The Bad Batch Isn't Bad, Merely OK

The final episode of the Star Wars Clone Wars spinoff The Bad Batch aired on Friday the 13th and unlike the Disney Marvel series I was actually watching it episode-by-episode, usually on Saturday morning.  Overall I thought it was OK but frustrating in that it never really seemed to nail down a concept.  I'd warn you about spoilers, but there isn't really much to spoil.  The series has already been renewed so it should be obvious not everyone dies.

In the original 4 episodes of Clone Wars last year, the "Bad Batch" were introduced as four clones who were essentially mutants, each with a special ability:

1. Hunter:  the leader, has sort of Wolverine like abilities in smelling and tracking and stuff
2. Wrecker:  is really strong but at the cost of not being very smart
3. Tech:  is Wrecker's opposite in that he's really smart but not nearly as strong and often seems like he's somewhere on the autism spectrum
4. Crosshair:  has uncanny sighting abilities to make him a super sniper

In those four episodes they rescue a clone called Echo who has had a bunch of cybernetic enhancements to sort of become a living computer.  He joins the Bad Batch as their fifth member.

The spin-off starts off as Order 66 comes down.  The Bad Batch are on a remote world when the regular clones kill their Jedi.  Hunter chases after the Jedi's Padawan, but lets him go; the Padawan will go on to become Kanan Jarus in Rebels.  Crosshair is pissed at Hunter for not following orders.

Later the Bad Batch are ordered to take out Saw Guerra and a bunch of civilians.  Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Echo refuse though Crosshair is insistent upon following orders.  So Crosshair winds up joining the newly-formed Galactic Empire while the rest of the Bad Batch go on the run.

It seemed like a good setup for an A-Team kind of show.  They don't exactly fit those roles except for Hunter as the leader and Wrecker as the muscle but it's close enough.  But that's not what happens most of the season.

The next few episodes have the Batch fleeing from the Empire and trying to protect a young female clone named Omega.  They try to get her to go with a civilian family but she winds up joining them on their quest to...survive, I guess.

A few episodes later bounty hunters come after Omega, first the female one from The Mandalorian and then Cad Bane from Clone Wars.  So now is the show going to be like The Mandalorian where the hardened guys are trying to protect a child?  Um...not really because then the Empire is after them again.

There are a couple of A-Team-ish episodes where they go to Corellia to try to get a hard drive from a strategy droid and have to compete with two girls who worked with Ahsoka in that final season of Clone Wars.  Being on Corellia you'd think there'd be a Solo reference, but not really.  And there's another episode where they have to rescue a baby rancor meant for Jabba the Hutt.  Their employer is a lizard alien called Cid (voiced by Rhea Perlman) on Ord Mantell, which was mentioned in Empire Strikes Back as where Han ran into a bounty hunter, convincing him he needed to square things with Jabba.  I always thought of Ord Mantell as more of a space station than a planet, but whatever.

There's a two-episode arc where they have to travel to Ryloth to rescue a young Hera Syndulla (who like Kanan would appear in Rebels) and her family from the Empire.  It was a nice prequel if you like Rebels, but otherwise didn't really do a lot--or wouldn't if there were some kind of overall story arc.

The season ends with the Bad Batch going home to Kamino, which has been overtaken by the Empire.  They find their old friend Crosshair and the five of them plus Omega get left in the floating city as the Empire starts blowing it up with cruisers.  The final episode is sort of like The Poseidon Adventure as they have to escape the sinking, exploding city.

In the end they leave Crosshair to maybe get picked up by the Empire and go...who knows.  There's no cliffhanger, no cookie scene, or anything else to set up the next season.  That's what irritates me; there never really seemed to be any sort of purpose for this series.  It helps to fill in a sliver of history between Episode III and the start of Rebels, but otherwise why does this need to exist?

The problem is they never committed to any kind of overall story so like the Bad Batch it's just flitting around doing stuff that never amounts to much.  That would be easier to swallow in an A-Team-type show where they're going around helping people survive the Empire or whatever, but since the series doesn't really lean into that it just feels like some stuff that happened.

I was a disappointed in the show when it revealed the reason the Kaminoans wanted Omega so badly is because she had "pure" Jango Fett DNA.  So what?  If all you want is her DNA, you just needed to take some blood or hair or whatever.  You didn't need to abduct her.  If that was all you wanted, I'm sure Hunter would have let them take a sample of Omega.  But then on Facebook people try to fansplain that they might need lots of samples or fresher samples or whatever.  Still, Jango Fett DNA isn't really that interesting of a plot point.  Sadly that was about as big of a twist as there was in the whole season.  I thought maybe she'd have some Jedi DNA or something, but nope.

Besides the bounty hunter from The Mandalorian and a few characters from Rebels and Clone Wars, the only major Star Wars guest star was Grand Moff Tarkin--or whatever rank he was.  No Emperor, no Vader, no Obi-Wan, no Yoda, no Chewbacca, no Ahsoka, no Maul, no Thrawn, or really anyone people might give a shit about.  And whose leg at Disney do I have to hump for a Mara Jade reference?

The bigger disappointment is a lot of people like me after the debacle of the sequel movies lobbied on social media for Dave Filoni to take over the Star Wars universe having done such a good job with Clone Wars and Rebels and contributed to The Mandalorian.  Resistance could be forgiven because the sequel movies were such a mess.  Disney basically acquiesced to people's demands, making Filoni the Executive Creative Director for Lucasfilm.  And the first thing to come out of that is this show.  Meh.  Not a good omen.

Of course some shows need time to gel and get going, so maybe next season will do that and maybe find some kind of real purpose to get fans like me excited about...something.  Otherwise I'm not sure I'd look for a Season 3.