Star Wars: Ahsoka Premiere: 'Master and Apprentice' / 'Toil and Trouble'

© Lucasfilm

Ahsoka begins a new Star Wars tale with some pretty fun action and hopeful promise.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Ahsoka is based on the character created by Dave Filoni and continues the story with other characters from The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels shows which I never saw but am aware of -- the various characters introduced again here are people I’m either quite familiar with or not familiar with at all. Ahsoka herself I feel like I have the best sense of, as we’ve already seen quite a bit of Rosario Dawson as the character, including a pretty badass debut episode in The Mandalorian (back when it was still good).

The first episode is called “Part One: Master and Apprentice” and spends some time introducing the world of these characters and their dynamics, or at least some of them. Diana Lee Inosanto returns as the similarly badass evil “witch” who’s leading an effort to track down Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, the big bad from The Clone Wars.

© Lucasfilm

She’s rescued and assisted by a master and apprentice pair, mysterious former Jedi Baylan Skoll (the late great Ray Stevenson, easily showing fascinating depth here) and his “padawan” Shin Hati (Ivanna Sahko -- who is immediately a great, terrifying presence here). The opening scene establishes their “bona fides” in terms of Force capabilities and brutality and it’s a pretty fun start.

The other “master/apprentice” pair is the one between Ahsoka and her former padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo -- really great here), showcasing the main arc of these episodes as the two realize that they want to keep Sabine’s training going after all. Sabine is driven by the loss of her friend Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), and the potential possibility that he’s still alive out there.

The first episode can be a little slow in places -- the first scene with Ahsoka dragged on a little, with only the stellar score by Kevin Kiner making things seem important -- there’s a similar problem with the overly extended Sabine escape race scene. Thankfully the rest of the episode has a more dynamic pace, introducing such other characters as droid Huyang (voice of David Tennant) and ally Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead -- although we get the least of her in general).

We also get the always welcome Clancy Brown as the local governor, fresh off him playing a red devil alien in a previous episode of The Mandalorian. But he has no makeup here so it’s fine with me to play two roles.

The second episode, “Part Two: Toil and Trouble”, is a tighter, more fun episode in general, giving us both a lot of different types of action and introduction of fun astromech droid Chopper, the partner to Syndulla, who at least gets a little something to do. The parallel arcs of Sabine deciding she’s ready to learn and Ahsoka realizing she’s ready to teach work well, and contrast fairly effectively with the Baylan/Shin pairing and their quest for power.

© Lucasfilm

The ultimate goal of traveling to another galaxy is a pretty new and exciting idea, one we haven’t seen in any live-action Star Wars media so far. I also appreciate that Baylan had an interesting melancholy about not wanting to kill Ahsoka, clearly his background as a former Jedi is connected to that and this part is well written.

I’d say that the Ahsoka fight scene was fun enough but she did seem to too easily let her enemies escape -- and it didn’t seem like she had the tracker as an excuse. But that aside, I feel like the show is doing a pretty good job of introducing us to these characters that so many people know already -- I’m sure I missed a bunch of Easter eggs and background references, but it all worked pretty well for me so far.

I wouldn’t call these two episodes perfect but they were fun and not annoying -- well acted and interestingly composed, with a truly killer soundtrack. It’s already a better start than Boba Fett, that’s for sure -- definitely worth taking a look even if you’ve been exhausted by the Star Wars shows of late.

Note: We support the current WGA/SAG strike and emphasize the importance of writers and actors and ensuring they and fellow creatives are compensated and treated fairly for their work. This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn't exist.