Disney Star Wars shows us the perils of administering the galactic empire—careerists, pushy mothers, evil KPIs and dating the genocidal office climber. There’s talk about rebellion too, something about a stolen TIE-Fighter, but that can be safely watched at double speed. Yet, the empire sections are compelling viewing in a nice-to-watch-but-you-wouldn’t want-to-work-there way. It’s like Severance but with fascist bastards in Hugo Boss uniforms and body armor.
Andor is the prequel to Rogue One—the cheeky story about the terminal design flaw/plot hole in the original Death Star. The show indulges in too many tedious interpersonal dramas amid galactic turmoil. Immigration officers checking visas isn’t compelling TV, nor is Andor’s girlfriend leaving him, if these characters haven’t gripped us already.
The rebellion-focused sections of the show give no emotional depth to any of the characters. The production design’s stunning—and that’s a problem. The mid-season massacre sequence is beautiful cinematic spectacle but doesn’t hit with any emotional punch as we don’t know any of the characters. Remember the infamous scene in Return of the Jedi with the Ewok pawing at his dead friend? Same here.
Characters don’t have to be good guys to be entertaining. Even the stormtroopers are finally scary. Endless variation on the iconic uniform designs of the original movies proves their lasting brilliance and adds menace. When the show makes you cheer the murder of a rapist, you know the writers have done good work. Yet, as Mon Mothma flees to join the Rebellion, you’ll be rooting for the telephone operators and call center shift managers caught between the rebels and the fascists. Andor’s story is soporific in comparison.
The bad guys stand out—Denise Gough and Anton Lesser (an evil Humphrey Appleby) are fanatical imperial officers mercilessly chasing the rebels. Both are eventually trampled by the mechanism of state terror that they loyally serve. That’s good writing. Mentioning the Death Star by name severely limits promotion prospects. Life expectancy is no higher in the civil service than in the Imperial navy under Darth Vader. It’s a brilliantly-crafted Stasi dystopia. Yet, awful as these characters are, we care.
It’s often said that the six-hour runtime of Lucas’ prequels contains a good two-hour movie waiting to be fan-edited into existence. Same here. Ditching the rebels and focusing on the people hunting them would make this a very bold take on an exhausted franchise. Andor attempts to be a slow-burning spy thriller—so slow in places you wonder if anyone lit the fuse. It makes us root for the moral enemy—and that’s a galaxy far, far away from what Lucas intended. Thankfully, the showrunners spare us the Empire’s HR department. Now that would've been a hive of scum and villainy.