The Bad Batch: 1x10
May. 18th, 2022 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviews1) Obviously I missed the Buffy Monday post, it's been a distracting couple of weeks, but hopefully I'll get back to reliable posting soonish.
2) This review wouldn't normally be long enough on its own, but I think this is the best way to space out the rest of the season, so it gets to be a stand alone post.
The Bad Batch: 1x10
I think I can put this one squarely in the ‘not bad’ camp. I only have one sort of complaint and actually a couple of compliments. Admittedly, it wasn’t actually all that engaging, or I was just tired (I’m leaning toward the latter actually), but it’s definitely not bad.
When I say I have a sort of complaint, in this case even that is worth some analysis, because it’s still not bad exactly, not even so much a missed opportunity (certainly not one this show was going to take), but it is…niggling. With a group name like the Bad Batch, it conjures up this idea of them being basically a black ops/mercenary squad who work in the dark places and are hard-ass bad-asses. But…they’re not. They’re running around with their weapons on stun and they seem only mildly capable most of the time. Sure, they were trained to fight droid armies without breaking a sweat, and that is a different skill set, but I’m not sure it explains all the ways they act.
They act this way because it’s a kids show, and heroes shouldn’t kill in kids shows. Unless they’re robots, then they kill as many as you put on the screen. And it’s…obvious. And it makes the Empire look like that much less of a threat if there’s no fight when a squad of four goes against whole teams of Imps.
In this case, it even could have been explained. The team know that the regular Clone army is mind controlled, so they’re trying not to kill unless they have to (one would hope with the ultimate goal of de-programming them; and if it’s not, then I’m back on team ‘Crosshair deserves better’); and this Senator would potentially have made a request not to kill any locals. Bam, explanation is not hard. But that we aren’t given reasons makes it seem like this is just how the team of supposed hard-asses works and I’m not sure it's working for me.
Now, onto the stuff I actually liked, namely politics and intra-team disagreement. This is a reason not to have done a time jump, because it means the war just ended and so bitterness that came from the war is still fresh. Echo is especially affected, and that actually makes sense, he would be more bitter towards the former Separatist worlds than the rest of the team. The Batch weren’t close to the Regs, but Echo was; so he spent years watching friends die in the war against the Separatists, and then he spent…an indistinct while being used by the Separatist leadership as a battle planner against the people he cared about.
Echo should have issues the rest of the team don’t. He should be the anti-Omega (but I guess that is not alpha). Omega has no idea what the War was like, but Echo has all the knowledge of what the War was. He should have major PTSD that this is the first time the show has gone anywhere near. Which is why even though I am praising the show for finally doing something in the realm of characterization, it is very unfinished. This is the Echo I want to see; not just the occasional hint that there’s more to him.
(Hmm, yeah, these sound like complaints I had about TCW)
Because Echo’s view here is actually really important, way more than the show is likely to think through. It’s a reminder that both the Separatists and the Republic lost the War. That the Batch are Republic soldiers, used to fighting Separatists, but those distinctions don’t really matter now. And I’m sure they’re not the only people in the galaxy who are having trouble holding that mess in their heads on the day to day.
Yeah, the more I write about this episode, I think I know why I have it in the not bad camp, but can’t say I liked it exactly. It is very TCW; it has the seeds of an idea, but I have no faith in these writers to grow those seeds into something worth more than passing interest.
And you’ll note, I may have conflicted feelings toward the main plot, but I just nothing the Omega plot.
2) This review wouldn't normally be long enough on its own, but I think this is the best way to space out the rest of the season, so it gets to be a stand alone post.
The Bad Batch: 1x10
I think I can put this one squarely in the ‘not bad’ camp. I only have one sort of complaint and actually a couple of compliments. Admittedly, it wasn’t actually all that engaging, or I was just tired (I’m leaning toward the latter actually), but it’s definitely not bad.
When I say I have a sort of complaint, in this case even that is worth some analysis, because it’s still not bad exactly, not even so much a missed opportunity (certainly not one this show was going to take), but it is…niggling. With a group name like the Bad Batch, it conjures up this idea of them being basically a black ops/mercenary squad who work in the dark places and are hard-ass bad-asses. But…they’re not. They’re running around with their weapons on stun and they seem only mildly capable most of the time. Sure, they were trained to fight droid armies without breaking a sweat, and that is a different skill set, but I’m not sure it explains all the ways they act.
They act this way because it’s a kids show, and heroes shouldn’t kill in kids shows. Unless they’re robots, then they kill as many as you put on the screen. And it’s…obvious. And it makes the Empire look like that much less of a threat if there’s no fight when a squad of four goes against whole teams of Imps.
In this case, it even could have been explained. The team know that the regular Clone army is mind controlled, so they’re trying not to kill unless they have to (one would hope with the ultimate goal of de-programming them; and if it’s not, then I’m back on team ‘Crosshair deserves better’); and this Senator would potentially have made a request not to kill any locals. Bam, explanation is not hard. But that we aren’t given reasons makes it seem like this is just how the team of supposed hard-asses works and I’m not sure it's working for me.
Now, onto the stuff I actually liked, namely politics and intra-team disagreement. This is a reason not to have done a time jump, because it means the war just ended and so bitterness that came from the war is still fresh. Echo is especially affected, and that actually makes sense, he would be more bitter towards the former Separatist worlds than the rest of the team. The Batch weren’t close to the Regs, but Echo was; so he spent years watching friends die in the war against the Separatists, and then he spent…an indistinct while being used by the Separatist leadership as a battle planner against the people he cared about.
Echo should have issues the rest of the team don’t. He should be the anti-Omega (but I guess that is not alpha). Omega has no idea what the War was like, but Echo has all the knowledge of what the War was. He should have major PTSD that this is the first time the show has gone anywhere near. Which is why even though I am praising the show for finally doing something in the realm of characterization, it is very unfinished. This is the Echo I want to see; not just the occasional hint that there’s more to him.
(Hmm, yeah, these sound like complaints I had about TCW)
Because Echo’s view here is actually really important, way more than the show is likely to think through. It’s a reminder that both the Separatists and the Republic lost the War. That the Batch are Republic soldiers, used to fighting Separatists, but those distinctions don’t really matter now. And I’m sure they’re not the only people in the galaxy who are having trouble holding that mess in their heads on the day to day.
Yeah, the more I write about this episode, I think I know why I have it in the not bad camp, but can’t say I liked it exactly. It is very TCW; it has the seeds of an idea, but I have no faith in these writers to grow those seeds into something worth more than passing interest.
And you’ll note, I may have conflicted feelings toward the main plot, but I just nothing the Omega plot.
