Review: Star Wars: The Bad Batch “Aftermath” ;”Cut and Run”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The premiere episode of The Bad Batch begins with a shocking event, as order 66 is carried out onscreen and the members of the Bad Batch are forced to make a choice between their programming and their conscience. They end up choosing to ignore their orders and stay suspicious of the newly formed empire — except for Crosshair, who’s inhibitor chip is more fully operational.

When questions arrive about the part they played in Jedi Padawan Caleb Dume’s escape, the special clones are sent on a mission to prove their loyalty, but wind up refusing to complete their orders. The Bad Batch, along with their newfound friend Omega, are locked away in the brig. They manage to escape, however, and head for the home of an old friend.

As the clones arrive on Saleucami, Omega is still trying to find her role in the group. When she gets into a little trouble with a wild animal at Cut Lawquane’s house, Hunter decides it would be best if she stayed with Cut and his family. But Omega has other plans, and eventually helps her new squad to escape the planet.

Our Take:

The first two episodes of The Bad Batch present an exciting entry point to a new era of animated Star Wars content, starting where the final season of the Clone Wars left off and kicking things into high gear almost immediately. While there’s plenty of issues, especially around the leading cast members, there’s also plenty to like here.

Things start happening right from the first few minutes — there’s no real lead-up needed since basically every one knows the basic events of Star Wars at this point, fan or otherwise. Order 66 is a perfect bang to get things going, and it’s interesting to see the tragic events from the perspectives of the clones themselves. As Tarkin and the rest of Palpatine’s cronies begin to make over the Republic to resemble their Galactic Empire, things change rapidly and the Bad Batch gives fans an inside look at the development.

Where the show is less successful is in the character department. We’ve seen the leading cast members in the Clone Wars before, but there they were merely supporting characters who showed up occasionally to provide extra firepower. Here, they have to support an entire series, and it’s hard to do that when almost the entirety of the squad is comprised of one-note stereotypes such as the strong, dumb one, the wimpy brainiac, and the snarling bad boy. Perhaps the rest of the season will give these guys enough time to grow, but it’s always been somewhat of a struggle to differentiate clone characters who all look and act somewhat alike by nature.

Omega, the newest member of the squad, is admittedly somewhat annoying as child characters go, always thinking she knows best and doing whatever she wants consequences be damned. When she started a food fight with an entire army of Empire-aligned clones in the middle of the lunchroom, I cringed. But her accent is super cute and it is nice to have someone who’s not a stereotypical clone in the main cast.

The second episode shows off more of what the show will probably be like going forward, as Omega and the Bad Batch go on the run from the Empire, helping out their allies along the way and learning more about what they’re capable of. There are plenty of theories out there about Omega’s true nature, but the show hasn’t really given any inarguable hints so far, and at this point it seems like we won’t be getting anything concrete until a big event like the mid-season finale or something.

The Bad Batch may look a lot like the Clone Wars animated series that came before it, but instead of being focused on the Jedi, this show is squarely about the clones and how they fare in the aftermath of the end of the war. There’s a lot of potential here for world building and behind the scenes lore, but some of the enjoyment is hampered by basic characterization and writing. There’s plenty of episodes to come, however, and I’m hopeful that the Bad Batch can jump into hyperspace and hit its high point before too long.