The Mandalorian Season 3 (2023) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing well. It's an exciting week for geekdom this week as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, the 30th Anniversary special, dropped on Netflix this morning, the season finale of The Mandalorian dropped on Disney+ this morning, and the series finale of Star Trek: Picard drops on Paramount+ tomorrow morning. Today though I'm here to talk about season 3 of The Mandalorian. It's going to be a spoiler free review as the bulk of the major things that happen this season happened in the finale, and even then, not a whole lot actually happens this season. So let's get into it.

Season 3 of The Mandalorian is pretty small scale in comparison to the show's first two seasons. Alot of what happens is alot of wrapping up story elements that Dave Filoni originally did in both The Clone Wars and Rebels with the focus being on Bo-Katan Kryze and the Mandalorian culture as a whole rather than just on Din Djarin and Grogu, who actually take a backseat for the majority of this season.

As someone who never finished The Clone Wars and Rebels, the heavier focus on Mandalorian culture as a whole was a bit jarring for me. Just because I missed all that stuff from the previous shows. It was really good and I loved it, there were just a few things I wasn't sure about since I haven't gotten to that stuff in the previous shows. 

I do wish they would've had more time to deal with the Dr. Persching stuff in episode 3 and the Moff Gideon stuff in episodes 7 and 8. Those are things that definitely would've benefitted from the season having ten to twelve episodes instead of just eight of them. We know that 12 episode seasons can be done for a Star Wars show because it was done for Andor and with the amount of stuff The Mandalorian did this season, trying to get all of this stuff out of the way before Ahsoka comes out in August, eight episodes just isn't enough. 

Season 1 of The Mandalorian is still the strongest season of the three that have come out so far. Favreau made it interesting and concise without overloading the story. But I get that The Mandalorian is no longer Favreau and Filoni's top priority anymore. Not only are they working on The Mandalorian, but they're also working on Skeleton Crew, and Ahsoka too.

Speaking of Ahsoka, I'm really excited to see what Filoni has in store for us. I watched the trailer for it when it first dropped during Star Wars Celebration Europe almost two weeks ago, and watching the trailer and all the interviews with the casts of the various shows and movies has reminded me how it should feel to be a Star Wars fan. It also reminded me that I love Star Wars as much as I love Star Trek. So I'm going to go back and watch and review both The Clone Wars and Rebels in preparation for Ahsoka because there's stuff in the trailer from later seasons of both shows that I'd like to know about going into the new show.

As for season 3 of The Mandalorian, I had alot of fun watching it. Obviously, like I said earlier, there were a few things that I wish they had been able to expand upon, particularly with the New Republic and the Empire, but none of what we got was bad. It all worked for me this season. And I think that's because this season was allowed to be its own thing instead of constantly setting things up for other seasons and shows. I enjoyed it.

Alright my friends, that's gonna be it for me today. I'll be back on Friday for my review of Star Trek: Picard. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.