Apparently at the time of writing this, we as a society are living in the so-called Golden Age of Television. Crazy, right? I have a hard time believing that since all there is on TV when I hop from channel to channel is reality trash, the fourteenth iteration of the singing competition format, infomercials or an unholy mix of them all. When people call this age the Golden Age of Television they of course refer to the streaming services that are slowly killing television, so one can get confused. Not without a cause, mind. The streaming format has all the advantages that television has and then some. First, you don’t need to be at your television at a certain time to catch a show or, God forbid, TiVo it. With streaming you can watch anything you want whenever you want. Second, since the episodes of a series don’t need to fill a fixed time slot between commercials and other shows, they can be as long or short as needed for the benefit of the story teller. The flexibility of the streaming format is convenient and enables the kind of entertainment that has not been possible before. When you put it like that, I sort of agree with the Golden Age sentiment.

However, nowadays I rarely watch any prestige TV, and let me tell you why. There have been multiple shows that have attracted a wide audience and have been more successful than the last. The earliest one that I remember was The Sopranos, and it has been a very decent uphill from there. There have been shows like Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Westworld and Game of Thrones. Every single one of them held in high regard, more or less. I have seen a few episodes of Breaking Bad and Westworld, and I must admit that some moments in those shows caused a few sparks fly off my flinty soul. But ever since Game of Thrones was concluded with an ending many consider to be worse than that of the average case of HIV, I have come down with a severe case of Prestige TV Fatigue.

See, in the olden days TV wasn’t so heavily serialised. There were shows like The X-Files, Star Trek and Dr. Who; shows that consisted of episodes that started from status quo and ended in status quo. Every episode was their own separate entity in a sense; watching and enjoying an episode didn’t require you having watched the previous one. Nowadays I feel that Prestige TV has the impression that having a deep, complex story requires serialisation. In some cases that is unavoidable, like I can’t really imagine a way to have a successful non-serialised version of Game of Thrones.

Watching TV nowadays takes effort because of this. I have to watch every episode in order to keep track. With more complex worldbuilding there are more events and names to be committed to memory. This phenomenon also compounds with every new show you pick up. I can’t seriously be expected to remember all the intricate political intrigues in Game of Thrones and also consider the underlying philosophical debates of existence in Westworld. Sometimes I would just like to kick back, watch an episode of a show I like and not have to recall all the events set up in the previous two hundred episodes.

This brings me to today’s topic, The Mandalorian. The Mandalorian is a show based on the Star Wars universe, focusing on a bounty hunter Mandalorian and his adopted child Baby Yoda. The sixth episode of the third season aired recently, which made me think of this Prestige TV stuff in the first place. The Mandalorian is a very good exception to the fatigue I just complained about; it does have a series-spanning overarching story, but at the same time every episode is a self-contained adventure, so you have the option to ditch the background plot and just focus on the plot of the week.

What I like about The Mandalorian is that it gets what made Star Wars a compelling story in the first place; something that the Disney Trilogy missed hard. The fact that the story focuses on this no-name bounty hunter and his little green friend is exactly the format that inspired George Lucas to create Star Wars in the first place; he is the ronin of the samurai movies of old. He arrives on a planet, helps the locals, maybe battles a menacing space monster and leaves. On to the next planet. A simple story well told.

What brought down the Prequels and the Disney Trilogy to some extent was that they focused way too much on the galactic politics, the Jedi Order and nonsense prophecies. Prophecies as a way to advance plot are a novice writer’s tool anyway; when you have a prophecy you don’t need to come up with character motivation or in-universe reasons to explain why the story involves the main character. Also, leaning on the Senate and the Jedi Council to begin with was a mistake. First, nobody goes to the cinema to watch Prime Minister’s Questions, so leave out the politics. Second, making the main characters prophesied jedi knights is boring and takes away relatability.

This is what The Mandalorian gets right. The main character is just a commoner of the galaxy, no prophecies and no political cliques. He has a clear moral code, sensible motivation and the cutest sidekick to base a line of stuffed toys off of for fans to buy.

However, for the last few episodes a slight worry has started growing inside me. We have spent an entire episode focusing on a group of ex-Imperials going through a rehabilitation program, one of whom is an obvious turncoat. In the second season it was heavily implied that Baby Yoda was kidnapped by remnant Imperials to create Snoke, and these past few episodes have delved into the resurrection of the Empire and the formation of the First Order a little too much for my comfort. What I’m worried about is that The Mandalorian is slowly turning into yet another backstory; we had the Prequels explaining the story behind Darth Vader, and that went as well as one could expect.

I really enjoy The Mandalorian for what it is, detached from all the other Star Wars properties. What I think would be the best was for the show to distance itself as far from the Disney Star Wars movies and shows as possible. Do not go the way of Game of Thrones and go out in a blazing garbage fire of glory. Keep true to yourself, this is the way.