Is Star Wars: The Bad Batch out this week on Disney+?

Off the heels of two consecutive Marvel shows, Disney+ is once again set to premiere an original Star Wars series.

Focusing on the elite squad that first appeared in season 7 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (which in hindsight was just a backdoor pilot for this show), Star Wars: The Bad Batch is set to premiere in less than a week. The show is created by longtime Star Wars storyteller Dave Filoni, with head writer Jennifer Corbett and supervising director Brad Rau.

The show will depict what the Bad Batch went through during the harrowing events of Order 66 and beyond, taking its time to show the galaxy gradually engulfed in the tyranny that is the Galactic Empire we all know and hate.

Along the way is an unsurprising assortment of guest characters, from fan-favorites like Captain Rex, to recent additions to the franchise like Fennec Shand.

Is the Bad Batch new this week?

The wait is almost over. The first episode of The Bad Batch will be released on Star Wars Day, a.k.a. May the Fourth (May 4), with a special 70-minute premiere episode.

Subsequent episodes will be released on a weekly basis every Friday, beginning May 7. This will last for at least 13 weeks, as composer Kevin Kiner has confirmed that Star Wars: The Bad Batch will last at least 14 episodes. This is significantly more episodes than would be expected from the season lengths of The Mandalorian or The Clone Wars season 7, but if anything it’s a pleasant surprise, suggesting that the writers have enough story to make the season standard length!

To top that off, all indications seem to suggest that the show will ditch the anthology format of its predecessor in favor of an ongoing story in the vein of Rebels and The Mandalorian. So in spite of my previous pessimism, this show seems to be shaping up quite well.

For more Bad Batch news, follow The Bad Batch category on Dork Side of the Force.