It was the most talked-about streaming series of the season and a flagship for the launch of a mega subscription-video service. And yet, in some surprising ways, “The Mandalorian,” about a bounty hunter’s adventures in the Star Wars universe, was also a throwback to the old days of network television. As the Disney + series reaches the finale of its eight-episode first season on Friday, here are some steps from the retro TV playbook that “The Mandalorian” followed.
Appointment Viewing
Streaming often equals bingeing in the model popularized by Netflix, which typically releases all episodes of a show simultaneously to let subscribers gobble or graze at their own pace. With “The Mandalorian,” Disney+ doled out the episodes on a weekly basis. You know, like TV networks with programming schedules have done since the 1950s. That kept most viewers on the same pace and helped online conversation and memes spike after each new installment.
Parrot Analytics, an entertainment consulting firm that tracks demand for TV shows based on factors such as how frequently they are being pirated or searched online by consumers, says “The Mandalorian” led all shows world-wide in the last 30 days. It generated 32 times more demand than the average TV series, topping No. 2 title “Game of Thrones.” But streamers dabbling with the weekly release pattern, including Apple TV+, also run a familiar risk of their shows petering out. “You watch the first couple episodes, then something better comes along and off you go,” says Samuel Stadler, Parrot Analytics’ vice president of marketing. “Suddenly you’re back on Netflix.”
A Lone-Wolf Hero
Actor Pedro Pascal voices the show’s title character, but because the Mandalorian’s face is always covered, viewers can’t tell if it is the star or a stand-in underneath the helmet. The Mandalorian is an inscrutable masked mercenary who wears a blaster on his hip, rides speeder bikes and giant lizards across desert landscapes, and has a bit of mysterious theme music, like the trill that once announced Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name” gunslinger on screen. All this helped endear the spacefarer to viewers who grew up with a lot of characters from the same template.
“I enjoy the hell out of it,” says 72-year-old Dennis Burdick of Las Vegas, who has deep-seated memories of watching shows like “Have Gun Will Travel” during the peak of the genre, when 31 prime-time Westerns aired in the 1958-’59 TV season alone. “They weren’t really great guys, they were just great with their guns. Same with the Mandalorian. He’s not looking to save anybody, but he’s there, and he can and he will,” Mr. Burdick adds.
Among TV tropes, the traveling loner who helps locals fight off bad guys has been a sturdy one. Mr. Burdick also compares the Mandalorian to David Carradine’s quick-fisted monk in the 1970s series “Kung Fu,” while his 39-year-old son Neil (who shares his Disney+ account with his dad) sees similarities to action shows he grew up with in the ‘80s, like “Airwolf.”
A Mission of the Week
The show explains that the Mandalorians are a clan of helmeted hired guns renowned for their tactical skills, but there are unresolved questions surrounding the show’s main Mandalorian. Why don’t we know his name, like Boba Fett, the most famous of his folk? When, if ever, will his helmet come off? One thing viewers came to know for sure, though, is that Mando (as some chummy characters call him) would visit a new exotic location in each episode. In one, it’s an outer-space prison ship targeted for a jailbreak; in another, Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, where an assassin with a price on her head lurks in the desert.
Such missions gave closure to most episodes. That narrative style is somewhat out of step with the densely serialized storytelling that has been a hallmark of ambitious dramas since “The Sopranos”—and caused many lesser shows to become overstuffed and ponderous.
“There’s enormous value in keeping things simple, telling a clear story, and focusing on the strengths of your actors and your production,” wrote Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone’s chief TV critic, in a mid-season episode recap. “And ‘The Mandalorian,’ like its title character, pretty consistently hits its targets.”
Though most Star Wars fans were on board from the start, the show’s relatively straightforward story helped “The Mandalorian” win over critics, too, earning the series a strong majority of positive reviews according to tracking sites Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. The same can’t be said of the latest Star Wars movie extravaganza, “The Rise of Skywalker,” which had the task of tying up a trilogy of movie trilogies, and has received a higher percentage of negative reviews.
In the final episodes of “The Mandalorian,” the narrative throughlines of the first season (and the show’s connections to broader Star Wars lore) have come to the fore as evil forces close in on the hero and his pals. But the chapter-driven format leading to this point left viewers with a taste of simpler times in TV. Just as “Star Trek” sought out “new life and new civilizations” on a weekly basis, so did “The Mandalorian.”
A Cute Sidekick
Finally: Baby Yoda. That, of course, is the nickname the internet immediately bestowed on the breakout star of “The Mandalorian” after it appeared in the first episode’s final moments. The Child, as characters in the show refer to it, is a half-century-old toddler because of the slow aging process of its species. The bounty hunter was initially paid to capture or kill it, but something beneath his chest armor melted at the sight of the wrinkly green creature in a floating baby pram. Mando broke the code of his profession and became Baby Yoda’s protector—and one half of a new TV odd couple.
As a tiny wingman to the Mandalorian, Baby Yoda represents the pinnacle of evolution in non-human TV sidekicks. Past examples include the titular chimpanzee in the trucker show “B.J. and the Bear” (1979-81), the robot Twiki in “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (1979-81) and the furry young whatsit Cha-Ka in “Land of the Lost” (1974-76).
Of course, the Star Wars franchise has a long history of conjuring and merchandising intergalactic cuteness (see: Ewoks) but Baby Yoda exploded in a new way. Not only was the puppet with saucer eyes and wing-like ears perfect fodder for internet memes, those online sight gags mushroomed anew with each weekly installment.
Though Disney this week revealed a Child plush doll, there has been a lag in official merchandise. Fans led the charge with DIY creations of everything from crocheted caps to Baby Yoda-inspired baked goods and cocktails.
Now, as we’ve learned from other cute-kid characters throughout TV history, all Baby Yoda needs in order to accelerate—or kill—the trend is a catchphrase.
Write to John Jurgensen at john.jurgensen@wsj.com
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