Andor presents us with the strangest jeopardy on television today; it’s a brilliantly written, beautifully shot sci-fi thriller full of interesting characters, action-packed set pieces and moments of genuinely touching emotion. All with the overhanging threat that Jar Jar Binks could turn up at any moment.
This is the world Disney has created and the showrunner Tony Gilroy has to navigate a galaxy which we are told is massive in scope but seems to revolve around a handful of families and characters. Gilroy has managed to do this better than anyone else.
The show takes place between episodes three and four, at the birth of the rebellion. It follows Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) as he moves from a run-of-the-mill petty empire hater to the fully-fledged rebel we know from his appearance in Rogue One.
For the most part, the show’s titular character is quite unassuming. He’s not charming like Han Solo (Harrison Ford), not badass like Mando (Pedro Pascal) and not heroic like Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). He’s scrappy, desperate, flawed and for a man who spends the show committing intergalactic heists and escaping underwater prisons, surprisingly real.
We meet Cassian in a rainy cyber city where he kills two imperial employees who try to mug him. This obviously leaves him with a lot of heat from the Empire. In the following 12 episodes, Andor manages to pack in a subterfuge mission into an Empire base on a strange planet, a dystopian cyber prison labour camp and subsequent high-stakes escape, and a pulsating final set piece that ties together a half dozen story threads.
We frequently return to Cassian’s home planet Ferrix throughout, which at first appears to be a Tatooine-style crime-ridden slum but is slowly revealed as a city full of culture and community. Ferrix feels alive, not just a backdrop for the protagonists to operate but a city full of people trying to survive under increasing imperial control.
The Empire are at their most brutal and evil in Andor. A hyper-fascist surveillance state determined to crush any kind of insurrection. It doesn’t need dark outfits and scary music to let us know that these are the bad guys, it shows us. They kill and destroy everywhere they go, every minute is filled with dread that they’re just around the corner waiting to grab you. By the time the final episode comes around, you’re desperate for Cassian and Ferrix to win.
The show is Disney’s best Star Wars success because it’s barely Star Wars. We don’t even see a stormtrooper for four episodes, the word force isn’t used once and there are no lightsabers. It doesn’t rely on easter eggs or recognizable names. What on the surface appears to be a spin-off series about a side character from a spin-off movie may actually be an entire multi-billion dollar franchise’s saviour.
5/5
Image Credits – The MovieDB
