Teach/Corrupt

The writers detailing more backstory and character history of the Jedi order and emergence of the Sith is an undeniably great idea. It should provoke nerdgasms in Gen X fans like myself. For me the narrative of Teach/Corrupt has some interesting moments for characters like Qimir and Osha, but it also underwhelms. The visual storytelling on the "unknown planet" is good and the dialogue between the two is okay. However, for me the direction of Qimir's portrayal involves some questionable creative decisions. In the previous action-focused episode he was a suitably vicious Sith Lord, whilst here in more reflective character-driven scenes he is reduced to a brooding young, pinup who appears like he's trying to act cool to impress girls. I guess it's all meant to be part of the seduction of the dark side, but for me this portrayal as a baddie lacks credibility. This might be because I am a forty-something male, but I think a young Sith should show moments of unfettered passion, rage and occasionally spit pure venom with dialogue. I do not blame Manny Jincato, who seems like a really good actor hampered by the script and direction to bring out this persona.

I think other scenes are equally problematic. Lee Jung-jae deserves credit for doing his best to inject life and emotion into scenes involving Sol and Mae. One moment where he has to express anger and frustration with pure body language and facial expression is brilliant, but additionally he has some weak material to work with. Several exchanges where the dialogue simply either explains what has happened, comments on something, says how something feels or speculates what might happen feels awkward. There is little he can do to improve clunky exposition in a script.

The sub-plot involving the character Vernestra feels like it's leading somewhere interesting, but scenes of her visiting previous fight scenes feel quite repetitive.

The characters have not made me fully invest in The Acolyte, particularly Osha and Mae. It is not the fault of Amandla Stenberg, who does her best with the material. It feels like the mysterious past and fate of the two are being drawn out by the slow pace of the overarching narrative to the point that frustrates.

Generally the visuals and art design are as great as you would expect from Star Wars, so I have no complaints there.

If I can sum up what's wrong with this show then I'm a word to it's Mog, a weak mumbly character who only speaks the obvious, to then be corrected and shown up by a Master Jedi. As a character he's a non entity, and as an actor we have the real reason the show will never work, he's terrible, a bad script is a bad script but give it to Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Liam Neeson, even Domnall Gleeson the lines work, but this guy along with almost every other actor in the show, tells it like it is, just garbage. I would blame casting, but to get it this wrong goes upstairs, However the episode had nuggets of what might have been. For the first time the bad guy became interesting and well played, his scenes held my attention, the rest was passable, not really terrible, just pleasant forgettable filler.

I can't believe how this show keep showing us how low it can go. This latest episode unsurprisingly is not much different than the rest and the run time is again shockingly low with no action to be seen except the new lightsaber whip only shown for one pathetic second. The only bright spot is the character Qimir whose story arc is thankfully breathing much needed life into this otherwise very normal and short episode. The weakest and most annoying link in this series is still the twins story arc. Hope the next few episode will try to stop building on them and instead focus more on Qimir and Master Sol who may well turn the show around in this uneventful episode.

After the most dramatic episode of "The Acolyte" so far, the follow up is...underwhelming. There are a few twists in the tale here that don't make a lot of sense, with lazy writing at the heart of it. Clunky, awkward dialogue riddled with cliches. Can't Disney do any better?

It's interesting that some people really liked "Teach/Corrupt" and other people didn't like it at all. I'm in the former camp. Couldn't get excited. Some strange choices by certain characters wrecked all the momentum from the last episode. It was interesting that just when something exciting happened at the end of the episode, it faded to black and it's basically, "Come back next episode."

One good thing: the scenery in this episode was brilliant, especially those scenes by the water.

There are only so many times you can end the episode on a cliffhanger. In between the story moves at a glacial pace and given the overall show meagerness, it can't even be considered slow-burn. At this point I feel like I am reading the story of a second grader putting in all weird details just to increase the word count. It does nothing for the show. It is beyond boring and it is such a shame because the potential is still there. Yet the show fails entirely to capture the audience and use any inkling of a tense moment, conflict or air of mystery and extend it to an eventual satisfying pay it off. All we get is the same dragging moments and nothing of substance happens. The writing is still poor and the lore I feel is being ruined with every line of dialogue spoken. There is little to no care or regard for the greater Star Wars legends lore. Even if the Star Wars brand wasn't attached to this project, the show would still have trouble to stand on its feet. Overall, this episode is barely able to keep its viewers' attention and this is just sad because the potential is just wasted.