CW S01E11 – 12 (SPOILERS)

As you might have guessed, I’ve been somewhat behind with matters in a galaxy far, far away.

After a disastrous attempt at watching the Holiday Special on Christmas Eve (I think I lasted under ten minutes), things have been fairly quiet. I have noted the publication of Matthew Stover’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor and am really excited about getting hold of a copy…but not before it comes out in paperback.

In the meantime, Clone Wars has been the order of the day, with my devoted and wonderful wife having recently brought me a copy of the unfortunately titled but brilliantly written Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which is a contender for being the best Clone Wars era story ever.

Speaking of the era, it would be remiss of me to not at least mention episodes #11 – 12 of the cartoon series.

Again, like other multi-part stories, this arc, involving the capture of Count Dooku…followed by the capture of Obi-Wan and Anakin, starts off slow but culminates in #12 being one of the best episodes so far, and that’s even with a second appearance from Jar Jar Binks.

One of the things that certainly won me over to this arc was that it shows a vague camaraderie between Obi-Wan and Dooku without ever breaking the dynamic of who they are in the series. Dooku can still be a villainous general intent on overthrowing order in the universe ala Ming the Merciless, whilst Anakin can still be the hot headed, insolent youngster and Obi-Wan can still be the accommodating student of Dooku’s own former student. There’s a nice symmetry to their relationship, showing how much of a Jedi Dooku is (despite his protests) and how well the three characters work together.

When taken in context of the events of the canonical prequel trilogy, things begin to fall down a little. It’s difficult to associate the Dooku here with the person he is in the films, not least of all because, whilst they may seem the same, Dooku in this series seems to be far closer to the popular fan idea of him *not* being a Sith but rather being of some sort of Grey Jedi tradition.

That in itself is worth taking a look at these episodes for.

Hopefully, over the next month I’ll catch up with the more recent episodes.

I can’t believe we’re already approaching the end of Season One!