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TV REVIEW: FTN reviews The Clone Wars SO5EO13 Point Of No Return

January 15th, 2013 by Marc Comments

Gascon and his D Squad board a Jedi cruiser only to discover the ship is part of Separatist plot to kill Republic strategists.

First things first, thank God this arc has finally come to a close. The Clone Wars needs to do what it does best, showcase Jedi and clone troopers destroying battle droids and blowing stuff up. This arc has led to some of the not greatest episodes of the Clone Wars ever. I would almost take the political stuff over this…almost. I did enjoy the lost clone trooper story of last week, but that only helped to lift up what has been otherwise a pretty slow arc. I will say though, the arc’s finale did take it out with a bang as Gascon and his D Squad discover a Jedi cruiser that they think will take them home. Turns out the ship was commandeered by the Separatists and was to be used as a massive bomb to blow up a Republic strategy conference.

I did like the way this episode played out and it had some excitement to it, my problem is I don’t tune in to the Clone Wars to watch droids battling the Separatists. I want to see Jedi fights, clone troopers and space battles. Though the arc wasn’t terrible, I think two episodes would have more than sufficed to deliver this story and move onto something new. Instead it was dragged out way past necessary. The redemption for this episode came in the end with R2D2 single handedly saving all those key figureheads of the Republic, that was a very touching moment but I know I was only whelmed with concern for R2D2. The problem is that if you’re a fan of Star Wars then you know he lives, which admittedly pulled tension away from R2’s sacrifice and makes it inconsequential. Anakin’s concern for R2 was nice though, jettisoning a whole salvage team to recover his beloved droid from the wreckage. To be honest, I saw BZ’s sacrifice as a lot more meaningful given that fact that we know he doesn’t come back from it.

One good thing to come of all this was WAC-47, I enjoyed his antics and his character and would love to see him come back partnered with some clone troopers or Jedi. Seeing battle hardened soldiers deal with him would make for some good TV. I think the biggest let down of the whole arc was the fact that we don’t even learn the importance of the encryption module or how the Republic plan to use it. The whole arc was focused on the team safely delivering this device to the good guys, but in the end it became of little to no importance to anything really. It seems the focus was put too much on the how of the whole thing, but not on the why, and to me that’s not good writing, reminding me of the case from Pulp Fiction, I still want to know what’s in that damned thing. It was as if the arc was more about showcasing the droids all together and not about what they were actually doing.

The story was merely okay and to me didn’t really hold up to the storytelling I’m accustomed to watching the Clone Wars. The decision to stretch the arc was probably the worst call of the all the whole mess. This season started off with a huge bang, then took us through the ordeal of Jedi children and then somehow went astray with the idea of teaming all these droids together for what felt like 2 months. I would gladly see most of these characters return in the future, but in increments, not in large doses. On that note, we probably know the fate of Gregor from last week’s episode, but I truly thought he might make it out to rejoin his fellow clones. I keep my fingers crossed that he may return in the future as well. Here’s to hoping we get back to some major Jedi delivering some butt kicking next week.

Episode- 3 out of 5 nerds

Story arc- 2.5 out of 5 nerds

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Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….