Star Wars: Ahsoka speeds through Episode 3 (at least the ships were cool)

After a strong start last week, Ahsoka is back with its third episode. We last saw Rosario Dawson’s Jedi outcast set out to track down the escaped Imperial loyalists alongside her Padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). In “Time To Fly,” we see them clash yet again.

According to Disney, Ahsoka is doing very well, with its premiere episodes being watched by roughly the same amount of people who tuned in to Andor’s season premiere. They say that the show’s first episode racked up around 14 million views.

Meanwhile, Deadline reports that, according to data research firm Samba TV, Ahsoka has been viewed by 1.2 million households so far. Disney clearly wants us all to know Ahsoka is doing well by their standards. But because streaming numbers are notoriously hard to come by, we don’t actually know how accurate any of it is.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two episodes of Ahsoka, but with the show’s third episode clocking in at a shockingly short 36 minutes and consisting of primarily one special effects-heavy action sequence, Episode 3 is undeniably the weakest of the bunch so far. SPOILERS beyond this point.

Ahsoka Episode 3 review: “Time To Fly”

“Time To Fly” is an episode told in two acts. The first is somewhat slow. We start out with Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) doing some Jedi Padawan training, which feels like a pretty normal thing for a Star Wars show (even if Ahsoka isn’t technically a Jedi). These scenes provide a nice onramp into the episode, which gives Bordizzo, David Tennant (Huyang), and Rosario Dawson (Ahsoka Tano) time to interact, giving us some much-needed space with the characters before the action-filled back half of the episode. The music and the staging are solid and the set looks nice.

That said, there are some moments in here where it felt like the show was forcing tension just a little bit. Did Sabine really do that badly during these training segments that a simple “you’re doing good so far” wasn’t warranted? I don’t know, we’ve seen a lot of aspiring Jedi train on screen, and it seemed to me that Sabine was better off than a lot of them.

Elsewhere, Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) tries to convince the New Republic to send a fleet to support Ahsoka and Sabine as they track down the Sith who escaped in Episode 2. But those Sith are hardly even a part of the conversation. Instead, the New Republic makes it seem like Hera wants to use their resources to work out her personal grudge against Thrawn and to find her friend Ezra Bridger.

This would be more convincing if there wasn’t so much evidence that the Imperial remnants on Corellia weren’t acting alone. It’s not like Hera’s making assumptions here; she saw red lightsabers come out and got a tracking beacon onto a ship that was clearly in league with the bad guys. This should be an easy sell, but because “Time To Fly” hinges on Ahsoka and Sabine being left without support, the show forces this non-sensical plot turn through.

But hey, it was cool to see Genevieve O’Reilly back as Mon Mothma. So there’s that at least.

Ahsoka Episode 3 is all about that ship battle

The entire back half of “Time To Fly” is one long ship battle between Ahsoka, Sabine and Huyang on the one side and Sith forces led by Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and Marrok (Sam Witwer) on the other. The ship battle is literally half of the episode’s 36-minute runtime. It’s obvious that the producers wanted a ship battle that would do George Lucas proud, and they did a pretty solid job.

There are some parts that are a little silly, like Ahsoka doing somersaults in space to slice up starfighters, but in general it’s a lot of fun. Sakhno is very compelling as Shin Hati, and we got our best look yet at the mysterious Inquisitor Marrok.

The highlight of the battle is the emergence of the Purrgil whales, enormous spacefaring whales which Star Wars Rebels fans will know well. Ahsoka and Sabine use a herd of them as cover to slip down onto the surface of the planet beneath the orbital hyperspace ring, which will presumably allow Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) and her allies to reach the galaxy where Thrawn and Ezra Bridger are in exile.

The episode ends with our sole shot of Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) sending some troops out into the forest to hunt for Ahsoka and Sabine on the planet’s surface. It’s a solid stinger for the next episode, but I do wish this one wasn’t so abbreviated.

Ahsoka Bullet Points

• Hera’s costuming continues to bug me for whatever reason. Her makeup looks like…well,  like makeup, as opposed to a different colored skin like Ahsoka has. Her contacts are also distracting. Not sure exactly what’s going on there, but I do hope it evens out.
• We also met Hera’s son in this episode. His father is the Jedi Kanan Jarrus, who is from Rebels. A moment that’ll be very meaningful for Rebels fans and probably not at all for everyone else.
• A lot of the music and sound effects in the ship battle are straight out of George Lucas’ prequel trilogy. The idea of a hyperspace ring and even Shin Hati’s flight headgear (which is very similar to one Obi-Wan wore in Attack of the Clones) are all things that Lucas introduced in those movies. It’s clear that Ahsoka is trying to pay homage.
• The Purrgil looked awesome. Gotta love some big cool Star Wars space creatures.

Verdict

“Time To Fly” is a short episode, and almost half of it is one action sequence. It’s hard not to feel a little dissatisfied by how quickly it all ends and how little happens, even if much of it is still enjoyable. It also highlights one of the difficulties of doing Star Wars on this scale on television: the ship battle looks and sounds awesome, but since it’s an almost entirely special effects-driven sequence, it would probably play better in a movie theater.

Ultimately this episode is mainly there to get all of our characters in place for whatever comes next week. It was an enjoyable episode, but I imagine that by the time the series is over, it will go down as one of its most forgettable.

Episode Grade: B-

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