Some big things happened for Star Wars in the world of TV in 2020. Let’s take a look back.
2020 was yet another monumental year in TV for Star Wars. What was first a sector of the franchise completely filled with animated shows has now become a mixture of both animation and live-action series. And with that, there’s now so much more in store for the Star Wars television universe that it may just triumph over the movies over the next few years.
First up, at the beginning of this year, Disney’s Star Wars Resistance aired the final five (or technically six) episodes of season 2, marking the end of the series. On top of that, in the animated sector, we had the long-awaited return of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Season 7 ran from Feb. 21 to May 4 (fittingly ending on Star Wars Day), exclusively on Disney+ for the first time ever. This would be a first and a last for The Clone Wars as season 7 marked the finale of the series as a whole.
While we won’t spoil what happened in this final season, the season 7 opener did hint at a future spinoff that would be coming in 2021 — Star Wars: The Bad Batch. This new series, which follows the mutated group of clones with “desirable” abilities, will also stream exclusively on Disney+ and will feature a certain character who we’ve seen only in live-action thus far: Fennec Shand.
We first saw Fennec (played by Ming-Na Wen) in season 1 of The Mandalorian, and she made her return once again in season 2. That makes an excellent transition as we mention the biggest Star Wars TV event of this year, which was season 2 of The Mandalorian on Disney+. The Emmy-winning series streamed from Oct. 30 to Dec. 18 on the streaming service and did a lot to set up much more in the Star Wars live-action television universe.
The next TV spinoff Star Wars announced this year includes Fennec yet again with another longtime fan-favorite character, Boba Fett — both of whom will be starring in the spinoff The Book of Boba Fett, set to come out around December 2021. Also, with the introduction of the live-action Ahsoka Tano (played by Rosario Dawson) came the confirmation of the Ahsoka series, which will also be coming to Disney+ sometime in the future. After seeing Katee Sackhoff reprise her role as Bo-Katan Kryze in The Mandalorian season 2 (but as a live-action character), we also have a feeling we’ll be seeing her again as well.
2020 also came with many more television announcements from Lucasfilm during the Disney Investor Day 2020 presentation, and that included more information about the Kenobi series (such as Hayden Christensen joining) and a brand new series that ties into The Mandalorian and Ahsoka called Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic.
It seems like as of 2020, television is the new king of Star Wars. And while there are currently two new Star Wars movies in development at Lucasfilm, the new TV series far outnumber the amount of content we’ll be getting in television compared to film.
Which Star Wars television series did you enjoy most this year? Let us know in the comments!