Clone Wars S01 E20 (SPOILERS)

I have to say that, at least in respect to the multi-part arcs, the in medias res approach seems to work quite well.

Whilst the actual episode itself is an odd mix of Star Wars: Battlefront and war drama, it actually works fairly well. One of the things that is most striking about the Clone Wars as a series is its freedom to tell the story from the point of view of supporting characters – something a lot of established or recent shows don’t have the ability to do. There’s a fair amount of Obi-Wan in action during the course of the 20 odd minutes of this episode but the real focus is Waxer and Boil and their relationship with Twi’lek Numa.

If 2000 AD were to be stripped away of its acrid humour then I get the feeling that it might have been something like this episode, particularly in the final Twi’leks vs. Tactical Droid showdown.

It’s getting hard to find new nice things to say about the series, especially when it consistently achieves. This does of course make me somewhat concerned about Season 2 and the rumour that the episodes will be sliding around through the entire course of the conflict and not remaining as a clear line. I also can’t help but feel that Ahsoka has been a bit of a red herring; introduced early to shock and then left mostly to languish as a supporting character who rarely appears and takes the spotlight even less. Such an approach for Season 2’s format is unnerving for me because I can’t help but feel that it will make it even easier for writers and certain elements of fandom to ignore her.

On the plus side though, it means that, however unliklely, we might at last discover the true fate of Asajj Ventress and perhaps even see cameos from Yoda: Dark Rendezvous characters, Scout and Whie Malreaux, which would be awesome but is, at best, improbable.

Hope, however, springs eternal.