Ahsoka Season 1 Review

Ahsoka (2023-)
Season 1 - 8 episodes

Watch Ahsoka on Disney+
Created by: Dave Filoni
Starring: Rosario Dawson, David Tennant, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ray Stevenson, Ivanna Sakhno, Diana Lee Inosanto, Hayden Christensen
Rated: TV-14
Watch the trailer

Plot
After the fall of the Galactic Empire, former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.

Verdict
Disney's reason for you to watch this is because it's Star Wars and features a prominent character from Clone Wars. That's it. The plot is lacking. This provides the typical Star Wars fare such as light sabers, droids, and ships, but it lacks a compelling reason for you to care about Ahsoka or the plot. I was never invested. Sure, it looks great, but it's a hollow shell.
Skip it.

Review
I really enjoyed Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The series explored multiple perspectives, doing an excellent job at it. This series isn't a continuation. This seems like another Disney cash grab as the company is pumping out yet another Star Wars series.

This opens with the classic Star Wars text crawl, but in this show it doesn't serve much. Even at its best a text crawl is an exposition shortcut. This text crawl is perfunctory because this show wants to provide all of the hallmarks of Star Wars, everything you would typically see except there's no meaning behind it.

In Clone Wars Ahsoka was young, a student of Anakin Skywalker. This series takes place roughly thirty years after. That's a lot of time, and Ahsoka feels like a different character from Clone Wars. This makes a few references to the series, but this isn't similar.

Rosario Dawson plays Ahsoka Tano

Nearly from the first episode I wanted more. It's cagey, some macguffin of a map to an admiral that would aid the empire is the basis of the plot. It's not enough. This has ships, light sabers, and the usual Star Wars plot elements, but it's tepid. The first episode wants to draw you in with action, but it doesn't provide a tangible and engrossing story. It's a manipulation that doesn't provide a reason to care.

This introduces Ahsoka's (Rosario Dawson) padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and the latest handful of Star Wars series really like Mandalorians. As big as this world is, the different shows keep coming back to the same things.

Ivanna Sakhno, Ray Stevenson play Shin Hati, Baylan Skoll

The show is completely lifeless because there's no plot. The bad guys want to start a thing, the good guys want to stop it. The stakes aren't tangible. It's a hypothetical scenario so this show can keep releasing episodes. Ahsoka and the bad guy Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) are both quiet types, so we don't know much about them. This show can't develop characters past they look cool. I kept hoping for a reason to care.

Why this show doesn't work is the exact reason The Mandalorian does. There's a tangible goal and we get a character that's developed. Ahsoka has the baggage of being Anakin's padawan, but this show doesn't use that. While she was expressive in Clone Wars, that enthusiasm is gone here. Maybe Ahsoka is world weary, but she ends up being bland.

The final episode has big moments and character payoffs, but it feels forced. This show checks the boxes for what should happen but it lacks passion and a point.