Lord Samper's Library

And that's another season of TV watched :o) I'd been really looking forward to watching 'The Book of Boba Fett', ever since that end scene in Season Two (I think) of 'The Mandalorian'. Back from the dead and ready to take over the Tatooine Underworld, what's not to love about that? Well, the concept is still sound but the execution, over the last few weeks, has been choppy to say the least. From stories that probably didn't need to be told to sidelining the main character in favour of someone cooler, 'The Book of Boba Fett' attracts issues like flies on Bantha crap. At the same time, it's been really watchable (even when it shouldn't have been) and while I'll quite happily drop a show if it's not working for me, 'The Book of Boba Fett' wasn't quite there yet so... There I was this morning, watching the Season Finale. And what did I think...? It was awesome but once again, probably not for the reasons that it wanted to ...

Or as I prefer to call it, ‘The Episode where Boba Fett has a cameo appearance in his own show…’ Seriously. Every time I think to myself that ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ can’t surprise me, it goes and pulls a trick like this. Well played ‘Book of Boba Fett’, well played 😉 Or not… Either way, there’s one more episode to go after this and all the questions that I want answered have literally nothing to do with Boba himself (because come on, we all know he’ll be riding that Rancor). I’m going to get all spoilery over the next few paragraphs, just so you know. I won’t recap the plot though, I’ll just do that thing where I link to Tor.com’s retelling of what went down . If you’re still here, let’s go… You know what? I actually really enjoyed this episode but the thing is, none of that was to do with Boba Fett at all. I mean, he was hardly in it, turning up briefly at a ‘gang meeting’, this was all about the Mandalorian and his Foundling instead and that was brilliant (more on that in a bit...

Before we get started, I’m warning you well in advance that this post is going to be horribly spoilery because, well… it just is really. I literally can’t write about this latest episode without talking about, you know who… So if you haven’t seen it yet, maybe you’ll want to go and do that first. It’s worth it, that’s the good news 😉 And as ever, no plot recaps here. I’ll leave that to those incredibly thorough people at Tor.com, they’re good at that 😉 If you’re still with me, let’s go. To cut a long story short, I’m getting pretty sick of saying the same thing every week although probably not as sick as you are of hearing me say it 😊 You’re probably wondering why I’m still watching at this point. Well that’s easy, there’s still a little part of me that will watch anything ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Mandalorian’ built up a lot of credit in the bank 😉 I get down to it though and the bottom line is that Chapter 5 throws up all the same stuff that the previous four chapters have done...

It’s Wednesday so obviously it’s time to open ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ (I’m sorry…) and pick up from where we left off last week. Or go back in time via one of Boba’s dream sequences. Or, as is more likely, a little bit of A and a little bit of B. Can you tell that I just want this show to settle on one thing and just do it? 😉 Well, ‘The Gathering Storm’ looks like a step in the right direction… Today has given me a little bit of a kicking so this won’t be a long post, just so you know. As always, I’ll let Tor.com do the heavy lifting, as far as episode re-caps go , but I will be very spoilery today because so much cool stuff happened and I need to talk about it, just a little bit. Which is weird, given how I’ve felt about that over the last few episodes… Lets just get to the point. I’ve been moaning, for the last few weeks, about ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ and its insistence on prioritising ‘cool vibes’ over actual storytelling; it’s insistence on filling in gaps that didn’t need to ...

Because I only realised today that these things actually have titles instead of just 'Chapter Whatever...' Yep, I know... The last couple of weeks have been busy ones, this may not be the only thing that I 've failed to notice, we'll see... In the meantime then, lets talk some more 'Book of Boba Fett', a show that seems to quite effortlessly ooze cool and all the right kinds of nostalgia but doesn't leave itself a lot of room for actual story. Or does it? There were some steps in the right direction, this week, although I have to say, not quite enough for me. I'll go into that a bit more in a sec but right now, it's that part of the intro where I say that I'm not going to recap the plot (you can read that at Tor.com or, you know, just watch it for yourself if you haven't already) but there will be spoilers. If you're still here, lets get to it. The first thing that really struck me, about 'The Streets of Mos Espa' is that we...

For a show about arguably the coolest character in the Star Wars Universe, ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ didn’t get off to the best start last week; not for me anyway. While it did its job, Chapter One didn’t do an awful lot more than that and I was left wondering when it was actually going to get going and show us what it was all about. It has to be about more than just dream sequences and a slow meander into underworld politics… doesn’t it? Well, I was hoping that Chapter Two would make up for lost time so I settled down to watch it, this morning, and…   It’s back to the land of dream sequences again but this time round, that’s not such a bad thing. Things are starting to build up to something interesting, in the present, but it’s in Boba’s flashbacks that all the interesting stuff happens with what looks like an attempt by Disney to re-evaluate the question of the Sand People and give us a new perspective on a people that, all of a sudden, are a lot more than pot-shot taking raider...

At the end of Season Two of 'The Mandalorian', we saw Boba Fett take out Bib Fortuna and then take the throne held by Fortuna and Jabba the Hutt before him. It's not just any old throne though with whoever is sat on it holding sway over the criminal underworld of Tatooine. To maintain that grip on power though, you've got to do a lot more than just sit on a glorified chair... Can Boba rule the underworld with respect...? Just as one really cool show finishes on Disney+, another one begins and just in time for us to have something to look forward to after Christmas is over. I've had half an eye open for 'The Book of Boba Fett' for a few months now and it's finally here. Is it any good though? Well, we're talking about a whole show about probably the coolest character in the Star Wars universe (sorry Han but, you know...) so yes, of course it is but at the same time... Look, it's not perfect but there's a lot of potential here for another more ...

  “Jabba ruled with fear. I intend to rule with respect.” Well, I don't know about you but he's got my vote... 'The Mandalorian' was all about that gritty underbelly of the Star Wars universe and it was done superbly; 'The Book of Boba Fett' looks like more of the same and I'll be honest, I can't wait. How about you? 'The Book of Boba Fett' airs on Disney+ on December 29th 2021