Review: Skeleton Crew, "This Could Be A Real Adventure" & "Way, Way Out Past the Barrier" | Season 1, Episodes 1 & 2

Y'know...for kids!

Photo: Lucasfilm

Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Skeleton Crew, the latest installment in Disney+’s expansion of the Star Wars universe. As always, this review is free for all, with subsequent reviews exclusively for paid subscribers. For more information on our schedule for the rest of the year and what your subscription gets you, check out our About Page for more information.

“Don’t you ever want to do anything exciting?”

I cannot say with 100% surety the first time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy, but can quite confidently say the trio of films were a frequent part of my pop-culture diet as a kid. I remember the mid-90s VHS copies that my parents bought for me and I subsequently watched over and over. I remember them taking me to see the films on the big screen in the spring of 1997 when George Lucas remastered and updated them to have some more modern special effects and add in some new bits. Even at age 12, I knew some of the additions were unnecessary, like Han Solo talking to Jabba the Hutt in the middle of the 1977 original. But it almost didn’t matter, because I was finally experiencing a trio of films I adored the way they were meant to be seen.

The point is, Star Wars has been a part of my pop-culture memory about as long as humanly possible, and I’m sure it’s the same for many of you. And yet, when the prequel trilogy started with The Phantom Menace in the summer of 1999, the memories became tinged with disappointment. I recall my mother dutifully driving me a week before the film was released so that I could purchase tickets in advance at the one local multiplex that had THX sound (because I wanted to hear the movie as loudly as possible, of course). I recall seeing the film on opening day, about an hour after my school day ended. I recall enjoying some scenes, but mostly finding it quite dull and/or obnoxious.

And I also recall finding it extremely obnoxious when Lucas tried to deflect legitimate criticism by pulling the “This movie is for children, lighten up” card from his pocket. I am particularly quick to get incensed by that kind of criticism for basically any piece of culture, not because entertainment intended to charm children is inherently bad. It’s only when people—whether they made something or just enjoy it—try pulling that card to skirt any kind of criticism that I have a problem. When Lucas said that Jar Jar Binks was a creation meant to entertain children, and thus shouldn’t be subject to claims that the alien was a racist caricature, it felt like a way for him to say “Don’t think about it too hard, because I certainly didn’t.” Aside from the foolhardy attempt to block people’s minds from being critical, as if Lucas was brandishing some version of the Force himself, I remember also finding it a dumb argument because…well, because the Star Wars films may have some key characters who are kids (such as young Ani in The Phantom Menace), but by and large, the main characters are young adults or grown-ups.

I had this on my mind, as you can now imagine, as I watched the two-part premiere of Skeleton Crew. Whatever else is true of this show, and of Star Wars as a whole, this story is very much about children, and feels deliberately meant to appeal to a younger audience. Even the opening title card, clarifying that this show takes place roughly at the same time as The Mandalorian, seems designed to get kids intrigued. I, at least, could imagine my 10-year old son (or, hell, myself at that age) getting particularly stoked at the final line that reads “Surrender or die.” Space pirates! That sounds cool! This isn’t to say that this show can get a pass for being kid-focused, but that is quite obviously a major selling point of this show. Here is something, ostensibly, that may appeal more to kids than, say, Andor does.

That intent is clear even if you just look at how the balance between kids and adults in this show works. Two episodes in, yes, there is a major actor involved in proceedings in the guise of Jude Law, with supporting players like Tunde Adebimpe, Kerry Condon, and Nick Frost. But co-creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford are grounding their story not via those adults, but through a quartet of children living in a strangely novel blend of two 80s touchstones: Star Wars and Spielbergian suburbia.

Your mileage may vary, but I found it somewhat clever that Watts (who directs the first episode) and Ford chose to blend these two cultural behemoths, at least in a way that I haven’t seen before. Just as Andor depicted the day-to-day grind of this fantasy world as being more like our own world than we may have thought, Skeleton Crew starts by showing us the drudgery of life for kids, in a way that felt much like the latchkey-kid era of films like E.T. and The Goonies. Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) and Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) each have single parents, and while those parents do seem to love their kids unconditionally, they absolutely do not see eye-to-eye with their progeny. Wim is content living in his fantasies of Jedis protecting the galaxy, and is disappointed to realize that his droid teacher and his fellow students think that following in their footsteps is ridiculous. Fern may be doing well in class, but is happy to race her tricked-out speeder around town. They each seem to be impacted (Wim moreso) by a big career-assessment test, with Wim oversleeping and taking a speeder of his own through the forest near his town, leading him to discover a mysterious hatch.

Now, this isn’t Lost, so the good news is that by the end of the opening episode, Wim, his friend Neel, Fern, and her friend KB have not only opened up the hatch but discovered what’s inside. While Wim is desperately convinced that it’s a Jedi temple, it’s actually a derelict spaceship that ends up taking the kids through the vast reaches of outer space via hyperspeed. The tension between the quartet of kids—with Fern and KB playing the boys like the simplest fiddle in the world to get them to do the dirty work—reminded me as much of 80s-era entertainment as it does of modern culture trying to ape such entertainment (I’m specifically thinking of Stranger Things here.)

If there’s any tension that may cause concern, it has less to do with making the kids the focal point of the show, and more about how much a show can get away with making one of its ostensible leads both mildly annoying and dumb. This is very much where the “This is for kids, what do you want?” argument can come into play, but I wonder what you all make of Wim’s choices in the back half of what is essentially a 75-minute premiere. (The first episode ending with the ship going into hyperspeed feels like a commercial break at the halfway point instead.)

That derelict spaceship only gets moving because Wim presses a button that the others have basically demanded him not to touch, and in the second part of the premiere, Wim is called out for continuing to touch stuff that he shouldn’t, simply because he’d rather live out his fantasies. Yes, it’s very realistic to how a kid would act, but that doesn’t make it any less dramatically vexing. While this may not be a show about people stranded on a desert island, the foursome quickly realize they’re extremely lost because they don’t know the specific coordinates of their home planet, At Attin, and the droid SM-33 has no memory banks to identify its last location, its previous captain, or even a way to get them home.

Once SM-33 leads them to a starport riddled with pirates, the kids learn a couple of key details that presumably clarify what mysteries should be solved within the remaining six episodes. First, while we’ve seen At Attin and it seems like a perfectly normal planet, the pirates treat it like an Atlantis-esque myth for reasons unknown. (Though it does sound fun to live on “the lost planet of eternal treasure.”) And second, the kids’ money isn’t current; although Wim’s dad gave him some credits for lunch money, the pirates think it’s Old Republic money instead. These mysteries, at least, do not have obvious answers yet.

When I covered The Acolyte back over the summer, I applauded the show when it revealed details earlier rather than later, partly because it meant the writers weren’t trying to lazily pull a fast one on smart audiences. So for now, I can only wonder how long this show is going to play coy about the very obvious fact that the same hooded figure we see using the Force at the end of “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier” is also the masked pirate captain glimpsed in the opening scene of “This Could Be A Real Adventure.” Law’s character goes unnamed to the kids (but is credited as Jod Na Nawood online), and even as most of us don’t need hints that he’s the same guy as the masked pirate, the kids are clueless for now. It’s not as if the show is playing incredibly coy about this—the wolf/human hybrid Brutus is in both episodes, as is Jaleel White’s character. But the fact that the captain is wearing a mask and using a voice modulator is, I suppose, meant to add a dash of mystery into the pre-title scene. It’s a mystery that is quickly quashed for any of us adults who have seen Law in a movie…y’know, ever. (Maybe it’s just me, but his voice is very, very recognizable.)

This is where the challenge about Skeleton Crew being kid-focused may come into play. You don’t have to dumb things down to ensure that kids will enjoy a piece of entertainment, but depending on who makes the film or TV show and (certainly in this case) what demands are placed on those filmmakers by a studio, you may end up boring adults who can put the puzzle together quicker than kids can. Technically, these episodes don’t confirm that Law’s character is the pirate (but…c’mon). We can probably assume this guy’s not actually a Jedi (since you don’t have to be a good guy to use the Force). We know these things, even if the kids do not. I don’t know that Law is the proper owner of the derelict spaceship, either (but…c’mon). How much longer are they going to stay in the dark? And more importantly: how much longer can keeping your heroes in the dark about information you can guess at be satisfying? As is almost always the case, the opening here is compelling enough but it’ll be difficult to grasp how much this works until it’s concluded.

Stray Observations

• You know who’s a great actress? Kerry Condon. You know who doesn’t have a great American accent? …Kerry Condon. (It’s a nitpick, I realize, but I cannot fathom why Condon can’t use her native Irish brogue here.)

• A critic must be honest with himself and his readers. So, uh…listen, Jaleel White being part of this show is going to be very distracting to me, because that’s Urkel. I know, it’s been over 25 years since Family Matters stopped airing, but…that’s Urkel. I don’t think I can get over that hump.¹

• The way we meet Wim, playing with his action figures, made me think of Dark Helmet doing the same thing in Spaceballs. Again, a critic must be honest with himself.

• One referential point I imagine is more intentional: the pre-title scene of “This Could Be A Real Adventure” feels awfully similar to the opening scene of the first Star Wars, as Darth Vader makes his first appearance and calmly fends off the Rebels, although the masked captain here is not remotely as terrifying.

• Branding is an odd thing, because while much of the promotional material for this show implies that the show’s title is Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, the show’s title card is only the latter two words, so we’ll stick with those.

• I watched these episodes via screeners, so maybe the end credits have been updated, but Ravi Cabot-Conyers is billed first among the kids in “This Could Be A Real Adventure,” and fourth among them in “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier,” which is…just exceedingly odd to me, unless each episode’s credits will alternate which kid gets billed “first” among them. Still seems odd!

• “We all have a place in the Great Work.” Now, technically, I am making the choice to capitalize that phrase, but the way that Condon’s character employs it during her introduction feels intentionally hefty. (Also, if it wasn’t for her attempts to bond with her daughter later, I would assume this scene is foreshadowing that Fara is bad news.)

• I assume—perhaps incorrectly, based on being a more casual Star Wars fan than others—that At Attin is not a planet with a great deal of lore in this universe’s mythology, in part because I had to confirm the spelling via webpages for toys related to this show. (Meaning, this planet doesn’t seem to have a Wookiepedia page yet.)

• Upon rewatching these episodes while writing the review, the way Wim’s dad is so urgent about finding the kids is both a) obvious from a parental-terror POV and b) curious, if something about this planet is meant to be hidden. Or maybe I’m just searching for clues where none are meant to exist.

• Fitting, I suppose, that both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have now appeared in modern Star Wars via voice work. A long way from Spaced!

• Speaking of Lost, a show that was never shy about referencing this franchise, the end of “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier”—wherein an enigmatic figure asks a kid if they can keep a secret—is very similar to Locke and Walt’s conversation in the two-part pilot.

• Hello again, friends! I’m back on the Star Wars beat, and as always, very curious to experience this along with all of you. As of now, I do have one more advance screener to watch (but I have not done so as of this writing, so I remain as in the dark as you). Looking forward to the journey!

1. MM here—have I previously shared that I played video games next to Urkel? It was at a press event for the Syfy series Defiance, which was also an online game, and which he was very bad at. He made me promise to note that he was great at playing Wii.