We’ve got a two-episode premiere! Let’s get to it.
“This Could Be A Real Adventure”
In the time of the New Republic, piracy is on the rise on hyperspace routes. A pirate ship crew boards a bulk freighter, looking for a large haul. Captain Silvo, who has not been popular with his crew of late as they’ve fallen on lean times, is sure that this will fix morale, but his first mate, Brutus (Fred Tatasciore), enters the vault and finds a single credit. The crew turns on Silvo. On the planet At Attin, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is told that his father Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe) is going to be working late most nights this week, and Wendle gives his son lunch money for the entire duration. Wim meets best friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) on their way to the tram for school, and they have a fake lightsaber fight.
At school, their lesson is stopped by Undersecretary Fara (Kerry Condon), who reminds the students that tomorrow is their Career Assessment Tests, which will determine their future place in the “Great Work” At Attin does for the Republic. She asks the children what they would like to do, and they all give very rote, safe responses—analysts and such—but Wim wants to help people in danger. His droid teacher insists that’s what safety droids are for. After class, Neel worries that Wim is going to fail his test and calls him out for basically admitting that he wants to be a Jedi when he grows up. Nearby, Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her best friend KB (Kyriana Kratter) are racing their speeder bike and blow out the power coupling. Ferm worries because the scrapyard is picked over, and she wants to race against bully Bonjj Phalfa (Shané Almagor). Fern turns out to be the daughter of Fara, who is pleased that her daughter has gotten back to her spot at “head of the class” because there’s only so much room for people “at the top.”
Wim asks his father to read him a story that night like his mom used to, but Wendle has to work and thinks his kid is too old for stories anyway. The next morning, Wim oversleeps and misses the tram, having to grab his speeder bike and take a “shortcut” to school. He drives through the woods, loses his helmet and falls down a ravine, coming across a big metal door buried in the dirt. He’s found by a security robot, who brings him to school; he’s missed his test, and his father is called in from work. Fern meets Wim there and tries to convince him that kids who skip the test are forced to work in “the mines” under the school. Wendle tells Wim that he convinced the proctor to let his son retake the test, but he’ll have to get every answer right to pass with a fifty-point penalty now levied against him. Wim tries to tell his dad that he found a Jedi Temple, but his father won’t hear it.
Later, Wim convinces Neel to go back to the woods and unearth the temple. But Fern has arrived with KB and wants to call “claimses” on the site. She wins that little battle, but agrees to let the boys dig the place up for them; she wants to strip it for parts, hoping to get a power converter for her bike. Wim agrees, but only if she lets them go inside. Many hours later, Wendle gets home to find Wim gone. He goes into the woods to search for him, and finds the boy’s helmet. At the site, KB helps them open the door using her cybernetic add-ons, and they rush inside to avoid Wim’s dad who is calling for them nearby. They find a deactivated robot and the door locks behind them. In order to get out, they need to get the power back on, so the kids start searching. Fern tells the boys not to touch anything, and Wim that he needs to grow up and stop insisting that this place in a Jedi Temple. Wim investigates on his own and finds a cockpit… but it’s upside-down.
KB manages to get the ship back online and the systems begin powering up, including a flashing green button that Wim presses. The ship begins to fire engines, emerging from the earth, and turning over as the kids rush to escape. Wendle sees the children on the hull, but cannot reach them, and the ship begins to leave the planet. The kids make it back inside as the ship gets through the Barrier of At Attin and goes into hyperspace on autopilot.
“Way, Way Out Past the Barrier”
The ship exits hyperspace and the kids worry over how they’ll possibly get back home from here. They meet SM-33 (Nick Frost), the first mate droid who means to turn them over to the captain of his ship. Fern tells him that she defeated his captain and she is the new captain. SM-33 believes her and shows them how to fly the starship, which is a bit complex for everyone except KB. Wim almost touches the emergency hull demolition sequencer. Fern asks the droid to take them home, but he doesn’t know where their planet is and doesn’t seem to have ever heard of it. Fern asks him to take them to the starport he mentioned so they can get directions. Back on At Attin, Wendle find two droids investigating the seismic disturbance made by the ship and demands that they help him find his son.
Wim shows Neel all the rooms and weird items he’s found investigating the ship, including the captain’s quarters. The ship arrives at Port Borgo, located on an asteroid. SM-33 sends the kids over with a Teek ferryman, and tells them to trust no one. The ferryman wants payment so Wim gives him some of his lunch money, which causes quite the kerfuffle when seen. Wim hides the rest of his money in his sock. The kids start searching for somewhere they think they think might give them directions, but the place is full of pirates doing drugs and getting tattoos. A woman from the strip club(?) tells the girls it’s not safe there for children and asks where they’re from. When they tell her, she asks them to be serious; At Attin is known as the lost planet of eternal treasure around these parts. Wim and Neel almost cause a scene again getting food… because it turns out that Wim is paying with mint condition Old Republic credits.
The kids are asked again where they’re from, and when they say At Attin, the pirates around them laugh. Wim and Neel try to escape and the group is surrounded by pirates—SM-33 comes to their rescue and begins beating up the collected scoundrels. They run, and Fern informs SM-33 that he shouldn’t have brought them to this port because they’re not pirates; the droid is understandably confused. Brutus arrives and asks what these children are doing in his spaceport. He sends them to the brig. The kids argue in lockup about what to do next, but a figure in the cells (Jude Law) tells them not to fight. He offers to help them get to the ship and back home, as long as they bring him with them. They ask him how he’ll help, and he uses the Force to bring the key to him. He asks the kids if they can keep a secret.
Commentary
Okay, I have to admit, the idea that these kids might live on a weird hidden world cut off from the known galaxy is pretty great.
It also helps to alleviate all the weirdness from the first episode, where childhood worries become incredibly outsized due to bureaucratic systems that don’t make… any sense. Like, sure, Wim missed the bus to school and is late for his very important test, but the idea that he’d be in this much trouble to the point where he now has to get every answer right just to pass? That’s just plain silly. Major tests have makeup dates because you can’t expect everyone to be perfect and make every appointment in their lives… if you live in a real, normal place, that functions in a sensible way. A story needs to have stakes, but these are weird ones.
Until we note that Undersecretary Fara believes in the “Great Work” they’re doing for… the Republic. Not the New Republic, mind you. It’s safe to assume she means the OG version. And there’s plenty more weirdness everywhere you look: Whatever that Great Work is supposed to be. The fact that droids administrate nearly everything on this planet, and keep things orderly to a degree that borders on brainwashing. The scrapyard being “picked over,” with no alternatives in sight. All the kids wanting incredibly boring jobs that they’ll hold for the rest of their lives. The Barrier that no one is meant to enter or exit.
Presumably the Barrier makes the planet invisible to the rest of the galaxy, but who put it in place? And when did they decide to do this—at the start of the Clone Wars? Before? Do the adults know, or are they in the dark as well?
This is some good dystopia they’ve cooked up in the background of this cute kids’ adventure. The idea of keeping this entire planet bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense to the point that no one has tried to leave in (at the very least) decades? A planet full of folks who don’t even know the Empire happened? Wim reading about an order of Jedi who are effectively long-dead? Yikes. Tell me everything.
And this makes the ‘80s youth adventure/Spielbergian vibe that much easier to incorporate. You buy that a planet like this has the kind of suburbs that breed these stories, but it’s exciting for the fact that we’ve never seen a place like this in Star Wars. Places with sidewalks and school trams and neighbors who walk frogdogs in the morning. It makes something dated and nostalgic feel a little bit new.
I’m loving all the kids so far, and really hoping that SM-33 isn’t permanently deactivated because how can you possibly create a pirate robot with Long John Silver vibes and then immediately scrap him. I’m trusting the show to make the right choice here.
Jude Law’s character is billed as Jod Na Nawood… but he’s also clearly Captain Silvo from the start of the episode. The main question I have with regard to the character is whether or not those Force powers are the real deal. Because his exhibiting of them seemed awful convenient at the point where he showed up. Doesn’t mean it’s fake for sure, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried that gambit. If he is, Law’s character is the right age to have survived the Purge as either a student or a much younger Jedi, so he’d be understandably messed up from that.
So we’ve got a good mystery cooking, a set of fun (and adorable) characters, and an adventure to see through. Not a bad start.
Spanners and Sabers
- The opening bit where Silvo asks the freighter captain “If this is a bulk freighter, why is your vault magnetically sealed?” is undoubtedly meant to mirror Vader’s “If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?”
- The pirate Gunter (and one with the very Lobot headgear setup), is none other than Jaleel White, known by nerds-of-a-certain-age everywhere for his role of Steve Urkel in the sitcom Family Matters.
- Brutus’ species is a Shistavanen, which wasn’t named until more recent comic runs. Their first appearance was in the original release of the very first Star Wars film, but it was cut out of the ’97 Special Edition and all iterations thereafter—so it’s pretty cool to see one on screen again. The ferryman at Port Borgo is a Teek, which is a species first introduced in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, a speedy guy who helped Cindel when she was in a tight spot. I might be inordinately excited about seeing one again.
- We now have, uh, gray? Gray milk? For cereal. I wanna know what sort of vitamin complexes you get from different colors and what animals they all come from.
- The circus holovid that Neel’s siblings are watching is full confirmation that all the weird entertainment shit we saw in the Star Wars Holiday Special is, in fact, canon. I mean it isn’t really confirmation, but that’s what I’m taking it as. Importantly, Neel’s species is not Ortolan (like Max Rebo), as many a fan expected. Which… honestly makes more sense from an evolutionary standpoint? Several blue elephant species instead of one, just like the many different nearly-human species running about.
- SM-33 names Atollon, Al Alcor, and Aldhani as other possible worlds the kids could be from. Atollon is where the fledgling Rebel Alliance stationed Chopper Base, and Aldhani is the world where Cassian Andor and a small rebel cell performed arguably the most important heist in Rebellion history.
Next week! We get to know Jude Law, erstwhile pirate captain?
