I didn’t mind the lack of recap in Res Dogs, but that’s probably because I checked the show cast right at the beginning to remind myself who Maximus, Irene, etc. were. But I do that often in this show at the start of a new season, when I can’t quite remember which elders are related to which kids.
I don’t know how representative my parents are of the average Disney + viewer, but I do know if they had turned on Ahsoka and been greeted with an animated recap, they’d have said “I didn’t know this was a show for kids” and turned it off. They’re part of what I’d guess is a not-insignificant subset of TV viewers who still see animation as immediately signaling that they’re watching a show made with children in mind. I even had to reassure them that the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover would become live action after a few minutes because they’d have been likely to nope right out of it. I can just picture the meetings at Lucasfilm debating whether the additional context from a “previously on” is worth opening in a different medium and potentially turning off some viewers.
I've been hesitant to jump into Ahsoka precisely because I haven't watched Clone Wars and Rebels, even if I am up to date on most other Star Wars canon. The Game of Thrones comp actually helps - I watched that show before ever reading a page of the books, so thinking of Rebels as source material being adapted here instead of mandatory content that you must watch first makes the idea of jumping in much less daunting.
Ashoka would probably work better as animated series. While it may not have drawn in as many viewers, since many still view animation as kids stuff, it would have made it clear that this is a follow-up to Rebels.
According to rumors, Ahsoka was originally intended to be animated but switched mediums following the success of Mandalorian.
I'm nope-ing right out of “Ahsoka” Dave Filoni’s involvement was enough to make me apprehensive about it, and it sounds like my fears have been confirmed in the reviews I've read. To me, the main difference between what Ahsoka is doing and what Reservation Dogs did, is that Dave Filoni is so fixated on canon, which makes it nearly impossible for an episode or a series to stand on its own.
I thought “House Made of Bongs” worked perfectly fine on its own. Does it matter if it doesn't answer some specific question in the show? Probably not. I really like the main characters on the show, but it’s sort of refreshing that they are willing to tell the stories they want to tell, regardless of how much people want to see Cheese each week. Maybe this one is an ’80s TV style spinoff episode :)
Obiwan carried over the Inquisitors from one of the animated series, if I'm not mistaken. And the events surrounding those characters seemed to have much less impact for someone with no previous exposure to them (me).
I haven't watched Ahsoka yet because I knew I had some catching up to do, and found it interesting that D+ curated a number of Ahsoka backstory episodes from The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Boba Fett that you can all watch in order to get caught up (which I am doing). So maybe that was their solution to the "no animated recap" situation? I also hope that Our Flag Means Death is on your fall schedule now that they announced the October release date for s2!
I really didn't mind the lack of "previously on" stuff for Ahsoka, despite never having seen the animated series', because the opening crawl helped to establish what kind of Star Wars story this would be. The opening crawl has always been used as a bit of a recap and stage-setting, even for things that never appeared on screen, and part of the fun of Star Wars to me has been how it often just throws you into the middle of a story and you're expected to keep up. The original trilogy always had important events that happened off-screen between movies, and were just barely mentioned in the opening crawl, and that was part of the charm, creating a sense of mystery as you tried to figure out what was going on, and filling in the blanks with your imagination. Sure, it helped that I know Thrawn from the now-non-canon original trilogy of books about him, but I didn't know most of the characters or what happened to Ezra, but why would I need to know that? The hologram of Ezra tells you all you need to know, that he was very important to Sabine and the others, that he sacrificed himself somehow to defeat Thrawn, but it's also clear that no one saw him or Thrawn die, otherwise they wouldn't be searching for him.
Anyway, this feels like much ado about nothing, people complaining about the show following in the long tradition of serialized storytelling where you are thrown into the middle of a story without spending time on exposition or recaps or flashbacks. I think it's a good way to tell a story.
Something that just struck me reading this, re: Ahsoka, is that the “timeline” is messy on Star Wars these days. Having watched Rebels, and Mando, I still had to be “Ok, so this is post-Return of the Jedi but pre-Force Awakens, and these characters have history spanning the prequel trilogy through the Empire’s defeat...”
A diagetic opening for it -- they even had Lothal’s anniversary celebration thingy! -- both explaining where we are in Star Wars and the relevant Rebels details would’ve worked. Specially with Clancy Brown delivering it, what a voice.
On Reservoir Dogs though, I’m fine as is. Even without picking up the context and connections, this is a show that you take episode by episode (hence why recapping is though, as mentioned elsewhere in Episodic Medium), and there’s something to be gained even without connecting things. The characters and relationships felt lived in, and it being the final season, it adds to the meta level of “we won’t see our main crew again, but there have been many like it and there’ll be more” which I always enjoy as shows wrap things up.
Oh boy, you are speaking my language this week, as someone who was going to watch Ahsoka until multiple people confirmed it was basically a fifth season of Rebels, so I'm just going to get around to watching Clone Wars and Rebels now because clearly that homework is gonna be necessary or at least relevant for an indeterminate number of shows Filoni does, and as someone who watched "House Made of Bongs" thinking it was about random unconnected characters before reading a piece online that explained who the fuck everyone was.
Time to write about "previously on" without referencing Rick and Morty's offshoot character "Previous Leon" 😅
I think that it needs to be done very carefully, if at all, to catch viewers up. When it happens on Only Murders in the Building, for example, they sort of ham-fist the important lines of dialogue and character beats that will be relevant for this upcoming episode, but it does sort of kill any kind of thoughtful viewing/speculating that can be done in between episodes for this show, when the mystery is sort of the whole point. Shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul could get away with amazing "previously on" segments, because Gilligan took the time to build a world and slowly, carefully lay down the plot points that would become relevant later on.
Basically, you need to trust your audience and be patient enough to construct your world/characters appropriately in order for "previously on"s not to just throw up some important plot shit from prior episodes that will matter for this current episode. They should be HINTS of what will happen, not spoonfuls of exposition dumps.
Week-to-Week: Sometimes We Actually Do Need A Recap
I didn’t mind the lack of recap in Res Dogs, but that’s probably because I checked the show cast right at the beginning to remind myself who Maximus, Irene, etc. were. But I do that often in this show at the start of a new season, when I can’t quite remember which elders are related to which kids.
I don’t know how representative my parents are of the average Disney + viewer, but I do know if they had turned on Ahsoka and been greeted with an animated recap, they’d have said “I didn’t know this was a show for kids” and turned it off. They’re part of what I’d guess is a not-insignificant subset of TV viewers who still see animation as immediately signaling that they’re watching a show made with children in mind. I even had to reassure them that the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover would become live action after a few minutes because they’d have been likely to nope right out of it. I can just picture the meetings at Lucasfilm debating whether the additional context from a “previously on” is worth opening in a different medium and potentially turning off some viewers.
I've been hesitant to jump into Ahsoka precisely because I haven't watched Clone Wars and Rebels, even if I am up to date on most other Star Wars canon. The Game of Thrones comp actually helps - I watched that show before ever reading a page of the books, so thinking of Rebels as source material being adapted here instead of mandatory content that you must watch first makes the idea of jumping in much less daunting.
Ashoka would probably work better as animated series. While it may not have drawn in as many viewers, since many still view animation as kids stuff, it would have made it clear that this is a follow-up to Rebels.
According to rumors, Ahsoka was originally intended to be animated but switched mediums following the success of Mandalorian.
https://insidethemagic.net/2021/01/star-wars-rebels-sequel-rwb1/
I'm nope-ing right out of “Ahsoka” Dave Filoni’s involvement was enough to make me apprehensive about it, and it sounds like my fears have been confirmed in the reviews I've read. To me, the main difference between what Ahsoka is doing and what Reservation Dogs did, is that Dave Filoni is so fixated on canon, which makes it nearly impossible for an episode or a series to stand on its own.
I thought “House Made of Bongs” worked perfectly fine on its own. Does it matter if it doesn't answer some specific question in the show? Probably not. I really like the main characters on the show, but it’s sort of refreshing that they are willing to tell the stories they want to tell, regardless of how much people want to see Cheese each week. Maybe this one is an ’80s TV style spinoff episode :)
Obiwan carried over the Inquisitors from one of the animated series, if I'm not mistaken. And the events surrounding those characters seemed to have much less impact for someone with no previous exposure to them (me).
I haven't watched Ahsoka yet because I knew I had some catching up to do, and found it interesting that D+ curated a number of Ahsoka backstory episodes from The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Boba Fett that you can all watch in order to get caught up (which I am doing). So maybe that was their solution to the "no animated recap" situation? I also hope that Our Flag Means Death is on your fall schedule now that they announced the October release date for s2!
I really didn't mind the lack of "previously on" stuff for Ahsoka, despite never having seen the animated series', because the opening crawl helped to establish what kind of Star Wars story this would be. The opening crawl has always been used as a bit of a recap and stage-setting, even for things that never appeared on screen, and part of the fun of Star Wars to me has been how it often just throws you into the middle of a story and you're expected to keep up. The original trilogy always had important events that happened off-screen between movies, and were just barely mentioned in the opening crawl, and that was part of the charm, creating a sense of mystery as you tried to figure out what was going on, and filling in the blanks with your imagination. Sure, it helped that I know Thrawn from the now-non-canon original trilogy of books about him, but I didn't know most of the characters or what happened to Ezra, but why would I need to know that? The hologram of Ezra tells you all you need to know, that he was very important to Sabine and the others, that he sacrificed himself somehow to defeat Thrawn, but it's also clear that no one saw him or Thrawn die, otherwise they wouldn't be searching for him.
Anyway, this feels like much ado about nothing, people complaining about the show following in the long tradition of serialized storytelling where you are thrown into the middle of a story without spending time on exposition or recaps or flashbacks. I think it's a good way to tell a story.
Something that just struck me reading this, re: Ahsoka, is that the “timeline” is messy on Star Wars these days. Having watched Rebels, and Mando, I still had to be “Ok, so this is post-Return of the Jedi but pre-Force Awakens, and these characters have history spanning the prequel trilogy through the Empire’s defeat...”
A diagetic opening for it -- they even had Lothal’s anniversary celebration thingy! -- both explaining where we are in Star Wars and the relevant Rebels details would’ve worked. Specially with Clancy Brown delivering it, what a voice.
On Reservoir Dogs though, I’m fine as is. Even without picking up the context and connections, this is a show that you take episode by episode (hence why recapping is though, as mentioned elsewhere in Episodic Medium), and there’s something to be gained even without connecting things. The characters and relationships felt lived in, and it being the final season, it adds to the meta level of “we won’t see our main crew again, but there have been many like it and there’ll be more” which I always enjoy as shows wrap things up.
Oh boy, you are speaking my language this week, as someone who was going to watch Ahsoka until multiple people confirmed it was basically a fifth season of Rebels, so I'm just going to get around to watching Clone Wars and Rebels now because clearly that homework is gonna be necessary or at least relevant for an indeterminate number of shows Filoni does, and as someone who watched "House Made of Bongs" thinking it was about random unconnected characters before reading a piece online that explained who the fuck everyone was.
Time to write about "previously on" without referencing Rick and Morty's offshoot character "Previous Leon" 😅
I think that it needs to be done very carefully, if at all, to catch viewers up. When it happens on Only Murders in the Building, for example, they sort of ham-fist the important lines of dialogue and character beats that will be relevant for this upcoming episode, but it does sort of kill any kind of thoughtful viewing/speculating that can be done in between episodes for this show, when the mystery is sort of the whole point. Shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul could get away with amazing "previously on" segments, because Gilligan took the time to build a world and slowly, carefully lay down the plot points that would become relevant later on.
Basically, you need to trust your audience and be patient enough to construct your world/characters appropriately in order for "previously on"s not to just throw up some important plot shit from prior episodes that will matter for this current episode. They should be HINTS of what will happen, not spoonfuls of exposition dumps.
I'm not finding Ahsoka "nonsense" but pretty damn close as someone who hasn't done the homework