The Mandalorian

Despite the fact that the special effects look even more fun at times than the average episode of the Thunderbirds, The Mandalorian is of course a feast for the eyes. It remains bizarre that - following series such as Game Of Thrones, A Series Of Unfortunate Events and The Crown - this is now the production level that series must touch to get us as a viewer a bit enthusiastic. Who would have thought that when - until about ten years ago - we were mainly buried under cringe-worthy sitcoms with a laugh track and sets made of corrugated cardboard? But despite all the pomp and circumstance, the biggest eye-catcher of The Mandalorian is of course Baby Yoda. Just as New Girl should have been called "Schmidt", "Baby Yoda" might have been a better name for this first Disney + Original. From the moment he looked at Mando from his little floating box bed, the internet fell in love with him. Rightly so. Still, The Mandalorian faces a problem that even Baby Yoda can't make up for: a complete lack of direction. There is no line or structure at all. What does Favreau actually want to tell us? He thunders through the story with seven-league boots and all of Mando's encounters and decisions feel completely random. Here we liberate an entire village from a life-threatening monster, then build up and break down an entire romance with a willing widow in twenty minutes, and then pick up a partner in crime and dump him again one episode later. There is absolutely no coherence, let alone depth. With only eight episodes of less than half an hour, you hardly get time to bond with the characters. Something that is impossible with Mando anyway, since he walks around with a toaster on his head all the time. I can imagine that The Mandalorian is great for melancholic people in their forties who fondly think back to all the times she pressed Return Of The Jedi's VHS into the VCR, but I just can't do much with it. To me, The Mandalorian is yet another proof that everything stands or falls with a good story and the lack of it cannot even make up for an endearing Baby Yoda.

Nice first episode, I am curious about the rest of the season