The Book Of Boba Fett shows how Star Wars TV shows have become stuck in the past with "toy box ambitions"

The A.V. Club

"As Lucasfilm’s first live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian felt like it was on the cusp of something new; beyond its bleeding edge behind-the-scenes innovations, it made Star Wars feel bigger and more mysterious than it had in a generation," says Jarrod Jones. "Which is why season two of The Mandalorian makes the first look almost experimental by comparison. Where season one took risks, season two burrowed into the toy box and pulled out fan-favorites from other Star Wars stories such as Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), and perhaps most controversially, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, kind of). Looking back, the lack of a cameo conga line played a large part in giving The Mandalorian’s first season drive and a sense of purpose. The same can’t be said of Mando season two, which indulged scenic detours to easy thrills—it went to work setting up the next batch of Star Wars shows as soon as it could—instead of steering the Razor Crest towards uncharted territory." The Book Of Boba Fett, Jones adds, was "a series that gleefully digs into that Star Wars toy box and pulls out ringers from Disney’s broad line of animated series, comic books, and films....Star Wars might be looking to the future with technological leaps that have already changed the way ambitious genre television gets made, but it sure feels like it’s terrified of letting go of the past." ALSO: Star Wars TV spinoffs have become more The Phantom Menace than The Empire Strikes Back.