Summary: Inquisitors arrive on Tatooine hunting rogue Jedi, and Obi-Wan is in hiding. He comes out of hiding when Leia is kidnapped and goes to find her. The kidnapping was ordered by Reva to lure out Obi-Wan. It works and Obi-Wan is found. He gets away with Leia, but Reva tracks him down. Obi-Wan has an encounter with Darth Vader, but manages to get away with the help of Tala, who is an undercover imperial officer assisting Jedi in a group called The Path. However, Leia is captured by Reva. Obi-Wan and Tala save her, but Reva tracks them to their base. Tala is killed in an attack, but Obi-Wan is able to turn Reva against Vader since Reva was always after him. The Path gets away and Reva fights Vader but loses. Vader hunts down The Path but goes after Obi-Wan when he leaves on an escape craft. Obi-Wan fights and defeats Vader but doesn't kill him. Reva learns about Luke and tracks him down, but is unable to kill him. Leia returns home.
The Good: I suppose there was some fine entertainment throughout this show. The cast is mostly solid, the production value of the show is good, and there are a couple of fun moments across these six hours. It was cool to see Flea in the "Star Wars" universe. The Bad: What is there to say about this show that I didn't already say when I reviewed "The Book of Boba Fett" a few months ago? In that review, I mentioned that we needed to move away from these aimless, garbage stories centered around side characters. This show is another one of those awful side stories and it did nothing to correct the concerns I had before. In fact, I think this show was even worse than the last one for many reasons. I'll be keeping this review short because I honestly do not want to talk about this show at all. It was flat, boring, and undeserving of my attention. There are many flaws to discuss. The first is how utterly pointless this show ended up being. For a prequel show like this, the goal should be to recontextualize what we have already seen, while telling an engaging character-based story to overcome the lack of tension that accompanies prequels. Prequels require original ideas and creativity to work. This show had none of what I just described. The events of this show don't change anything about the other "Star Wars" properties outside of opening up new plot holes. I did not learn anything new about the characters in this show. Obi-Wan, Leia, and Vader were all exactly the same, and they did not go through anything meaningful or consequential. Furthermore, the ideas in this show are bland and repetitive. There was nothing at all in these six episodes that surprised me, and it was every bit as by-the-numbers as I was expecting it to be. Honestly, this show is filler in the "Star Wars" universe. We don't learn anything from this show that I hadn't already assumed, so this show literally accomplishes nothing. What makes this even more insufferable is that this is a six-episode TV show, not a movie. There is not enough content in this show to make a TV show. It's blatantly a movie that got extended to become a TV show, and that makes it even worse. Where this could have been a decently fun 1.5 hour experience, it is now a 4+ hour slog with poor pacing, extended scenes, and needless side plots that did not need to exist. The show feels like it was stretched out, which is especially apparent in Obi-Wan's personal story. He feels like a bystander for much of his own series because there isn't enough story for this character to remain relevant for six entire episodes. Speaking of Obi-Wan, his story ended up being remarkably flat. It's a simple case of him letting go of his Jedi past only to rediscover it to protect Leia. The story is fine, but it's predictable and exactly what I was expecting going into the series with no surprise twists or turns at all. His involvement with the infancy of the rebellion was curious, but nothing more was done with it, and the story ended up feeling half-baked. The confrontations with Vader had some excitement surrounding them, but they didn't accomplish much either. Just a way to explain that Obi-Wan knew Anakin was Darth Vader, and that he gave one last chance to save him. Nothing essential and nothing revolutionary for the franchise. Certainly not enough to justify the creation of this show. The other main character of the show is Reva, who often feels more important than Obi-Wan with how much the show is fixated on her. Unfortunately, she was not a good character. I can't tell if the actress was miscast or if the writing was unsalvageable, but whatever the case, the character didn't feel convincing. Her motives are extremely questionable, and when you start tracking the character's actions, intentions, and decisions, things quickly stop making sense. It's hard to get a sense of who she is, and I never found myself interested in her. Her hunt for Luke in the final episode was an enormous waste of time, and it did nothing for me. Reva is a side character invented to pad out the series, and I did not care about her at all. What makes all of this even worse is how bad the writing is. I'll have more specific examples in my episode-by-episode reviews, but every episode is plagued with some of the worst plot and character writing I have ever seen. There are conveniences, logic gaps, character inconsistencies, poorly thought out plans, and nonsensical moments everywhere in this show. I couldn't get invested in any episode because of how many flaws there are. Lastly, I continue to be bothered by how "Star Wars" seems to only care about nostalgia-pandering to the fans instead of telling a good story. That was still the case in this show. There are barely any innovative ideas, and the big moments are all written poorly to reference the past, beating us over the head with nostalgia. Nostalgia is good, but basing an entire franchise on it is incredibly stupid, and it results in mediocre content like this. Best Episodes: None. Worst Episodes: All of them. Every episode fell to the same trappings. Character of the Season: Obi Wan. Conclusion: I did not like this show. There is very little to enjoy and to justify its existence, but there are plenty of fundamental flaws and storytelling errors that annoyed me. I didn't have the energy to write full-length reviews, and I barely had the will to do a season review. All of these Disney shows feel like soulless corporate productions that make the same mistakes and never try to be better because they make so much money. If nothing changes, I don't think I will have the energy to review these anymore. "Obi-Wan Kenobi" was easily the worst one yet.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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