Before
Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, Star Wars used to be an event. When the original Star Wars (later retitled A New Hope) hit in 1977, I mean, man, it hit, spawning excitement that would last decades and ensuring that creator George Lucas’ dream trilogy would be realized. Three years later, fans got The Empire Strikes Back. And after three more years, the trilogy closed out with Return of the Jedi.
It would take 16 years before fans got another taste of live-action Star Wars—still the longest gap between films in the franchise, and a wait that had so much excitement behind it that it was fictionalized into its own movie, Fanboys, released in 2009. Since entering the Disney era, though, things have been much more prolific; we’ve gotten five feature films (three as part of a planned sequel trilogy) in eight years, but where Disney has really changed things is on the TV side. Star Wars is no longer an event in the way it was; now, instead, it’s a world that fans are guaranteed a vacation to a few times a year.
And that comes with varying degrees of quality. The Mandalorian kicked off the Star Wars TV experiment in 2019, launching on the very first day of Disney+; it remains the franchise’s flagship series and a fun take on a pulpy space western. Star Wars continues to experiment with the TV format, though, sometimes opting to bring back fan-favorite characters from the films in an attempt at nostalgia, and other times really leaning into telling in-depth, radical-themed bits of storytelling for adults.
Would it even be Star Wars if we didn’t get into some kind of argument about it? We’re going to rank our favorite of the Star Wars shows, but first we’re going to lay down some ground rules. First, these shows are strictly canon; no Lego specials or Holiday specials included, unfortunately. Second, we’re going to strictly stick with live-action Star Wars television; The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch all reach some particularly high highs, and are prolific enough that they could—and should—be ranked in an entirely different list among themselves.
So, without further ado, here’s how we’d rank every live-action Star Wars TV show so far.
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