I was listening to Geeks Without God, a podcast I recently discovered. They released an episode where they primarily talked about The Acolyte. I would recommend listening to the episode because I think they brought up what they didn’t like about the show in a nuanced way without completely trashing it. I did make the time to finish the series and while there were portions of the show I liked, I felt a bit let down by the show altogether. I wanted to summarize what I liked and what I didn’t like about the show.

Liked

• The characters. My favorites are Sol and Qimir
• The lightsaber duels
• The detective story of who is targeting the Jedi

I didn’t outright hate The Acolyte as I think there were things that I enjoyed. First of all, I liked the characters. I felt particularly drawn to Sol and Qimir. I admire Sol’s commitment to the Jedi Order. He wants to do the right thing even though he may not see the consequences of his actions. Qimir was awesome! I liked the look of his helmet and how intertwined he was with the twins. I would have loved a flashback episode of Qimir and why he left the Jedi. Was it noble like how Ahsoka left? or was it for his own selfish reasons? This leads me to the next thing I liked which was the lightsaber duels. Episode #5 was brutal and showed the darker side of losing a lightsaber duel. The dialogue between Qimir and Sol shortly after was top-notch. One of the main reasons I was looking forward to The Acolyte was to see the Jedi in a detective role. There was an element of mystery to figuring out who was going after these particular Jedi. While this is seen from the first few episodes, I think this gets lost once it’s revealed why the Jedi are being targeted.

Disliked

• Unanswered questions particularly around Darth Plagueis
• There were not enough episodes for everyone to get a good character arc
• Killing off Master Indara right away
• Sol’s Fate
• Pip’s Fate

Let’s talk about Darth Plagueis. Darth Plagueis was Emperor Palpatine’s master who Palpatine kills and tells Anakin about it in Revenge of the Sith. I think Plagueis’s appearance is odd? Was Plagueis Qimir’s master? Is Plagueis more admiring or watching Qimir, but has no relation to him? Plagueis’s appearance was neat but didn’t add anything to the show. It would have been interesting to see Plagueis tied to one of the characters or if Plagueis approached one of the characters in the last episode.

This is classic Star Wars where the movies or the shows introduce too many characters and some characters get dropped. I think The Acolyte falls into this. I think the best examples would be Jecki and Yord. They were clearly skilled Jedi, but it felt like their only purpose was to be killed by Qimir which is sad. I love Dafne Keen as an actress and I think she was underutilized in the show which is a shame. Another example is Master Indara and I’m still salty over the fact that she was killed right away.

The final thing I did not like about The Acolyte was the fate of the characters. I mentioned how much I loved Sol and I did not like what happened to him. Sol is killed by Osha after Osha learns that Sol killed her mother. When the Jedi discover Sol’s body, they blame him for everything. Sol did some questionable things, but I don’t think he deserved that. It would have been fascinating to see Sol be put on trial or confess to the Jedi what really happened. Additionally, it would have been interesting to see if the Jedi would punish Sol or try to cover up his involvement, which would have spoken volumes as to how the Jedi operates. In the Geeks Without God episode I referenced, they brought up an interesting point regarding Pip. Pip is Osha’s robot and Pip eventually is in Mae’s hands. Mae erases Pip’s memories back to default settings which effectively killed Pip. This is never referenced which is sad! Pip was Osha’s best friend and now Pip no longer exists. If this were any other robot in Star Wars, I think it would have been acknowledged. This reminds me of the time in Rise of Skywalker when the group contemplates erasing C-3PO’s mind. This decision also wasn’t treated with the respect that C-3PO deserved. I’m not sure why the robots are disregarded in Star Wars, but they are crucial characters in the story and should be treated as such.

After all the episodes of The Acolyte aired on Disney+, it was revealed that there would not be another season. I’m wary of using the word canceled because while that may be true, this might be similar to other Star Wars shows where the intention was to do one season and that’s it. If another season of The Acolyte was to be made, I wouldn’t be excited about it. I think The Acolyte is my least favorite of the live-action shows on Disney+. Despite my thoughts about the show, the review bombing and the negative reactions from fans were uncalled for and exposed the negative side of the fandom. Unfortunately, these fans felt they got what they wanted. As for the future of Star Wars, I hope to see more shows, movies, and comics being created, but I want the quality to be there.