ONLY AHSOKA IN THE BUILDING: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

“I’ll try spin-offing. That’s a good trick.” Ambassador Spock, How I Met Your Farscape. Episode Four: Back to the Middle of the Future.

In my last blog post I began watching a television show: AHSOKA. This is a STAR WARS spin-off. With two episodes available, I watched one and had to stop. I sensed something. Another TV show clouded everything.
   Hard to see, the references were.
   And so I unearthed REBELS. A long TV show in a galaxy…wait. It’s the same galaxy. We’ll come back to galaxies that are further away than galaxies that are closer though still far away from us. Or something.
   After 75 episodes of REBELS I was ready to return to AHSOKA. I started with the first episode all over again, and this time…I pointed at the screen in recognition like Lenny D. on a fucking mission.
   Now I understand who Clancy Brown is portraying. And the mural on the wall makes sense. The rebel with the purple hair believes Ezra is still out there in another galaxy that people could find if only they had a key…
   Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand let me stop you there.
   This Tomb Raider bullshit works well in Tomb Raider. Hell, it works in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But we’ve already seen that it’s a steaming pile of bantha excrement in a STAR WARS movie.
   Make that two STAR WARS movies.
   We need to find Luke Skywalker, and there’s a map and he’s far away. So we’ll revisit the DEATH STAR stuff from earlier films and tread water until the running-time brims over and then something, something, Dark Side.
   Okay. Character is far away. Mysterious map leads there. Been there, seen that, disbelieved it. Didn’t buy the T-shirt.
   And now, in AHSOKA, there’s a key that unlocks a map to a place where a character is far away. So far, so television.
   Back to the movies for a moment. STAR WARS: Episode (checks notes, counts fingers, ignores ROGUE ONE to reach a grand total of…) 9. Throw in the Tomb Raider dagger that leads to a DEATH STAR ruin at sea. Okay. (Not okay.) These movies and TV shows like to set up ridiculous things and repeat them. There’s this dagger, see. And if you take it to an exact spot after a mighty quest and you line up that dagger with the ruins, then…
   Raiders of the Lost Ark. Take a rod of a specific length and fit the jewel to it. Visit the map room at a certain time of day. You’ve found what you were looking for.
   I guess this location thing worked in THE MUMMY. Go somewhere and wait and you’ll see the lost city of Hamunaptra. In a lumbering western, I suppose it worked in Mackenna’s Gold. Let me dig through the archaeology for you. Tomb Raider weirdly inspires later-era STAR WARS, with the computer game quest item that matches up to a far-flung location, something, something, Darth Vader was redeemed for this?!
   Tomb Raider takes its inspiration from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is true of The Mummy. It dips more than its bandaged toe into the world of Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark, in turn, takes a grain of influence from Mackenna’s Gold. As does The Mummy.
   In Mackenna’s Gold, we have a rope bridge that George Lucas would remember when plundering The Temple of Doom, and there’s a hidden treasure revealed by standing at a particular spot come sunrise.
   Be at a place at that special time. See the hidden thing. The Mummy. Then the advanced variation on that is to be at a place with the item and see a hidden thing thanks to a Tomb Raider magic plot crystal. How lumbering is Mackenna’s Gold, exactly? The movie isn’t the most lumbering western I’ve had the misfortune to sit through.
   But it is a bit of a struggle, outstaying its welcome at over two hours. On paper, the idea looks great. The assembled acting crowd is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime cast. Too many great actors are crammed in there, though, and they all compete for scenes. Some more successfully than others.
   On paper? Find the hidden valley of gold. Treasure. Clues. Strange rock formation. Odd sunrise. A shadow from the rock finger, pointing to the hidden entrance. Was that much of an influence on George Lucas? He was present for the filming of the movie. So, yes, damn it. He cut his teeth on that film.
   Usually it’s the Charlton Heston vehicle Secret of the Incas that people point to as the inspiration for Indiana Jones, and not this Gregory Peck western. The truth is, Lucas and Spielberg took inspiration from anything and everything.
   Mackenna’s Gold. Rock finger at sunrise points to hidden entrance. See Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Mummy for similar. We’re in the general area. Never mind the specifics.
   AHSOKA. Here, Rubik’s Ball, a variation of his cube, is the key to the map leading way over there in another galaxy far from the usual STAR WARS galaxy…itself far from ours. And that’s where we’ll find Luke Skywalker Moff Gideon Blue Admiral butterfly Thrawn.
   Wasn’t Kaniska Canace great in that STAR WARS spin-off spin-off spin-off?
   In The Rise of Skywalker Farms, Inc. our brave adventurers discover the dagger of Ochi the Bestie, or whatever the actual spelling is in the original alien language. They use it to conjure up a street-view scene of the DEATH STAR from 2019 – the latest street-view available – and they all head off to some collective destiny.
   The ultimate destination of that destiny is Exegol – which sounds like the sort of rogue galactic oil corporation that the Emperor would use to force Ewoks off native Alaskan land. Anyway, spoiler alert, the big ape falls off the skyscraper and everyone cries: #sadface.
   This isn’t the galactic map story from The Force Awakens you are looking for. But it might as well be. No matter the strange choices in STAR WARS, repeat your strange choices. This is the way. Apparently.
   Speaking of that way. In The Mandalorian, a show that squeezes every drop of juice from the character of Boba Fett – despite the bounty hunter’s appearance in STAR WARS amounting to less than ten minutes of screen-time in the original trilogy – we have a lumbering problem.
   One entire series of the Manda lore show was given over to the return of a character: Moff Gideon. And AHSOKA is a show that repeats that strange choice with recycled lore. We’re offered a series that is all about the return of the evil character Thrawn.
   It feels like a retread of the Moff Gideon storyline. Bonus content: the return of Thrawn means the return of Ezra. That’s Ezra from the 75 episodes of REBELS. I’m glad I watched all of those before returning to this live-action spin-off.
   Otherwise, when Ezra appeared, that would’ve meant nothing to me. It could be a thankless role for the actor who comes in to bring Ezra to life in a live-action performance. But the casting was perfect. He’s really Ezra. If you’ve seen, y’know, all the other stuff.
   All of which leads me to a point about a TV show. And that show is Only Murders in the Building. I prefer the STAR WARS spin-offs to be as self-contained as possible. Yes, there will be things in a spin-off that refer to the wider galaxy.
   AHSOKA fails in the requirement to stay self-contained. From the start, you really need to see 75 episode of REBELS or you’ll have no clue. No investment in character. Why should we care about rescuing Ezra? On the basic principle that we should care about anyone who needs rescue?
   Only Murders in the Building isn’t a spin-off. Yes, it stars two of the amigos – they turn the third amigo into Selena Gomez – but it isn’t a spin-off from ¡Three Amigos! Only Murders, or OMIT B, is its own story.
   If you are going to say OMIT B, then it should be for life.
   As I type this, Only Murders in the Building and AHSOKA both have one episode to go. The science fiction show depends heavily on lore from elsewhere. It is not self-contained. And the murder mystery show…
   Also depends heavily on lore from elsewhere. From everywhere. Luckily, I once accidentally caught a bunch of Sondheim musicals on TV, preparing me for murder off-Broadway. OMIT B is on its third series. In three runs of episodes, the murder mysteries are self-contained. No spin-off TV viewing required. They give you the TV show inside the TV show with Brazzos. Possibly Jane Lynch at her finest.
   It helps if you’ve seen STAR WARS to watch ROGUE ONE. For AHSOKA, the REBELS saga is essential viewing. That’s a lot of homework.
   Murder mystery show? Admittedly, you should have a passing familiarity with murder mystery movies, comedy adventures, New York as a city, musicals of the Broadway variety…
   That’s a lot of homework. Do you need to know the movies of any guest stars in the murder show? It helps if you see something by Paul Rudd and something else featuring Meryl Streep. They have a go at their own careers. A game cast, indeed. That’s year three. Very musical. This sends the investigation into a whole new direction.
   I’ve said elsewhere that it is difficult to feature murder stories that are all based around the one building in New York and…three years of the show is pushing it. As I am staying away from potential spoilers, I don’t know if the murder mystery amigos are coming back for a fourth run. It would be nice if they quit now, while ahead.
   One episode to go for both shows. I know which one is more memorable. It’s the crazy one, with holes in the plot you could drive the Statue of Liberty through.
   I need to be aware of stuff to watch both shows. But watching other shows is a requirement for the science fiction series. This is where STAR WARS and MARVEL fall to the dust, wheezing, under the corporate boot of Darth Homework.
   There was a time when this was not a requirement. Before the dark times…before the Disney Empire. What sort of TV fires me up, right now? Only Murders in the Building.
   I can’t discuss the plot, but it is memorable. AHSOKA has a plot that I can spell out. The return of Ezra/Thrawn. But it takes homework for something as basic as that. And it won’t be the more memorable of the two TV shows ending this week.
   The science fiction show should be a straightforward task. And the comedy murder mystery isn’t. Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. You can do both. Just search for Jack Lemmon’s grave.