While this review vaguely retells parts of the storyline, major spoilers are avoided.
I was excited when The Acolyte, a mystery thriller, was revealed. Disney were finally treading waters outside of the Skywalker era, promising to delve further into the dark side in what was described to be an investigation story about Jedi murders, set 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace and the return of the Sith. The series would focus on the villains of this universe and their views on the High Republic Jedi; exploring the Order’s flaws which were hinted towards in The Last Jedi but not entirely delved into. It’s a Star Wars story that I’ve wanted to see for years.
Not only this, but showrunner Leslye Headland is a big fan of the franchise and wanted to set the show at the end of the High Republic era, at the rejoice of many fans. The writing room was filled with variety; a mix of writers some of whom had not watched Stars Wars and could bring an outsider’s viewpoint to the room, some had only seen the films, and others had expanded beyond that.
The Acolyte starts with the murder of Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss). I was thrilled to see Moss in another martial arts role being a big fan of The Matrix, and was obviously devastated at her quick demise in the opening scene. Thankfully, we see more of her character through flashbacks. After a brief fight, Indara’s assailant, takes an advantage while Indara protects an innocent bystander and kills her.
The investigation into this murder leads Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), his current Padawan, Jecki (Dafne Keen), and Jedi Knight Yord (Charlie Barnett) to Sol’s former Padawan, Osha (Amandla Stenberg), who denies her involvement in the murders. The only alternative is that her presumed dead twin sister, Mae (also Amandla Stenberg), is actually alive and has joined the dark side – making this one of the few times that the “that wasn’t me, it was my evil twin” excuse actually works. Starting off, Sol and Jecki are easily the strongest characters in The Acolyte, and remain so until midway through the season where another character is properly introduced, the show’s main villain. While I didn’t warm up to Osha to begin with, finding Amandla Stenberg’s performance to be the weakest out of the cast, she did grow on me towards the end of the season in her role as Osha. Unfortunately, Mae is another story.
So, where did The Acolyte go so horribly wrong? Some would say it’s the series’ “apparent” disregard to Star Wars lore. After all, Ki-Adi-Mundi did claim in The Phantom Menace that the Sith had been extinct for over 1,000 years, yet they seem to be present in some form in The Acolyte or at least presumed so. But Ki-Adi-Mundi also later went on to say that Palpatine wasn’t a murderer, making him a not-so-reliable source of information. So, all The Acolyte needed to clear up is why, when a Sith is supposedly sighted in this series, do the Jedi still believe they are extinct in The Phantom Menace? Which, for those who actually stuck around until the end of season 1, it does. They also made three whole films explaining how the Sith weren’t extinct for over 1,000, in case anyone hasn’t seen those. But rambling on about the complications of Star Wars lore is a rabbit hole. So, let’s put the CD-ROM character profiles away and look at The Acolyte from a different perspective.
From the get-go, The Acolyte‘s first problem were the episode lengths. Most of the series features 30-minute episodes, with the final two being just over 40-minutes long, while most TV shows these days have 40-minute episodes by default. So, reverting to this format feels strange. This is especially the case with The Acolyte being released weekly, giving us mere snippets of story each week and feeling as though we’re barely covering any ground before we’re put on hold again. And while the weekly release format is working for other shows (i.e. House of the Dragon) and the shorter episode lengths has also worked for other TV shows (mostly children’s animated programmes), this felt like an awful decision for The Acolyte, which has so much to cover in its topic, but not enough time to cover it. But funnily enough, I felt differently watching the first half of the show; there was barely anything going on and I assumed it was because this storyline was intended to be a film and had been forcefully stretched out into eight episodes. And then, episode 5 aired, and the true storyline for this season was revealed. And I realised, in horror, that we only had three episodes left to wrap some form of storyline up before we’d be waiting another two years (at least) for a second season, if that ever even comes.
The Acolyte‘s problems could be put down to a number of things. For one, it features these gorgeous, well-crafted sets and scenery but uses the most dull and basic camera work to show them off. The cinematography is dreadful, which is pretty much on par with the majority of the content Disney has been putting out lately, abandoning the beauty of the sequels trilogy and opting for this flat, lifeless look. This could be due to the amount of content Disney is trying to put out in a short space of time, putting its budget elsewhere, but there are lower budget projects than The Acolyte which look far more creative, so it could most likely be put down to a studio choice.
The music is another problem. Star Wars has built an identity around its musical score, and even when John Williams hasn’t been on board, the trend has continued with Michael Giacchino for Rogue One and Ludwig Göransson for The Mandalorian. The Acolyte once again falls flat with this for most of the season. In fact, I barely noticed the music at all most of the time whereas it’s taken centre piece during fight scenes and memorable moments in other Star Wars projects. There were some neat pieces playing towards the end, using a variety of sounds that felt unique to this universe, but overall it was just completely forgettable. Apart from the end credits song of one episode which sounded like a lyrical pop song and felt so out of place.
The cast performances are hot and cold. There are some stellar inputs from Lee Jung-jae who carries the show during that dull first half and Manny Jacinto is barely recognisable from some of his previous roles such as Jason from The Good Place. Unfortunately our lead, Amandla Stenberg leaves a lot to be desired as Osha and Mae. Now that the season is over, I’m still not entirely sure if this can be blamed on the directing and dialogue or not, but there were some scenes where I feel like we could have gotten more from Stenberg and she maintains a singular placid facial expression for the majority of the show.
Meanwhile, the choreography has finally been nailed by Disney. After watching Rey and Kylo Ren blindly swing their lightsabers at each other like school children playing with sticks, it’s actually a relief to see lightsaber duels that finally look like they’re being done by trained fighters. Disney has officially found a balance between the sometimes over-the-top choreography of the prequels and the more realistic but also completely lacking fight scenes in the sequels. It’s only taken nearly ten years, but I’m glad we’re here. And the choreography is not only good but the fight scenes are genuinely enjoyable to watch. There’s quite a few of them throughout the season but none of them feel like we’re treading over the same ground. Different techniques are used, different levels of skill are seen, and different stakes are set down each time we are thrown into battle. The Acolyte made me feel like a kid again watching Obi Wan and Qui-Gon take on Darth Maul… only John Williams isn’t here this time. In fact, I can’t even remember what the soundtrack sounded like during these scenes.
Of course, superb acting performances from certain individuals, an exciting concept and premise, and fight scenes that gave me chills aren’t much to dampen the fire that was going on in the writing room for The Acolyte. Because, by far, this show’s biggest problem is the pacing. Which also stems from how it’s put together and the decisions characters make in order to push the storyline in a certain direction. The Acolyte feels in an odd limbo where it’s both too short and too long. We’re rushed towards the ending but then it also just loves wasting its own precious time. In fact, the problematic pacing is just about the only consistent thing in this show, besides the choreography.
The first half of The Acolyte focuses on the hunt for Mae. Meanwhile, Mae is hunting down Jedi. Our investigation team will follow Mae’s tracks, using Osha’s similar appearance to trick Mae’s acquantences into handing over information. This lasts for four episodes. Barely anything is covered in this time. We’re supposed to feel angry about Mae’s actions despite having not been introduced to her victims before their deaths, leaving us with nothing to care about. Then, suddenly, our villain enters the fray in episode five and completely turns the plot sideways, while at the same time the show essentially disregards Mae to instead focus mostly on Osha and her development. The problem is, we have three episodes left with a plot to wrap up, and this leaves barely any time for any sensical character development or decisions.
It doesn’t help that the characters will make stupid decisions in order to keep the plot moving forward, or concealing information for no reason at all other than to move the plot in a certain direction or to keep a mystery going. We even see this effect of stupid decisions used in the fight choreography; once disarmed the Jedi extras stare dumbfoundedly at their missing weapons, almost as if they have no way of defending themselves without using a weapon. In fact, in episode 5 Mae changes plan FOUR times. These aren’t just minor tweaks to her end goal either, these are complete character 180s that start as a shock and just become ridiculous by the time we’re at the end of the episode. This is in between scenes with other characters too, so pretty much every time we cut to Mae she’s on another agenda as if we’ve missed half her scenes. It’s like the writers didn’t know what to do with her so just sent her off in various different directions so that we would still have equal screen time with both twins. I partly feel like The Acolyte could have just not included the twins and focused on Osha solving the mystery behind the Jedi murders and getting reunited with her Jedi friends from her Padawan days in the process.
The withholding information in particular ignites a sore spot in The Acolyte. To begin with, there is mystery behind why Mae is sought to murder specific Jedi, including Indara who we know little about. But then the show continues to try and tell a story while at the same time concealing as much as it absolutely can until the final minute is up. Sol keeps promising to tell people things “later” and then in the next episodes it’s still “later” and then the next. We’re left with very little to care about with these characters because we have absolutely no clue what their ambitions are or how they’re tied to this plot. And by the time we do find out, we have bigger things to worry about and we no longer care about what Sol was promising to tell “later”. It doesn’t help that the first four episodes barely have any plot to them, they’re just completely wrapped within an empty mystery and we’re left with little reason to hold a grasp on this show. I don’t feel like the odds are at stake when they work out who Mae’s next victim is, because I don’t know anything about this person and I’m not exactly afraid to lose them from the show. We even get this impression from Headland in interviews as she promises to reveal certain lore bits or elements in “future seasons” which haven’t been greenlit yet. I believe Headland grew way too comfortable with the prospect of a season 2 for The Acolyte that she grew careless at how she told the story of season 1. We spend our time much more wisely when we’re unsure when it will end and I’m sure we wouldn’t have had a flashback episode repeating events we’ve already seen in a different light if Headland thought that maybe a season 2 wouldn’t happen.
The Acolyte had a vision and I LOVED the vision. It has a storyline that I’ve yearned to be covered in the Star Wars universe for years. It has one of the best villains that Disney has put on screen yet, a storyline that would have been tremendous if played out right, choreography that made me feel like a child again, and some throwbacks to lore that haven’t been seen in live action yet. I think this is why it’s so incredibly disheartening that this show was chopped up so messily in the writing room that it was hobbling along without a leg to stand on in the first half, and then kicked across the finish line the moment it had found itself in the final few episodes. The pacing is so poor that I started The Acolyte thinking that it was too long and should have been a film, only to do a Mae-180 towards the end when I realised that this show actually wasn’t long enough. The storyline has 30-minute intervals to go in a certain direction, so characters will make unrealistic decisions or hold information for no reason in order to get it there. They seemingly change their minds within minutes because there’s not enough time to show their thought process or decision-making. Meanwhile the storyline revolves itself in so much mystery that I simply didn’t care by the time we eventually got answers, having not had the information needed to be intrigued by them to begin with.
The Acolyte is a hot mess but, oddly enough, I’m now too far into this promise that a part of me is hoping it gets a second chance to figure things out in season 2. I have certainly seen other shows find their footing later on before and there certain characters and storylines presented that I want to see through until the bitter end.
