Even after watching the first three episodes, The Bureau of Magical Things feels like a show that doesn’t exist. A hypothetical series a nerdy character might watch in the background of a scene. I’ve heard no one discuss The Bureau of Magical Things, reference it, or allude to it anywhere online in critic circles, yet it has all the trappings of a show that people make video essays about.
Just when I thought I had found the most obscure Star Wars show in Rebellion, I stumbled upon Star Wars Forces of Destiny. A series of short episodes, ala Groot (though this is from 2017), covering random points in the timeline. Some are so minuscule that it’s technically a bonus scene from a movie.
I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of Star Wars Resistance. It’s more obscure; I only discovered it by searching through the vast swath of Star Wars content on Disney+. It’s the only series I know of that deals with anything related to the events of the newest trilogy (at time of writing) and seems the closest to a traditional children’s show.
So, here we are: The end of The Owl House. Perhaps my all-time favorite animated series. I wish the third season had been more, had been an actual season, but this is the next best thing.
The Book of Boba Fett seemed like an outlier when I considered it for review. A strange tangent for the Star Wars universe to explore. In the grand scheme of the current version of the universe (I’m sure the no-longer-canon books had him a ton), Boba Fett is a blip.
Star Wars Rebels mostly escaped my radar during its 2014-2018 run, but it was a positive surprise to explore now. Despite feeling like this franchise is now racing towards oversaturation (if it has not already reached it), Star Wars television shows have—for apparently a long time—been mostly solid little pieces of media.
It’s been a long time since the first season of The Mandalorian came out. And, while I finish tackling reviewing some of the newer Disney+ Star Wars entries, let’s look back at what worked in the first three episodes and how much the series has (or hasn’t) changed.
I dismissed Lockwood & Co. during my first exposure to it. A random segment of the show I walked past didn’t impress me. But now, having seen the first three episodes, I must admit how wrong I was. This is not only one of the best recent paranormal thrillers/horror urban fantasies, but it’s a good show in any context.
When you become a diehard fan of a type of media or genre (really any of them), you notice patterns. I’ve spoken before about storytelling patterns in the wider construct of narratives, but what I mean this time is tropes.
Almost two years ago to the day, I reviewed Kid Cosmic. I said I wasn’t planning on continuing the show. Well, apparently, I lied. While eating dinner one day, I pulled it up and basically binged.
If you read many of my reviews, you might’ve noticed I have a bias. I’ve spoken about it before: I like unique, wild, and weird. Stories going out of their way to be meta, mind-bending, or commentate on current events or societal ills have often gotten positive reviews from me.
Now it’s time for the negativity. The stuff I least enjoyed reviewing. I’ve sandwiched this part between two positive articles, so we don’t end this retrospective on a low note.
