You won’t know it, but this is the happiest I’ve ever been when writing a news article. That’s because I’m writing an article about Star Wars TV show hit The Mandalorian and it’s not about Baby Yoda. And they say the magic of Christmas has been sucked out by big business and Bad Santa. This year at least, the magic is alive. You can bin your plush now.
Instead, allow me to bring you another gift. You may or may not be aware (I’m going with may), but there’s a new Star Wars hit pencilled in for release this Friday. And fans of both The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker – the smallest of niches – will note that the seventh episode of the former was due to make its Disney+ debut on the same day the latter crashes into your multiplex. What a terrifying clash of shared interests, right?
Luckily, our benevolent overlor-eerrr I mean, benefactors, Disney have accounted for this apocalyptic dilemma. You see, The Mandalorian episode 7 is no longer airing on Friday. Instead, it’s airing tomorrow. That means you can watch Star Wars on the box and still have time to watch Star Wars in the fleapit on opening day.
It was hardly a superhuman proposition to watch the two on Friday, it’s just Disney would rather you don’t. Or perhaps they didn’t want two IPs warring for the attention of the world’s media, consumers, influencers, pets, etc. Somehow I think Skywalker was going to win the day no matter what, but I’m not going to chide their marketing strategy – you get an episode of a TV show you quite like early and they get an extra article out of me. Everyone’s a winner here, right?