It’s safe to say Disney’s streaming output has been a mixed bag. For every excellent WandaVision and The Mandalorian we’ve gotten garbage like Secret Invasion and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Perhaps that’s why Disney Plus subscriber figures are in decline, from a high of around 170 million in late 2022 to just 125 million in the first quarter of 2025. 3k1e3p

There are a whole bunch of reasons for this: Disney Plus subs took a hit when they lost the licence to broadcast cricket in India, there’s fiercer competition from other streaming services, a cost of living crisis and, simply, that the pandemic saw people trapped indoors with nothing to do, briefly boosting demand.

But, whatever the case, Disney certainly sounds gloomy about the future. One recent shining light for Disney Plus has been the critically acclaimed Star Wars hit Andor, now considered the best thing the franchise has seen since the original trilogy wrapped up with Return of the Jedi.

Showrunner Tony Gilroy has praised Disney and Lucasfilm for the “freedom” they gave him, essentially giving him an incredible $650 million budget for 24 episodes and letting him use that as he wished. The gamble paid off, but he’s now revealed that during the gap between seasons, Disney made a startling ission about their opinion on streaming.

Tony Gilroy confirms the total budget for ‘ANDOR’ was $650M

They had to fight for the necessary funding for S2 after Disney told them “streaming is dead”

(Source: https://t.co/dVz6p04CDq) pic.twitter.com/9S3kFPbndA

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 31, 2025

Speaking at a at the ATX Television Festival last week, he recounted a meeting with a Disney higher-up who explained: “‘Streaming is dead, we don’t have the money we had before”. This led to arguments over Andor season 2, though Gilroy appears to have triumphed: “we fought hard about money, but they never cleaned anything up. That [freedom] comes with responsibilities.”

Cheaper shows incoming? 3c4v1u

Saying that streaming is “dead” to Disney is quite the statement. As per their most recent filings, Disney’s total revenue for Q1 2025 was $24.7 billion, a 5% increase from Q1 2024. However, they also reveal that Disney Plus lost 0.7 million subscribers. Presumably, they have internal data that lets them make predictions for the future that paint a gloomy picture.

All of which means that we were probably lucky to get Andor and don’t expect any shows similar to it anytime soon. Belts are being tightened and budgets restricted, so anticipate shows that lean heavily on cheaper Volume-style CGI sets and have extremely safe narratives.

Andor is set to go down in history as the greatest Star Wars story ever. This complex, politically charged, and character-driven thriller blasts past the prequel and sequel trilogies, leaves every other Disney Plus Star Wars show in the dust, and, in many ways, is even superior to George Lucas’ iconic original trilogy.

With the final episodes landing yesterday, praise is at fever pitch on social media, with many demanding that Lucasfilm hand showrunner Tony Gilroy the keys to the kingdom and let him chart the franchise’s future:

This is how Star Wars should be. Tony Gilroy truly understands that. Give this man more future Star Wars projects and return the franchise to be true Star Wars. #Andor #AndorS2 #AndorSeason2 pic.twitter.com/6MBlQZiHyW

— CΛMSPIRΞ ♪ (@CamsTranceVibes) April 24, 2025

Unfortunately for all of us, Gilroy has indicated that his time in a galaxy far, far away is over. Speaking to Collider in Mar. 2025, he was asked if he would be back for more and said:

“It’s not really part of my plan. I’ve been peripherally involved for 10 years and intensely involved for six years, so that’s a pretty big chunk of my life. There are other things to do.”

But Disney and Lucasfilm would be fools to let him walk away now and we expect executives will do their best to tempt him back for more. And there’s one project he’d be ideal for that no other person should be trusted with.

A New New Hope? 1f4i2c

This will be blasphemy to many, but with A New Hope approaching its 50th anniversary in 2027, it may finally be time for a remake. After all, while George Lucas’ 1977 original will always be a cinematic classic, it’s looking increasingly creaky to younger viewers, so a fresh perspective and retelling of this incredible story would be an ideal way to reinvigorate the franchise.

There are only a handful of people who could pull off this feat, but after Andor, Gilroy has to be top of the pile. After all, Andor ends right as 2016’s Rogue One begins, which itself leads directly into the opening minutes of A New Hope. Gilroy being given the reins would let him effectively continue his story, folding the winning Andor formula into one continuous and truly epic saga.

Some of the surviving Andor characters could go on to play new roles in this reworked original trilogy, cementing the links between them. And, as a bonus, this would also clear the decks of the increasingly tangled and crowded Star Wars canon. From Disney’s point of view, a remake of A New Hope would be a guaranteed box office smash, fit in perfectly with their current strategy of remaking their classic animated movies in live action, and lay obvious groundwork for future remakes of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

This “new” original trilogy then leaves acres of fertile storytelling ground beyond it that could be occupied by an entirely original sequel trilogy that’s actually planned out in advance and doesn’t end on a massive anticlimax.

Any announcement along these lines would be met by an aggressive backlash by fans understandably attached to Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and the rest, but what better way to honor Star Wars than to give us an entirely original take on Luke Skywalker’s adventures that tesselates perfectly with the storylines and themes we just saw in Andor?

Star Wars fans rejoice, as Disney Plus has revealed the Andor season 2 release date is April 22, 2025! The final episodes of the Star Wars show see Diego Luna’s Cassian accept his place in the rebellion, leading straight into the events of Rogue One.

Showrunner Tony Gilroy plans to go out with a bang, and one strategy is ripped right from Arcane‘s book. The frenetic animated show from Riot Games and Fortiche is one of the best Netflix series, and one of its key advantages is a compelling release strategy.

Andor plans to follow its methodology… kind of. The 12 episodes will be split into three-episode arcs that cover one year of Cassian’s life, writes Variety. This is much like Arcane’s strategy, just swapping out its batch releases for a one-episode-per-week approach.

Each trio of episodes in Arcane acts as an arc, presenting the overall story in digestible, pacy chunks. This strategy means the episodes’ themes and revelations flow together while stopping short of a full-on binge model where whole seasons become available at once.

Disney shows typically releases one episode weekly, with the odd two-episode premiere or finale thrown in to help onboard viewers and maintain a good finishing rate. Netflix, however, popularized the binge model and has largely stuck to it. The platform does stray sometimes — Stranger Things season 4‘s final two episodes were held back, for example — but it’s rare.

While releasing all episodes at once helped Netflix win the streaming wars, there’s been increasing negative chatter about this release strategy. Binging reduces trend longevity online, prevents fandoms from forming around week-to-week theorizing, and prevents viewers from being on the same page because everyone watches at their own pace.

That’s not to say the weekly model is inherently better, though — every show should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel series have largely failed to live up to their promised hype, feeling like six-hour-long movies cut into uneven parts that don’t adhere to the basic structural rules of television.

So Andor is going a more creative route but is sticking to a weekly approach that serves the pacing of its story. The batch release style orks amazingly for Arcane, so seeing other series test drive it in the future would be interesting.

Arcane‘s feats are unending, and the mini-arcs baked into season one made the show feel both cohesive and patient. You got more than one episode at a time, so could sink into the world and satisfy that Runeterra craving, but the end hook after every third episode and the promise of new revelations to come meant that you could build anticipation between the batches.

This lent Arcane a pacey quality. Fans got to discuss Jinx and Vi’s strained relationship, experience the heart-sinking finale in unison, and the extended release allowed artists to bolster the series’ reach with drawings and odes.

With a sea of “content” and declining attention spans making it increasingly hard for even the most popular IPs to reel us in, this release format may be one of several answers to streaming issues the industry has created for itself.

Whether Andor season 2 can take advantage of the mini-arcs as well as Arcane did remains to be seen, but season 1 was a breath of fresh air, so we’ve got hope in spades. And , rebellions are built on hope!

The second season of Andor is still in the works with no announced release date to give us something to look forward to, but Diego Luna promises fans that the wait will be well worth it.

Andor was an unexpected gem in a sea of middling Star Wars projects by Disney. While it didn’t include any lightsaber-wielders or Force-s, or have anything direct to do with the Skywalker Saga, the story of Cassian Andor as he got swept up in the burgeoning rebellion against Emperor Palpatine was a joy to watch. But even above and beyond the masterful suspense of Andor‘s numerous character arcs, what Star Wars fans found most fascinating was the writing; compelling in a way that few other television shows dare to attempt in this dreary, quantity-over-quality streaming age.

And the best part is that Andor will be bridging the gap to Rogue One, which is arguably the best Star Was movie the Mouse House ever put out. From the get-go, Tony Gilroy envisioned the series in two parts, one introducing fans to Cassian and his life before ing the rebellion, and one as he becomes a piece in the puzzle of Mon Mothma and this new character Luthen Rael’s chessboard.

Now, Diego Luna is teasing fans with lots of connections and parallels to Rogue One, saying that fans will want to watch the movie again after season 2 because they’re “going to see it from a different perspective.”

Speaking with IMDb at D23, this is what Luna had to say about season 2 and all the juicy character cameos awaiting us.

“It’s been 10 years of playing Cassian and I can say that I’ve just witnessed love, received a lot of appreciation for the story we’re telling,” he said. “Season 2 is a complicated one. In season 1 we witness a year of the life of Cassian, now it’s going to be 4 years. The last 4 years just before Rogue One starts. A lot is going to happen. There’s like 5 different planets. So many characters that you know already, either from season 1 or because you know what happens in Rogue One. The season ends minutes before he steps into Rogue One. There are so many characters that you’ll go like, ‘Oh, sh-t! Oh my god, really!’

Among these familiar faces will be Andor’s droid buddy K-2SO, who helped the team during the events of Rogue One. How Cassian meets the security droid and modifies it to serve the Rebellion instead of its Imperial masters might be one of the main story arcs in season 2, but there are still many other plot points the show needs to address before ending everything “minutes before” Rogue One.

For instance, how did the Rebellion grow from a disted, rag-tag group of insurgents into a fully-fledged military force capable of engaging the Imperial Starfleet in space dogfights? How did they set up bases in Yavin 4 and many other places in the galaxy without tipping off the Imperial Security Bureau? Andor will hopefully answer all of these questions and more when it returns with its second and final season in 2025.

Adria Arjona has been climbing up the Hollywood ladder for years now, but Netflix’s new movie Hit Man might be what finally turns her into a superstar.

Arjona plays Madison Masters in the action rom-com directed by the Before trilogy’s Richard Linklater, and co-written by him and Glen Powell. The character starts as the victim of an abusive husband who wants to hire Powell’s hitman to kill him but soon evolves into a complicated and fascinating femme fatale type of deuteragonist. And Arjona nails every beat.

The film hinges on the leading duo’s chemistry as the hitman (who, unbeknownst to Madison, is working undercover for the police) falls for his client and begins blurring the lines between real and pretend.

An almost perfect critics score on Rotten Tomatoes points towards Hit Man potentially becoming a streaming hit on Netflix when it premieres June 7. With how magnetic Arjona is in it, it could and should cause her career to blow up, but if her face looks familiar, it’s because it is. The Puerto Rican-Guatemalan actress has been hitting the grind since 2012.

Adria Arjona’s most popular movies and television shows o2xb

Although Hit Man is arguably Arjona’s biggest movie role yet, the 32-year-old actress’ CV is vast, and it includes some pretty major productions from the last decade — well, some more major than others.

It doesn’t get bigger than Star Wars, and Arjona got to be a pretty important part of one of the franchise’s best offerings of the Disney era, the 2022 series Andor. The actress plays Bix Caleen, Cassian’s ex-girlfriend and trusted ally in the show, and is expected to return for its second season.

Although not comparable to Star Wars in scope, but certainly comparable in the ion of its fans is Good Omens, the Amazon MGM/BBC series created by Neil Gaiman in 2019. In the show’s first season, Arjona played Anathema Device, the descendant of the last true witch in England. On television, the actress was also in 2022’s Irma Vep miniseries, and in Emerald City, an NBC show based on Oz that sadly only lasted for a season, where Arjona played none other than Dorothy Gale.

On the silver screen, Arjona’s portfolio is even more diverse. Before Hit Man, she was perhaps more recognizably cast in Sony/Marvel’s comically bad film Morbius, and in Michael Bay’s 6 Underground alongside Ryan Reynolds.

The actress, who got her start in True Detective in 2015, was also part of the ing cast of smaller films like 2021’s Sweet Girl, 2018’s Life of the Party, and 2019’s Triple Frontier. In 2022, she starred in the Cuban-American remake of Father of the Bride as Sofia Herrera, the titular bride and daughter of Andy García’s titular father.

In the pipeline for Arjona are Zoë Kravitz’ directorial debut Blink Twice and Los Frikis, a movie that caused a sensation at the 2024 Miami Film Festival.

The first season of Ahsoka is now complete, though the season didn’t so much end as fizzle out. The story has no resolution for any characters, reveals nothing interesting about the wider universe, and seems content to rely on a literal no-kidding mystery box ending to keep us engaged. Even J.J. Abrams might think that’s a bit much!

This is an especially cruel kick in the teeth for Ray Stevenson fans. His fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll was by far the most interesting character in the show, though his role in the finale was a single brief, dialogue-free scene of him standing on a cliff looking moody. We don’t know what he wants, heck, we don’t even know what his motivation is other than some cryptic mutterings. Rubbing salt into the wound is Stevenson’s tragic death in May 2023, so he will never get to play out the meat of Baylan’s arc.

But season finales providing no narrative or emotional closure is a problem Disney Plus fans will be inured to by now, as it’s baked into the DNA of the whole “shared universe” concept.

Nothing ever ends 4d63x

Even those who enjoyed Ahsoka find it difficult to deny that the season one finale resolved anything. The usual defense is that the story will continue in the (as yet unannounced) second season. Here we’ll presumably know more about Thrawn’s plans, discover what’s in those boxes, see Sabine improving her abilities with the Force, and whatever they’re going to do with Baylan Skoll.

Given how little actually happened in this season and how slow the story progressed, it may even have made sense for Ahsoka to open with Thrawn returning from Peridea with the Nightsisters, rather than spending four episodes on a pointless treasure hunt that makes less sense the longer you think about it and then wrapping up the season by watching Thrawn very, very slowly prepare to leave.

Beyond that, the bulk of the Ahsoka characters’ development took place in The Clone Wars and Rebels, which I’m guessing only a minority of the Ahsoka audience will have watched. Why should they care about Ezra Bridger’s rescue or Sabine’s fuzzily defined past trauma? Even Ahsoka Tano herself is a cipher, spending much of the show looking alternatively smug and bored while swaddled in the thickest possible plot armor.

But if and when Ahsoka season 2 arrives, it’s going to crash right into the same narrative roadblocks that made the first season so disappointing. We already know Dave Filoni is working on a “Mandoverse” movie that’ll bring together characters from Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett, so any further Ahsoka is inevitably going to be setting that story up and will almost certainly end with nothing resolved.

Even then, Filoni’s Mandoverse movie is narratively hamstrung by being set before The Force Awakens. As such, canon constraints mean nothing galaxy-changing can possibly happen in it and it’ll ultimately pave the way for the terrible The Rise of Skywalker. Yay.

How to do it right 304v4c

It’s worth examining a sister show that did this right. On paper, Andor should have the same problems as Ahsoka. We’ve already seen the character’s death in Rogue One, we know the Empire will indeed fall, and before a single minute aired, it was confirmed that Cassian’s story would be told over two seasons. And yet the Andor season 1 finale was one of the best things Star Wars has done in decades.

The reason? The finale centered around the funeral of Cassian’s adoptive mother Maarva, using her final message as a narrative crescendo that crystallizes everything in the story to that point and delivers a whole bunch of cathartic brick-based violence against the Empire.

I suppose you could argue that Morgan Elsbeth’s death fulfills a similar function in Ahsoka, but as her death is met by a collective shrug from the characters, why should we care?

Looking a little deeper into the franchise’s past, you could theoretically level the same criticism of not having a proper ending at The Empire Strikes Back, which is well aware it’s setting up the events of Return of the Jedi. But, like Andor, Empire is careful to end on a moment of emotional resonance and a major leap forward in several character arcs – not to mention that it delivers the goods when it comes to shocking revelations.

The wider Disney Plus issue 3n1b6d

Disney CEO Bob Iger has been public about his dissatisfaction with the Disney Plus output. In July he itted the company had taken its eye off the ball, saying that the large number of Marvel and Star Wars releases “ended up taxing our people way beyond — in of their time and their focus — way beyond where they had been.”

Recent notable disappointments have been Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett (and The Mandalorian season 3 wasn’t so great, either), each of which felt like it needed much longer in the oven. Fan inertia means millions are still watching, but the clear decline in storytelling is already draining away enthusiasm about what they’re building up to.

Disney Plus itself is shedding subscribers around the world, with global subscriptions dropping from 157.8 million to 146.1 million as per the latest figures. The reasons for this range from a squeeze in living costs, fierce competition from other streaming services, and Disney Plus India losing the cricket rights, but a tentpole show like Ahsoka turning out so poorly isn’t going to help staunch the bleeding.

The solution may be simply to slow down and ensure that the right talent is working on the right show. Ahsoka had every resource available to it to be great: a killer cast, a fun set of characters, the budget and tech to realize its story without cutting corners, and an obvious ion from Dave Filoni.

This should have soared rather than stumbled; we can only hope that lessons are learned, the writing improves, and that Star Wars gets back to telling stories that, y’know, end rather than just roll credits.

As we near the release of the third episode of Ahsoka, it’s worth noting just how much weight this show looks to be pulling in Dave Filoni’s personal slice of the Star Wars mythos; indeed, the trailers alone look to bring an unprecedented scope to the franchise’s episodic endeavors, and regardless of what you may have thought of the first two episodes, Ahsoka is making quite the case for being worthy of attention.

Of course, being worthy of attention was never going to guarantee it; per Deadline, the premiere viewership numbers for the first episode of Ahsoka clocked in at 1.2 million households, a feat it shares with fellow Star Wars series Andor, whose first episode boasted the same numbers when it premiered back in Sept. 2022. However, it’s a far cry from the 2.4 million households that Obi-Wan Kenobi managed to pull when its first episode dropped back in May of last year. It’s also a couple of eyeballs shy of season three of The Mandalorian, which racked up 1.7 million households when its first episode graced Disney Plus queues on March 1 this year.

These numbers don’t paint anything resembling a complete picture, however; despite sharing last place in viewership among these shows, Andor is far and away the most respected from a critical perspective, with many agreeing that Tony Gilroy’s political thriller elevated the Star Wars franchise to never-before-seen heights, further evidenced by its Outstanding Drama Series nomination for the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, where it received a further two nominations for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Leading man Diego Luna also nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for Best Television Actor – Drama Series for his performance as the eponymous Cassian Andor.

And while Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian certainly aren’t without their rollicking merits, they don’t even begin to hold a candle to Andor in the storytelling department. Considering how sparse the discourse has been on those shows compared to Andor, it’s clear that those mechanical fundamentals make audiences your show.

It’s a bit early to judge where Ahsoka stands in all of this, but we will say this: the questionable approach to its already lackluster dialogue isn’t all that inspiring at the moment. Nevertheless, we hope later episodes cement it as one of the stronger entries in Star Wars‘ Disney Plus library.

Ahsoka is currently streaming on Disney Plus, with new episodes released every Tuesday until the series finale on Oct. 3.

With the debut of Ahsoka, the newest Star Wars series to hit Disney Plus, it is time to take an inventory of all the various shows that take place in the galaxy far, far away that debuted on the House Mouse’s streaming service.

After We Got This Covered crunched the numbers and ranked every Marvel Disney Plus series by runtime, we found that the total length of each series generally got shorter and shorter, with some exceptions here and there. This made us wonder: is the same thing happening with the Star Wars shows? The comparison particularly piqued our interest when a report surfaced that Ahsoka’s runtime would significantly drop off in episode 3, a pattern that has been occurring with increased frequency for Marvel shows.

While we have yet to confirm this claim since episode 3 of Ahsoka has not been released yet, we decided in the meantime to crunch the numbers for all the various Star Wars shows on Disney Plus so far to see if they are also succumbing to the “Marvel curse.”

Bear in mind, we are only ranking the seasons that debuted on Disney Plus. So don’t expect to see Rebels on here since it originally aired on Disney XD or 1985’s Droids or Ewoks, which both aired on ABC. Any season that is currently in progress, such as Young Jedi Adventures season 1 or Ahsoka season 1, will also be excluded from our list since we don’t know the final runtimes yet. We’re also excluding microseries and shorts — sorry, Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies fans. With that said, here’s our list of every Disney Plus Star Wars season ranked by runtime.

12. Tales of the Jedi Season 1 – 1 hour, 39 minutes u3j23

Since Tales of the Jedi is an anthology series following stand-alone, episodic tales of both Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku, it isn’t necessarily surprising to see it at the bottom of our list. With an average episode length of 16 minutes and 30 seconds, it is a breezy experience on par with that of Visionis.

11. Visions Season 2 – 2 hours, 39 minutes 173x4b

Similar to Tales of the Jedi, Visions is also an anthology series, but with each episode being a completely different animation style, set of characters, and story in the Star Wars universe, making it akin to something like 2003’s The Animatrix. With an overall runtime shorter than season 1 and an average episode length of 17 minutes 40 seconds, season 2 of Visions proves to mostly do its own thing with its vastly varying episode lengths.

10. Visions Season 1 – 2 hours, 46 minutes 3p4k62

Visions season 1 was a breath of fresh air when it dropped on Disney Plus back in the fall of 2021, with the debut being even more memorable than its follow-up to this day. With an average episode length of 18 minutes 27 seconds, the show focuses on quality over quantity, since most of the anime shorts feature breathtakingly unique approaches to animation.

9. Obi-Wan Kenobi – 4 hours, 40 minutes 313m5y

For fans of Ewan McGregor as a younger Jedi from the prequel trilogy, Obi-Wan Kenobi was a worthy nostalgia rush that added some interesting layers to his character, such as dealing with the remorse of his falling out with his young apprentice-turned-evil-doer, Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker. With an average episode length of 46 minutes and 40 seconds, the show consistently felt like a classic broadcast-style TV miniseries.

8. The Clone Wars Season 7 – 5 hours, 24 minutes 5q5x2o

It’s amazing to think how far The Clone Wars has come since its debut as a computer-animated film that did not impress critics back in 2008. Since then, the series of the same name which included the events of the film has come into its own to the point that the final season 7, whose average episode length runs 27 minutes, boasts an impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

7. The Mandalorian Season 1 – 5 hours, 31 minutes 233i1d

The release of The Mandalorian season 1 was an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, taking the franchise back to the roots of combining the mythos of Westerns and samurai tales, even as the cinematic franchise was struggling to maintain consistency. As an adventure series with an average episode length of 41 minutes and 23 seconds, it truly felt like a worthy narrative for the episodic format rather than being a shelved movie idea retrofitted for TV. 

6. The Mandalorian Season 2 – 5 hours, 48 minutes 18366v

Season 2 of The Mandalorian was a rock-solid follow-up to the first season that cemented the series as the flagship title in the live-action space when it comes to Star Wars, especially following the critically- hated and all-over-the-place conclusion to the cinematic sequel trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker. With an average episode length of 43 minutes and 30 seconds, The Mandalorian season 2 once again felt like an evolution of the kind of prestige television established on cable networks like HBO and AMC a decade prior. 

5. The Book of Boba Fett – 5 hours, 48 minutes  34c1u

The Book of Boba Fett had its moments, most notably the episodes directed by Bryce Dallas Howard and Dave Filoni, but overall, the series fell flat for many people. With an average episode length of 49 minutes and 43 seconds, it also felt like one drawn-out movie similar to Obi-Wan Kenobi, only this time there was quite a bit more filler. 

4. The Mandalorian Season 3 – 6 hours q2o4j

The Mandalorian season 3 is where the beskar armor began to crack for many viewers, even though the series impressively held its own in of increasing its runtime compared to past seasons. The 45-minute average episode length once again made it feel worthy of being called a TV show that fits nicely into the hour-long drama format, but simply one of the lesser entries in an otherwise beloved saga, mostly because the finale of season 2 felt like the perfect ending. 

3. The Bad Batch Season 2 – 7 hours, 42 minutes 4q1s73

The Bad Batch’s second season once again catered to devoted fans of Star Wars that may even have entertainment value for casual viewers if you’re willing to get lost in the gorgeous visuals and don’t mind some large lore references going over your head. With an average episode length of 28 minutes 53 seconds, the series’ 16 episodes prove a hearty amount of content for binge-watching enthusiasts.

2. The Bad Batch Season 1 – 8 hours, 33 minutes p1d6n

Dave Filoni’s lore-heavy follow-up to The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, should please fans of the previous shows, especially since it focuses on a group of anti-hero mercenaries who are rejected clones from the Empire. At an average episode length of 32 minutes and 4 seconds, the first season of The Bad Batch exceeds in this regard compared to the second season as well as boasting a longer runtime, overall.

1. Andor Season 1 – 9 hours, 42 minutes 3s2714

Andor is the most exciting thing to happen to Star Wars in the live-action space since the first season of The Mandalorian, thanks to its inventive spin on the mythos by focusing on a gritty espionage thriller. As the longest Disney Plus series to date and an average episode length of 48 minutes and 30 seconds, Andor fulfills the promise that began with The Mandalorian by bringing a prestige TV approach to the galaxy far, far away. 

Overall, what this list illustrates is that Star Wars shows on Disney Plus do not necessarily fall into the same Marvel curse that has been plaguing those series for years. In other words, there is no clear pattern of shows getting shorter and shorter runtimes. In fact, The Mandalorian has been getting longer and longer runtimes with each successive season, including longer average episode lengths. The first season of Andor representing the longest series on our list is also telling since that is a newer show.

With that said, there are some patterns that show the telltale signs of larger criticisms about streaming television in general, such as both The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi feeling like drawn-out movies rather than proper TV shows. It’s also notable that season 7 of The Clone Wars had fewer episodes than the seasons that came before it. Back in its heyday on Cartoon Network, 22 episodes per season was the norm. That is massive compared to season 7’s 12 episodes. However, that could just come with the territory of being on a streaming platform since many series are more truncated nowadays, in general.

We will have to see how Ahsoka shakes out in all of this. However, we don’t necessarily expect any crazy revelations about the runtimes to come to light at this point. Star Wars dodging the Marvel curse on streaming and avoiding the pitfall of showing a consistent pattern of diminishing returns in of runtimes just goes to show not every studio within Disney is exactly the same and they all have their idiosyncrasies, for better or worse.

In the age of streaming-exclusive content, collecting physical copies of popular television shows and movies has become an outdated pastime. The reason streaming companies have sanctioned exclusive content is quite clear: Why pay for a streaming subscription when you can just own the physical copy? At least, that was the previous method of thinking. Disney threw complete caution to the wind yesterday with its latest announcement. 

In case you missed it, Disney announced that it will release the first two seasons of The Mandalorian on physical Blu-ray and 4K UHD. The left-field business venture will also include WandaVision and the first season of Loki. Naturally, the prospect of physically owning a widely popular TV show such as these opened the floodgates for additional requests. Any guess which Disney Plus show is coming in at the top of the list?

On X (formally known as Twitter), One Take News posed that very question with Ms. Marvel, Andor, Moon Knight, and Obi-Wan Kenobi as the four options. Each is beloved in its own right, but one earned considerably more votes than the rest. 

Andor was the clear winner, coming in with twice, if not three times, as many votes as the rest of the contenders. 

While Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel were occasionally lumped into the discussion, Obi-Wan Kenobi was virtually ignored by all. 

Some — like the following — even tried to kick Ms. Marvel out of the conversation, but without merit. 

Wrong. Out of all the shows listed, Ms. Marvel has the highest critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, coming in at 98% against Andor’s 96%, Moon Knight’s 86%, and Obi-Wan’s 82%. The award for the worst-rated Marvel show goes to Marvel’s Inhumans (11%), while the worst-rated MCU show goes to Secret Invasion (54%).  

Nevertheless, a critical score is rarely an indication of audience interest. While Andor does impress with a solid critic score, it comes behind Moon Knight in of audience score – with 86% against the Marvel series’ 89%.

Still, many in the Star Wars fandom consider Andor to be the best thing the franchise has ever put out. It’s not a surprise this kind of poll would generate such results. There’s something unquestionably satisfying about owning a physical copy of a beloved movie or TV show. Like a wine collection or a book collection, the tangible display of affection can soothe even the most afflicted spirits. Also, it’s just fun, okay? Sometimes things can just be fun.

Whether Disney will actually consider opening up its other streaming-exclusive properties to the physical medium remains to be seen. If or when it happens, let’s just hope it pays attention to the popular vote lest it incur the wrath of Star Wars die-hards.

Whenever you see an argument between Star Wars lovers online, it often feels like that Groundskeeper Willie joke from The Simpsons about how “Scots ruined Scotland.” Looking at the fandom from the outside (and from the inside, if we’re honest), it appears that nobody hates certain parts of the Star Wars universe more than fans of the franchise themselves. And, with today’s debut of Star Wars: Ahsoka, this truism is once again being borne out — with most of the vitriol, it seems, being spun by those who loved last year’s smash hit Star Wars: Andor, albeit as a reaction to some needless Andor slander from those who loved the opening two episodes of Ahsoka.

Perhaps all of our brains have been melted by being far too online for far too long, but the loudest and most prominent voices on social media tend to lean towards a school of thought that says if a piece of content doesn’t speak directly to their likes and their life, then it’s problematic, or just plain bad. The funny thing is, both Ahsoka and Andor are actually very solid shows, albeit very different ones. It’s almost like television doesn’t have to cater to everybody, all the time to still be good and mean something to viewers.

If anything, the writers who have been producing the recent Star Wars content should be proud of themselves for crafting two vastly different shows that are both incredibly good at what they do. The Andor creators managed to make a slower burning political series with a lot more grit than the Star Wars fandom may have been used to, while still keeping it captivating and diving into the weeds of the history of the Empire from an everyday perspective (a tonal shift that is much harder than it seems, if the underwhelming MCU attempt at a neo-noir thriller Secret Invasion is anything to go by).

Contrastingly, Ahsoka is much more fast-paced (once we get through the first half of the first episode, at least), hitting the ground running while also providing a lot more humor than the more serious Andor. There’s a lot more fan service too, unlike Andor, which could almost work as a standalone piece. Ahsoka, by contrast, is also bathed in the more mystical aspects of Star Wars lore, and requires some knowledge about previous in-universe content (notably Rebels) to truly understand. Both shows are also lifted by brilliant performances and, while there are only two episodes of Ahsoka out at the time of this article being published, the writing so far is snappy and smart, unlike the more cerebral but still brilliant writing we saw in last year’s major new Star Wars release.

Most fandoms that receive two top quality shows in a year would likely be happy at the outcome, especially as we see other big budget franchises like Marvel and DC continue to pump out mediocre content. Yet, Star Wars lovers are simply built differently, and plenty of them are relishing the chance for in-fighting instead of celebrating an extended universe that’s actually offering a diverse breadth of good content.

On the one hand, there are plenty of Andor fans who seem convinced that because the show had more mature themes and doesn’t rely so much on a previous understanding of the Star Wars universe to hook new viewers, it’s better television. While the snob in me is inclined to agree, it’s also true that good TV doesn’t only consist of hour-long HBO shows, and shorter, snappier, and less serious series’ can be just as good in of quality (after all, seasons two to eight of The Simpsons exists, as does the outlandish and generally poor last half of The Wire‘s final season).

The “realism” (in the loosest sense of the word, as after all this is an article about Star Wars) of Andor isn’t the only reason people like it, too, despite what some reviewers seem hellbent on implying with needless mentions of last year’s release. Fans of the Diego Luna-led show were quick to point this out.

Many also noted that Andor is, in fact, heavily driven by Star Wars lore, albeit from more of a historical rather than supernatural or magical perspective. In many ways, it could even be argued that it has more for Star Wars nerds in it than Ahsoka will because of the way the show is structured and will continue to develop.

Of course, among all the infighting, there are some normal fans who are just happy to see more top notch Star Wars content coming out, even if itting so might make them a target for those who’ve settled into their two camps.

With that all said, there is no doubting that, despite their shared universe, Andor and Ahsoka are two vastly different viewing experiences, But, as many have pointed out, that’s not necessarily a bad thing — especially for long time fans of the franchise.

Plus, as more level-headed social media s have pointed out, this isn’t a Star Wars specific thing. People simply like what they like, for various different reasons, and pitting shows against each other will never lead to a productive discussion as people love to dig their heels in (especially online, where there are no real consequences for overreactions and dramatzing arguments).

As always, it appears that those with the strongest views and biggest compulsion to seek attention are the ones who are getting the most traction online. Given that Andor currently has an RT rating of 96% and Ahsoka‘s opening episodes are at a very respectable 8.6/10 on IMDB, it’s likely that most fans are simply sitting back and taking in the brilliant content that we’ve been missing from the Star Wars universe since the first season of The Mandalorian. Let’s hope it stays that way, although given the history of the Star Wars fandom, we’re not hopeful.

Andor has rightly assumed its place at the very top of any Star Wars tier list. Tony Gilroy was given the time, budget, and freedom to tell a politically resonant and layered story about the early days of the Rebel Alliance, with the story focused on Diego Luna’s Rogue One hero.

There’s no doubt that Cassian is a key player in the Rebellion, sacrificing his life to steal the Death Star plans. Without doing that, the Rebel Alliance is annihilated by the Death Star super laser on Yavin IV, at which point the Empire will be able to dominate the galaxy for hundreds of years with threats of planetary destruction.

But though he’s important, is he “the most important person in the history of the Rebellion”? One fan on r/Star_Wars believes so, but his theory is being shot down like so many cannon fodder TIE Fighters:

The problem is, as many replies immediately identify, is how far back do you go in this chain? By this logic, Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen must also be equally important, as without him Cassian may not have ed the Rebellion and not been able to do any of the heroic actions in his eventual future.

Is Biggs the most important character for protecting Luke and ensuring he fires off that crucial shot to bring down the Death Star? How about Mon Mothma and Bail Organa for funding the early Rebellion? Or, as the top-voted reply succinctly puts it:

“The war wasn’t won by one person or a small group of people; it was won by countless people, all of whom had roles that were absolutely essential to the success of the rebellion. Remove any one part and the whole machine collapses.”

All that said, if we had to pick the single character most crucial to the Rebel Alliance’s victory, it isn’t going to be Cassian, Luke, Leia, Bail or Mon. It’s got to be the little droid that could, everyone’s favorite bleeping trash can, R2-D2. Without him, the galaxy would be in ruins, and the little guy doesn’t even get a medal for his efforts.

Andor is rightly considered one of the very best Star Wars releases to date. The fanbase is almost bewildered that the franchise is capable of reaching such heights, and the third season of The Mandalorian was left looking sophomoric in comparison.

There are many reasons to praise Andor, from the beautiful cinematography, astonishing cast, strong thematic and political messaging, to its excellent score. But, for many, there’s one character who stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Yup, we’re talking Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen. This mysterious figure is at the heart of the Rebellion in its earliest days, covering his activities by posing as a dandyish antique dealer. Under the wig, he’s a ruthless and talented operative willing to do whatever it takes to hurt the Empire. Oh, and he might be a Jedi in hiding. But despite (or because of) how mysterious he is, fans have taken Luthen into their hearts:

Replies agree: saying he deserves his own show, praising his collection of wigs, his impeccable piloting skills, and Skarsgård’s performance as he slides between his various personas. Like many, our highlight is his blistering monologue in which he explains “I burn my life to make a sunrise I know I’ll never see.” Shivers!

Andor season 2 has been in production for some time, though is currently on hold due to the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. We’re desperately hoping this doesn’t mean it will be delayed, as we need to know if Luthen is a Jedi in hiding, and if that suspicious wooden cane is concealing a lightsaber.