So far, Star Wars on Disney has been more hit than miss. The Mandalorian practically saved the franchise’s reputation after the disastrous The Rise of Skywalker, and fans consider Andor one of the absolute highlights of the massive Star Wars multimedia Empire. Sure, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett weren’t great, but neither were they completely awful.
But there’s one aspect that’s had viewers grumbling for years. These episodes are too damn short! The generally accepted wisdom is that the minimum length for a prestige TV show is 45 minutes, though this gets fuzzy depending on the length of the pre-episode recap, opening, and credits. Obi-Wan Kenobi was particularly hit by this, with fans calculating that we were only getting roughly half an hour of new content each week.
Now, if this rumor is to be believed, The Mandalorian suffers the same problem:
This reportedly includes credits, so once again we’re looking at effectively a half-hour episode. This is expensive television so we can understand why Disney would want to keep things brief but also means plot lines feel rushed and we only get a brief sketch of character motivations.
It’s worth remembering that this isn’t unusual for The Mandalorian. Season one’s second episode was a svelte 32 minutes long, meaning the episode itself was just 25 minutes of action. At the other end of the spectrum is season two’s premiere, which ran to 54 minutes.
Here’s hoping this short season three episode isn’t the norm, as we want as much Mando action as we can get.
The Mandalorian season three premieres on Disney Plus on March 1.
Published: Feb 24, 2023 10:37 am