This first season of Star Wars Resistance has been a real slow burn–and in my opinion, that’s been the perfect way to introduce audiences to this show. As we watch the First Order begin to creep across the galaxy, the show responds by increasing the tension and getting darker, more ominous. This week’s episode, “The New Trooper,” is a perfect example of Resistance cranking up the atmospheric dread as we get closer and closer to the destruction of the Hosnian system. Continue reading →

What I really appreciate about Star Wars Resistance right now is that Lucasfilm is resisting the urge to make Kaz a super-spy by the end of season one. Sure, he’s gotten (marginally) better at… existing by now, but he is still the worst spy in the galaxy far, far away this side of Jar Jar Binks in The Clone Wars. It’s endearing, and it leaves a ton of room for character development. Continue reading →

Three episodes into the second half of the season and Star Wars Resistance is reminding us that it is not messing around. The mid-season trailer showed us that dark times are ahead and this episode certainly helped drive the point home.

In “The Doza Dilemma”, Synara finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place as her pirate boss Kragin orders her to assist two of his pirates with getting into the tower so they can kidnap Torra and use her as collateral against her father. It’d be less of an issue for her if it didn’t also mean Synara had to betray her new friendship with Torra. Kaz and the Aces give chase only for the First Order to intervene in a most unexpected manner. Continue reading →

Hello again and welcome to the Kazuda Xiono appreciation society’s weekly meeting. 

This week, we’re proud to welcome new members Tam, Flix, and Orka! Continue reading →

Can we have a minute for Oscar Isaac?

Ok fine – every minute is for Oscar Isaac, this is true. But he is very sneakily putting on a performance as Poe Dameron in Star Wars Resistance – it’s not always easy to go from portraying a character on-screen to providing their voice, but Isaac is making it look easy.

In “Station Theta Black,” Kaz and Poe scout out an abandoned First Order mining outpost, and encounter more than they bargained for. Phasma encounters Poe for the first (?) time, and Major Vonreg once again fails to finish off Poe or Kaz (but I do love getting to see his shiny TIE Interceptor again). A fitting midseason finale, this felt like the episode we’ve been building toward for the past few weeks.

As I mentioned, Poe fit in seamlessly as the cocky, “I never engage… unless provoked” commander we know and love, but it’s fascinating to see how much Kaz has grown this season too… and how much he still has to learn. We see the improvement in his flying skills in outrunning an explosion, but still see his discomfort with actual spy and military work (which, I know he was a pilot, but shouldn’t the New Republic navy have given him a bit more training for on-the-ground combat? Thanks, Mon Mothma). Despite his growth over the past 10 episodes, Kaz is still the reckless, comedic, earnest flyboy that we first met in episode 1, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s enough else going on in Resistance that Kaz’s growth doesn’t need to carry the show, and he does learn from his experiences as time goes on (unlike a certain other Star Wars protagonist whose name rhymes with Pezra Fridger).

This was, from the outset, clearly going to be a plot-focused episode, which means we didn’t get any more development of the Aces, the Doza family, or the still-criminally-underused Tam. We did, though, learn a bit more about the galaxy pre-The Force Awakens, particularly the fact that no one has any idea what the First Order is doing, even the Resistance. Poe and Leia (now apparently voiced by Carolyn Hennesy, who has never, to our knowledge, publicly mocked an assault victim) seem shocked to learn the scale of the First Order’s operation and just how many blasters they’re producing, and they know that this information won’t move the Senate to action. It all adds up to a much richer picture, and the knowledge that people underestimated the First Order right up until Hosnian Prime went the way of Alderaan. It may not seem that significant now, but looking at The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, it helps us understand how the New Republic was so unprepared, and why no one was willing to come to the Resistance’s aid on Crait: the First Order planned everything perfectly, and executed their blitzkrieg before anyone even realized it was happening. That background is the sort of value-add that I am thrilled to see in Resistance: creating a story that stands on its own, while simultaneously making us look at older tales in a new light.

As I mentioned above, there’s plenty more that I want out of Resistance. More aces! Intrigue on the Colossus! TAM AND SYNARA DATING! But we’ve got time for that. The first half of season one has introduced us to a world of characters that I already love – but there’s a storm coming, and we’re about to see how they deal with the new reality they’re about to fall into.

Guess which Tosche Station writer is grounded for forgetting to write this review last week, when “The Platform Classic” actually aired? This girl! But before I go to my room, here are my belated thoughts on this emotional and surprisingly dark episode of Star Wars Resistance.
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I’m going to come out of the gate here and declare firmly that I loved this episode. It’s fast-paced, filled with the kind of intrigue I have always loved (in Star Wars and elsewhere) and it’s largely Tam-centric. What’s not to love? Continue reading →