So perhaps it's only fitting that the prequel to that prequel, Disney+'s new series "The Acolyte" (streaming Tuesdays, 9 EDT/PDT, ★★ out of four) falls into that last category. Full of logical fallacies, hokey dialogue and nonsensical plots, "Acolyte" feels entirely of a piece with the worst elements of the prequel trilogy, which many hardcore fans love to hate, even 25 years later. The series, created by "Russian Doll" producer Leslye Headland, certainly has ambition as it tries to tell a showy story the mythology and magic of the Jedi and the Force. But even the best of intentions can go awry.
A century before Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson) felt a disturbance in the Force in "Phantom," a rogue "Force-user" is hunting and killing Jedi masters across the galaxy. At first thought to be former Jedi Padawan Osha (Amandla Stenberg), it turns out the Jedi killer is her twin sister, Mae (also Stenberg), long presumed dead after a mysterious fire when the two were children. The blaze resulted in the death of their family and Osha being taken into the Jedi order. (This "twist" is revealed in the first few minutes of the series premiere.)
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Determined to bring in Mae or Osha (or both) and figure all this out is Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae, "Squid Game"), who trained Osha before she left the order. He's joined by a handful of other colorful and utterly forgettable Jedi: Is Mae out for revenge for what she believed happened to her family all those years ago? Or is there a more nefarious power brewing in the galaxy? There's the pickle, and a flashback episode featuring Jodie Turner-Smith as the girls' mother, Aniseya, and the leader of a "witch coven" doesn't provide many answers.
