Andrea and I are back for the 3rd season of The Mandalorian.
Din Djarin, a lone Mandalorian bounty hunter and his child companion Grogu (Baby Yodai) continue their adventures in the outer reaches of the galaxy.
Now it bears remembering that at the end of season 2, Din Djarin bid a sorrowful farewell to Grogu as he headed off with Luke Skywalker for some Jedi training.
So what the heck are they doing back together again?
It seems that during The Book of Bobba Fett series, our erstwhile hard travelling Mandalorian hero was reunited with everyone's beloved Baby Yoda for... reasons?
Andrea and I did not watch The Book of Bobba Fett and actually The Mandalorian is the only Star Wars series we've watched on Disney+. Which may put us at a disadvantage understanding some shit. Apparently The Mandalorian is chock full of references to Star Wars lore from the movies and from a bunch of tie in media.
But we follow The Mandalorian just fine. Look, if you understand the basic premise of how a western works, you're OK.
Loner rides into a small backwater town on his horse. He's just trying to get from Point A to Point B and this little town happens to be along the way. He ain't looking for trouble but damned if trouble don't find him. Before he can move on, he's gotta resolve this trouble he didn't ask for.
Replace the backwater town with a backwater planet and the horse with a spaceship and that gets you The Mandalorian, my friends.
The new season finds Din Djarin on a quest of a personal nature. Seems he took his Mandalorian helmet off in front of other people which is a big no-no against the Mandalorian code so Din Djarin is looking for redemption.
Episode 1 of the new season starts off with Din Djarin fighting a giant alien alligator monster. I don't mean that it's larger than your average alligator. I mean "that very tall building that looks like an alien alligator is going to eat everybody!"
We also get space whales and space pirates. Who needs to know arcane Star Wars lore? I am entertained.
Episode 2 takes Din Djarin to Tatooine where he meets Peli Motto again. Played by Amy Sedaris, Peli Motto is a mechanic who manages a spaceport on Tatooine and is perhaps my favorite recurring character in The Mandalorian. Super good at her work and super sharp in her wit, she still can't help but melt when Grogu is around.
Well, who can blame her? Grogu is just too darn CUTE!!!!
Also back for season 3 is Katee Sackhoff is back as Bo-Katan, a disgraced Mandalorian who used to be big on restoring the ancient warrior ways of planet Mandalore; now Bo-Katan has moved on to other pursuits. No stupid Mandalorian helmet for her!
Episode two sucks for Din Djarin who gets the bantha crap kicked out of him by mutated monsterous muckety mucks on Mandalore and Bo-Katan has to save his ass. All because Din Djarin insists on adhering to an outdated code that won't let him take off his helmet once in a damn while and see his ruggedly handsome Pedro Paschal face.
While we're over on Disney+ for our Star Wars western, I've introduced Andrea to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, an animated series based on the Marvel comic.
Moon Girl is Lunella Lafayette, a 13-year-old African American girl genius from Manhattan’s Lower East Side (LES). Her activities include:
- roller skating
- helping out at her family’s roller rink
- getting perfect grades at school,
- tinkering in the secret laboratory she’s built below the apartment building she lives in
It is in this secret lab where Lunella accidentally opens a portal to the past through which pops a very large crimson creature.
Devil Dinosaur is... Devil Dinosaur. He's big and red and has the over all temperament of a puppy.
Lunella's stressed out that her community in the LES may be doomed. Recurring power outages are forcing businesses in the LES to close and she's worried that might be a fate that befalls her family's beloved skating rink and they might have to move to Jersey. (Meaning no disrespect to New Jersey.)
It seems that the power outages are not due to a failing power grid in the LES but are caused by an electricity stealing superv villain named Aftershock. With the help of her her social media savvy best friend Casey, Lunella crafts a super hero persona with super tricked out gadgets and a super strong super tough super dinosaur as her partner.
OK, so Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a kid's show but it's a damn good one with Lunella's neighborhood a richly developed world full of life, color and warmth. The LES may be marginalized from the rest of Manhattan (the Avengers have other things to worry about) but this is a place where people look out for each other. It feels like Lin Manuel Miranda's dream neighborhood.
The show has a catchy soundtrack influenced by hip hop, R&B and jazz. And the animation is colorful and energetic, sort of like the animation style of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
If Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a kid's show, it doesn't talk down to those kids but treats their intelligence and imagination with respect.
And if you're still a kid at heart, there's something for you too.
And that is that for the ol' Tuesday TV Touchbase for today.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
No comments:
Post a Comment