As Season 3 of “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” has progressed, I’ve found myself increasingly having trouble finding things to write about it. It’s not a bad show, it just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Maybe it’s because I’m tired of MacGuffins dominating this franchise. But I think it’s moreso that there wasn’t a great plan for this season. The show feels directionless, like it’s just throwing missions at the wall for us, hoping something will stick, all the while realizing that 15 30-minute episodes was far too much to fill for the very simple story it had in mind.
Episodes 13 and 14 see the Bad Batch (Dee Bradley Baker) eventually find Mount Tantiss, the secret Imperial research base where Omega (Michelle Ang) is being held. Despite the fact that this is Omega’s second tour of duty here, she doesn’t know where its exact coordinates are and neither does Rampart (Noshir Dalal), the former Imperial vice admiral whom the Bad Batch broke out of prison. Its location is kept a strict secret — its coordinates are beamed into the navicomputer of any shuttle hat heads there, meaning the only way to get there is to hitch a ride on a shuttle headed there, which the Bad Batch do in Episode 13.
Episode 13 is a boring mess that seems to only exist because of this wrinkle the writers incorporated. It’s a classic example of an episode that could have been left on the cutting room floor had this season been allowed to be shorter than 15 episodes.
Episode 14 is not better — the Bad Batch crash land on Tantiss while Omega prepares her escape. Emerie Karr (Keisha Castle-Hughes) finally turns and agrees to help Echo break Omega and the other child experiment subjects out, but it stops just short of the actual breakout.
These two episodes are an absolute drag. They are thoroughly uninteresting from a narrative perspective and seem to bank on the novelty of the “Star Wars” universe to keep fans hooked. There’s even a Zillo Beast reference in episode 14 that will definitely come into play next episode, but who cares?
Season 3 overall has been mildly interesting, but it’s the weakest this show has. So many episodes just seem to run down the clock with boring, one-off missions that don’t add up to the overall whole of the show other than in superficial ways.
I’m waiting in anticipation for this show to end. This season has made me rethink doing episode reviews of television shows — it’s just not enjoyable when every episode is this bland.
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch” Episodes 13 and 14 get a 5/10
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