The best episode of every 2023 Star Wars television series
With three animated and two live-action series, 2023 was a busy year for Star Wars television. It began in the first week of January with The Bad Batch season 2, which delivered plenty of heartwarming and devastating moments.
At the beginning of March, The Bad Batch season 2 was still releasing weekly episodes when The Mandalorian Season 3 premiered, giving fans several weeks of getting two new Star Wars episodes every Wednesday.
On May the Fourth, all episodes for Star Wars: Visions season 2 dropped at once, featuring stunning animation from studios across the globe. Young Jedi Adventures, an animated series set in the High Republic era targeted at preschool-age children, also released its first slew of episodes on May the Fourth, and released more episodes at various points throughout the year.
The long-awaited Ahsoka series began in August and ran until early October, with many fans enjoying how the live-action series connects to and builds off of the beloved animated shows The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.
As 2023 winds down and 2024 approaches, it’s the perfect time to look back at each Star Wars television series in 2023 and celebrate their best episodes.
The Bad Batch
Season 2, Episode 12: “The Outpost”
The Bad Batch season 2 featured many stellar episodes, but “The Outpost” is in a class of its own. In a single episode, The Bad Batch encapsulates the tragedy of the clones in the aftermath of Order 66, and provides a satisfying payoff for all of Crosshair’s character development since the series premiere.
The episode begins with Crosshair watching other clones being forced into retirement while new batches of stormtroopers march around in their shiny new armor. Despite these warning signs, Crosshair remains loyal to the Empire and still feels valuable as he and his unit are reassigned to the Imperial depot on Barton IV by the arrogant Lieutenant Nolan.
On Barton IV, Crosshair meets a clone commander named Mayday, who has lost all but two of his troopers (and he soon loses them as well) to defend mysterious cargo for the Empire. Through Crosshair’s experiences with Mayday and the mistreatment they endure at the hands of Lieutenant Nolan, he finally opens his eyes and understands that despite his loyalty and sacrifices, he means nothing to the Empire.
Crosshair and Mayday realize that the cargo they’ve been ordered to retrieve, which all of Mayday’s troopers died defending, is stormtrooper armor. This realization is one of the most gut-wrenching moments in all of Star Wars. It’s a culmination of the Empire discarding the clones, treating them like used objects instead of people, and forcing the ones that remain to die, protecting the armor of their successors.
Even though Crosshair indicated earlier in the episode that a fallen comrade is just deadweight, he guides a grievously wounded Mayday back to the Imperial depot, only for Nolan to berate the clones for failing their mission. Nolan also doesn’t get Mayday any help and lets him die. All the ways the Empire has mistreated and abused Crosshair and the clones boils over, with Crosshair shooting and killing Nolan, finally choosing to stand up to the Empire.
The cherry on top of this perfect episode is Crosshair waking up at Mount Tantiss, with this intriguing cliffhanger connecting his story back to Clone Force 99 and the show’s endgame.