Final Rating: 1.5/5
Just a few weeks ago I saw a trailer for The Acolyte that had me pretty intrigued. I’ve missed out on the most recent series in the Star Wars universe but I do consider myself a fan of the franchise. The trailer looked promising, full of action and a bit of mystery. Not to mention a story that didn’t revolve around the Skywalker family (a detail sure to please many fans who have grown tired of the Skywalker Saga).
Instead this series would focus on a time period well before the events of the prequel trilogy, and it would also tell the tale of a dark-side follower. These fresh elements were enough to get me excited to dive back into the galaxy far, far away. I hope whoever cut that trailer gets a substantial raise.
The first episode opens with Mae (Amandla Stenberg) as she seeks out Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss). Her reasons behind this search are left a mystery but we very quickly are treated to a well choreographed fight sequence between the two. It’s a pretty solid intro and a good representation of the show I was promised in that trailer! However, shortly after this exciting opening the series hyperdrive unit takes a hit and we come to a grinding halt.
The Acolyte spends a lot of its time trying to build a mystery in its story but it doesn’t allow much time for those mysteries to simmer. Once the opening fight comes to a close we’re introduced to Osha (also Amandla Stenberg) who obviously looks very similar to the Jedi Hunter, Mae. Before we have a chance to theorize what’s going on between the two, the series gives us the answer.
This becomes a cycle of presenting a mystery only to have it revealed moments later, which repeats over and over again. At no point was I allowed enough time to be curious about what was happening on screen. This may have been a welcomed concept if The Acolyte put an effort into its characters.
Mae and Osha both suffer from a lack of personality. The buildup of mystery that Disney uses for its series across both the Marvel and Star Wars franchises works well on properties where characters have been fleshed out in a previous story. Loki, Ahsoka, and Andor would not have been nearly as well received if we were left guessing about the leads in their first few episodes.
In a show like The Acolyte that exists on its own with little to no connections to previously told stories, we have to be allowed insight into our characters. I found that after the first two episodes I was still unsure of who Mae and Osha were.
I wish I could say that the show takes a better approach to its secondary characters, but we’re left with even less information about them. Perhaps the most interesting character is Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), Osha’s old mentor with a connection to Mae and her reason for wanting to hunt down a band of Jedi. Master Sol is tasked with discovering the truth behind the murder of Master Indara, but he approaches the situation with caution and the benefit of doubt towards Mae and Osha. While his character isn’t presenting anything we haven’t seen thousands of times, he does at the very least become a character we can latch onto in this story.
The series really takes a dive in its third episode. Taking you out of the narrative entirely with a flashback episode meant to reveal our pro/antagonist’s backstory not only completely destroys the pacing of the series, but it commits the common trope of presenting character information in a flashback using different actors.
Leah Brady takes on the task of portraying both young Mae and Osha, and she does a fine job handling both personalities. The issue is that these are personalities that we do not see in Amandla Stenberg’s older versions of the characters.
Episode 3 is also fully dedicated to explaining Mae’s motives, but shies away from showing the climactic moment actually playing out on screen. We’ve been given an episode that kills the pacing and ultimately wastes an opportunity to show a defining character moment.
At this point I’d mostly checked out of the series, and while episode 4’s finale does show promise that the show will find its footing, the lack of character development and nearly any type of action beyond the opening fight sequence make this to be a dull slog through an uninspired space-opera side-story.
Thank you to Disney+ for the screeners.
