a complex, tangled story that throws the viewer right back into the action without much of a re-cap of what happened in seasons one and two.
I’ll admit here I had to watch a video recap of what happened previously to get back up to speed. Look, I watch a lot of shows, forgive me.
Basically, season two ends with the U.S.S. Discovery hurling itself 900-plus years into the future to prevent a galaxy-wiping calamity. Season three picks up with Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, crash-landing on a mysterious planet.
Trying to get her bearings and find the remainder of her missing crew, Burnham runs into Cleveland Booker (David Ajala), a smuggler of rare goods, who apprehensively agrees to help her.
By episode two, things get rolling a bit more as the rest of the crew is reunited and they realize that the Federation of the far future was seemingly destroyed by yet another mysterious galaxy-shaping event called The Burn, where most of the dilithium crystals (which power all of the starships) exploded.
I’m a Star Trek fan, have been for a long time, but I’ll admit I’ve been finding this season of Discovery, at least so far, very hard to follow or feel invested in.
I do care about the characters and their relationships, but I just have no sense of where this story is going, no arc to track or thing to root for. There’s a vague sense that the crew will try to rebuild the Federation in the far, far future, which is a noble idea - but that’s also a really tough sell for a show that has been heavily reliant on nostalgia.
Star Trek has already flirted with the idea of the Federation — the utopian UN-style government that controls a large portion of the galaxy made up of humans and other species — being either corrupt, on the brink or utterly destroyed both in Discovery and Star Trek: Picard.
This likely has to do with our modern context, the rise of social inequality, racial injustice and authoritarianism, etc. But Star Trek has always represented something to aspire to, a moving target that if we can dream big enough we could hit it someday.
I’m not sure how much longer I can buy into the grimdark vision of modern Trek, but I will stick with this series for now to see how things go.
Star Trek: Discovery airs every Thursday on Crave.
