Clone Wars Season 6:  A Binge Watcher’s Diary

The first arc consists of the first four episodes:  1.  The Unknown, 2. Conspiracy, 3. Fugitive, 4. Orders. This story starts off with a bang as Anakin teams up with twin sister Jedi Masters Tiplee and Tiplar for an assault on their old arachnid foe, Admiral Trench.  The episode is action packed with full fledged battles.  The assault get upended when clone trooper Tup appears to be prematurely activating his Order 66 programming.  Unfortunately the rest of the arc downshifts a bit with both Shaak Ti and ARC Trooper Fives trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Tup. Even with the action largely being front loaded this is still an enjoyable arc. It’s also the last time for Season 6 that the plot focuses on the clones.  I felt “The Lost Missions” implied clone-centric military missions.  I was wrong.

I not saying this to be funny.  I had to take a nap during the second arc in order to get through it. I found it thoroughly boring and to me it was an unnecessary revisiting of themes we hated from both the Prequel Trilogy and Season 3 of The Clone Wars.  The outcome of the arc is so ultimately inconsequential to the overall saga, I have no idea why the team thought these episodes deserved being rescued.  This story line features the return of the turncoat Rush Clovis and focuses on corruption in the banking system.  I kid you not.  If this story was worthy of completing, I can’t imagine what was left on the scrap heap.  Perhaps a six story arc on Padme picking out a dress for the winter formal and the Jedi tracking down a missing shipment of Vera Wang dresses?  As if a banking focused story was not boring enough, it’s interjected with the dullness of politics.  This scandal is debated not once, but twice in the senate.  This arc consists of the next three episodes:  5.  An Old Friend, 6. The Rise of Clovis, 7.  Crisis at the Heart.

But wait, it gets worse.  The next two episode arc features Jar Jar (8. The Disappeared and 9. The Disappeared: Part II).  This includes Jar Jar’s first onscreen kiss complete with a coquettish upturned heel.  His.  Not Hers.  This story relies on a lot of the hokum that the Clone Wars has introduced.  The spiritual leaders on the planet of Bardotta are disappearing and it’s up to Scooby Doo and the gang to get to the bottom of the mystery. As if in tribute to the awful things George Lucas has birthed into entertainment, part of the story is also reminiscent of Temple of Doom.  This arc sees the return of Mother Talzin who is trying to steal the Force from the queen of Bardotta using the Ben Franklin decoding glasses from National Treasure.  She does battle with Mace Windu using magic to combat his Force capabilities.  Once again, I kid you not.

The entire run of Clone Wars was bipolar.  When it was bad, it was unwatchable.  When it was good, it rivaled the movies.  Well, the PT anyway. Starting with episode 10, we break free of the bad Clone Wars that we just suffered through for five episodes and get back to the good Clone Wars (maybe good is stretching it and okay is more accurate).  The final arc consists of four episodes:  10.  The Lost One, 11.  Voices, 12.  Destiny, 13.  Sacrifice.  This is where we get the answers to the mystery of Sifo-Dyas.  The downside of the arc is that instead of focusing on the titular war, it involves the Jedi tracking down another mystery and Yoda undergoing training in order to preserve his consciousness after death.  That training takes on an unfortunate trippiness that we’ve seen in the Clone Wars before.  The final trial for Yoda sees him travel to the ancient Sith world of Moraband.  I thought the ancient Sith world was Korriban. According to Wookieepedia they are one in the same.  Well I don’t know about any of that.  Even though this arc is not without its downsides, I still found myself enjoying it and I would totally buy Yoda’s little space ball as a toy.  No NOT THAT.  His ship is a little ball fuselage with wings.