Advanced Note : Ordinarily, i would've gotten straight down to writing up a review within the same day of having watched a new episode but sadly by the time i'd managed to watch episode two, i had to dash out as i'd booked movie tickets for the afternoon and evening showings of a couple of opening day releases.
The Review
i'll be totally honest, i was expecting a little more after the season premiere. It was still very enjoyable and maybe my expectations were just a bit too high but i felt a bit disappointed when those gorgeous credits came up again. One of my major pickings about the premiere was that being only forty(ish) minutes didn't seem long enough for a show that has a $12.8 million dollar budget per singular episode so when the run-time for episode two ended up being only half an hour, that disappointment only heightened. If The Mandalorian had your typical american season episode count of 20+, i could understand but we're talking about an eight episode season with double the budget of most sci-fi shows on TV with twice as many episodes to boot. Again, maybe its just my own perspective but i feel like a show of this standard should be at least matched with cable TV runtimes.
Onto the good stuff - Chapter 2 had some seriously great moments, throwbacks to the original and prequel trilogies and the swift return of Nick Nolte as Kuill, i have spoken. While the overall arc of this season remains a pretty big mystery, hints have started to be dropped and it definitely seems to revolve around the so called 'Baby Yoda' and our lovable rogue taking on the role of his/her protector. A rather unexpected moment was the return of those annoying little Jawa's and the iconic Sandcrawler first seen in the original trilogy all the way back in 1977. Of course, they were up to their usual antics, stripping down the Razor Crest for parts, presumably to sell somewhere in the outer rim. Part of this included what i can only describe as a "holy shit!" moment for 'Baby Yoda' when the little one seemed to be revealed as being intelligent and force sensitive. This is a pretty big moment for not only this series but for Star Wars canon in all and maybe, just maybe hints at the baby being the progeny of Yoda himself and former Jedi council member Yaddle (also of the...yoda species?)
Overall
In terms of story & pacing, the show seems to be heading in a generally strong direction but it's never going to feel particularly fulfilling with such a short run-time every episode. An increase of even 10-15 minutes (which would essentially match the majority of current sci-fi shows) would help heighten the narrative flow and give a little more depth where its perhaps lacking but that's really something that will be determined a little later into the season. I'm still very much enticed and i think really my only hope is that it'll be worth the wait each week now and hopefully at some point, we'll get some longer episodes. Considering we don't get any "Next Time" trailers or segments, we've no real idea what's coming at us next so there's going to be some intrigue there for the next bunch of episodes which is definitely refreshing. Lets hope the third episode delivers. I have spoken.
Chapter 3 review coming Friday!
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