Tv Nibble: The Clone Wars

Last week saw the return of one of my favourite shows from last year, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Despite enjoying the science fiction genre and the highly entertaining Rogue Squadron series of video games I was never a massive fan of the actual Star Wars films.

Those who read my blog on a regular occasion will know that I tend to live in the now, ignoring what has preceded my own time because what exists now is simply better than what came before. The same is true with Star Wars. No matter how much people belly ache about how good it was back in the seventies and eighties, it wasn’t, you have just been conditioned to believe it was. What has come out of it, however, is something truly breath-takingly wonderful.

The Star Wars universe is now one of the most developed fictional universes on the planet. It has six feature films, several television series, hundreds of computer games, books, card games, board games… the list just goes on. The wealth of information and depth is just overwhelming and it is something that no film, no matter how good, can possibly hope to capture.

The Clone Wars series however, gets to play in that universe, to explore different bits of it, explore new or existing characters in more depth. The show is action packed, filled with great one-liners, especially from the Trade Federation droids and it is all beautifully rendered in amazing 3D animation. Ok, so its not Pixar quality, but its also not a huge movie production either, its a 20 minute television show with 22 episodes a season!

What I love about the show and what really captured me last year was the amount of variety in the stories. New planets, new races, new characters. Every week it is something different. One week may follow Yoda or Plo Koon, the next might be spearhead by a group of clones. As I said, its a 20 minute show and that, I can tell you now, is just the right amount of Star Wars you need in a week, in fact it should be available on prescription from your local GP.

Go, watch it, love it… Fridays at 8 on TOON.