Tales of Dave Filoni

This is how Dave Filoni bakes a cake.

Dave stands up and walks to the kitchen. His arms swing at his sides at a slow, steady pace. His legs seem to swing below his floating torso as though they don't make contact with the ground. He takes a popular recipe book off the shelf, opens it, and smiles. "I'm going to make a cake," he says.

In a mixing bowl, he deposits a cup of flour and smiles. "I've added the flour. Oh! Now I will add some water." He proceeds to add the water. He stirs mechanically with a placid smile on his face. He pours the mixture into a mould and places it in the oven. "Time to start baking!" he says, turning the knobs though his eyes don't seem to focus on them. Twelve hours later, he opens the oven to find a charred mess. "No!" he says, leaning forward slightly, "I can't let this cake die!" The scene fades out.

Hours later, Dave is seated at a clean, nondescript table with two human friends, each with short, nondescript haircuts and wearing nondescript jumpsuits. There's an empty plate before each person with a few crumbs. "That was a delicious cake!" says one. "How did you save it?" says the other.

Dave smiles his placid smile. "With a little help from an old ally. But that's a tale for another time."

Roll credits.

So, yeah, Tales of the Empire is typical Filoni. The new six episode series, consisting of very short, ten to seventeen minute episodes, presents first the unremarkable tale of the unremarkable Morgan, whom we met first on The Mandalorian. We see how she survived the attack on Dathomir by General Grevious, one of the best story arcs from Clone Wars (written by Katie Lucas with some help from her father, one assumes). So it's a suitably plump vein for the Disney leech to suckle and supplies us with a few wisps of excitement. The second three episodes mine an even better vein, finally continuing the story of Barriss Offee, a former Jedi who turned traitor and was arrested on Clone Wars before Disney bought Star Wars.

There's some genuinely interesting moments as we see some bitter inner conflict manifest in Barriss. Unfortunately, Disney's edict that all bad people be dumb as rocks seems to be in effect in this series (how Andor was spared that, I don't know). When the Fourth Sister, the Inquisitor a turned Barriss is apprenticed to, starts grumpily killing people all the time, even when it directly works against her own interest, Barriss' choices don't seem to be between Light and Dark but between common sense and intense stupidity. Oh, well.

Tales of the Empire is on Disney+. Happy Star Wars Day.