A new week means a new episode of Skeleton Crew!
After dropping the first two episodes of Skeleton Crew at once last Monday, Disney+ is dropping one episode per week at 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays. The third episode will be directed by David Lowery, who also directed the second episode, Way, Way Out Past The Barrier.
But before we look ahead, let’s take a look back at the first two episodes of this series, which has been getting rave reviews and is being hailed for remembering that Star Wars is intended to appeal to the young (or at least the young at heart).
Timing notes
The premiere (This Could Be A Real Adventure) was 48 minutes long with credits, while Way, Way Out Past The Barrier was 31 minutes with credits.
Taking a quick look at episode run times for past series, including Ahsoka, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian and The Acolyte, the sweet spot for Star Wars series on Disney+ seems to be somewhere in the range between 38 and 50 minutes. That’s not to say there are no outliers or that any seeming pattern exists, but I would imagine it’s safe to say we should expect at least 30+ minutes going forward with just under an hour likely being the longer end of the spectrum. But time will tell.
Notes
(Warning: Spoilers for episode one and two of Skeleton Crew ahead.)
- Skeleton Crew is set on the idyllic planet of At Attin. It looks to be a planet full of quintessential suburban living, from well-manicured neighborhoods to pristine-looking schools. However, there are cracks in the facade, such as the extreme importance placed on a standardized test which can determine a child’s entire future or the way Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is left alone with minimal supervision by his widower father Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe) because of a work review. Even the way the security droids respond to Wendle’s frantic explanation that a spaceship carrying his son and three other kids has taken off and potentially gotten past “the barrier.” Big trouble.
- Playing to that idyllic vision of family is the little we see of the home life for Wim’s best friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith). Loving parents and siblings, one can’t help but notice the longing look Wim gives toward his friend’s home as he prepares to return for a solitary night at home while his own father works. We haven’t gotten any clue what might have happened to Wim’s mother, but it could have been a catastrophic event that broke their family spiritually.
- Neel appears to be the classic stereotypical put-upon best friend to Wim’s devil-may-care-free spirit, perhaps a Star Wars version of Alan Ruck’s Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
- Despite an idyllic lifestyle, Wim — like Anakin and Luke Skywalker before him — dreams of adventures beyond his home planet. He is especially interested in the concepts of the Jedi, even going so far as saying that’s what he wants to his calling to be (even if he says it in different words and is only called out on it later by Neel). It seems you don’t need to be stranded on Tatooine to wonder what else is out there in the galaxy. Wim appears to fit Yoda’s assessment of Luke Skywalker – always looking away, to the future, to the horizon, never his mind on where he was or what he was doing. Adventure, excitement — a Jedi craves not these things, Yoda explains. Something tells me Wim is about the find this out the hard way.
- Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s Fern is the too-cool-for-school foil for the eager and enthusiastic Wim. She draws his attention from the outset because of the way she rides her hoverbike to school. While Fern might seem to be a rebel without a cause, a punk rocker in the suburbs, we discover she comes from a well-to-do home and her mother is Undersecretary Fara, who had visited the kids’ school earlier in This Could Be A Real Adventure. She has her own sidekick KB (Kyriana Kratter) and she’s clearly rebelling against her mother. It will be interesting to see what it takes to crack her hard exterior.
- Several mysteries come into play in the second episode. After accidentally taking off in a spaceship Wim discovers, first mate SM-33 takes the kids to the spaceport Borgo Prime, home to pirates that the opening crawl tells us have been running rampant in parts of the galaxy since the fall of the Empire. There we learn At Attin is considered a mythical lost world of eternal riches. Moreover, Wim’s lunch money is revealed to be pristine Old Republic credits worth a pretty penny. Combined with the barrier all seem concerned about, it all adds up to intrigue about the true nature of At Attin and how it seemingly vanished from the galaxy, perhaps even before the rise of the Empire. Master Obi-Wan is not the only character in the galaxy to lose a planet, apparently.
- The other mystery is the introduction of Jude Law’s Jod Na Nawood. Upon being captured, the kids argue about how to get home and attempt to train a rat-like creature to steal the key to get them out of the Brig. After failing and beginning to argue, Nawood reveals himself and seemingly uses the Force to get the key and says he will help the kids if they agree to take him with them. I get the sense that not all is as it seems with Nawood, and it feels like he might be more Haja Estree than Obi-Wan Kenobi. In fact, I’m wondering if Nawood is in fact the face-unseen pirate captain who faces a mutiny in the opening scenes of the series after his attempt to deliver his comrades with the only thing that matters — cold, hard credits — proves to be a wild bantha chase. I wouldn’t trust Nawood as far as I could force push him.
- Finally, your eyes did not deceive you. That really was Jaleel White, aka Steve Urkel, in the second episode as space pirate Gunter. We’ll see how much of a role he has going forward.
I’ll leave you with the Huttese rendition of Major Tom (Coming Home). May the Force be with You!
