Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka expands the galaxy far, far away, in ways fans have never quite seen in live-action. It does so slowly, mostly because the people watching are probably coming into this without the benefit of knowing these characters – the great majority of whom have only appeared before in animated shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. Despite this, the show still manages to be enjoyable, even when it borders on the confusing.
Dawson’s Ahsoka is hardly a warm and inviting figure – she wasn’t in her first live-action appearance in The Mandalorian, and she remains stoic and closed-off for most of the first two episodes. There are flashes of a different Ahsoka, however, the one who used to call Anakin Skywalker “Skyguy,” and who once responded to the nickname “Snips,” because she was always very snippy with her Master. Whether we’ll get to see that side of her emerge soon or not might be what makes or breaks the show, at least for casual audiences.
The surrounding cast is infinitely more engaging than Ahsoka – and even though that’s just a matter of personality, it’s hard at times to remember that this isn’t Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s (Sabine Wren) show. Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Hera Syndulla and David Tennant as the droid Huyang are also standouts in a show that feels like it will be mostly about the relationship between Ahsoka and Sabine in the same way Star Wars: The Clone Wars was about Anakin and Ahsoka.
And that is, perhaps, the biggest problem with Ahsoka. It works very well as a follow-up to Star Wars: Rebels, and not so well as a new adventure for fans who aren’t familiar with the character or with the story that came before. If all you know about Ahsoka is from The Mandalorian, you will probably understand what’s going on, but it’ll be hard for you to relate to this hardened protagonist or care about her mission. If, however, you’ve seen her journey from Padawan to something resembling a Jedi, the show will feel like the perfect continuation to a story that was never meant to end the way it previously did.
Two episodes are not enough to judge a show on, especially one based on a character that has so much to give like Ahsoka, set in such an expansive universe like this one. Star Wars couldn’t stay stuck in the Skywalker saga, and there’s really no better way to move past the nostalgia and the family that has been at the center of all stories set in a galaxy far, far away, for decades than to center an Ahsoka Tano that was always so much more than just Anakin’s apprentice. Fans are just going to need more than the scowling, grumpy version of her for it to really work.
Disney+’s Ahsoka will release its first two episodes tonight at 9:00ET, with subsequent episodes also releasing Tuesdays at the same time. The series is set to have eight episodes in total.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Star Wars: Ahsoka being covered here wouldn’t exist.
