The season finale of Ahsoka season 1 seemed to effectively demand a season 2, given all the cliffhangers (a literal cliffhanger, in Baylan Skoll’s case). However, unlike Andor, pre-planned for two seasons, and The Mandalorian, greenlit for a second season before the first even aired, Ahsoka is…not quite in the same camp.
There has always been a question as to whether this show was planning to lead straight into Dave Filoni’s Mando/Ahsoka crossover movie that’s already been announced, or if more time would be needed for setup. Given how it ended, I think most fans would agree “more time,” meaning a second season.
We do have at least one new update regarding all this, which comes via a Deadline report:
“Some fans have speculated that Dave Filoni’s stand-alone feature film — a culmination of his Disney+/Lucasfilm universe of The Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, etc. — centers around Thrawn, and that is poised to be next. However, we hear that Ahsoka Season 2 is more of a reality in the conversation, though nothing is locked yet. Tonight there were no placards teasing that Ahsoka would return in the immediate future.”
So, it sounds like Disney is leaning toward a second season of Ahsoka rather than putting it all on ice until the Filoni film, which doesn’t have a release date, or even a release window.
Why was Ahsoka not greenlit for more seasons from the start like its counterparts? My guess is a few reasons:
1) The show has to be insanely expensive. I would guess more so than The Mandalorian and Andor, certainly.
2) It leans extremely heavily on Clone Wars and Rebels viewers who are best positioned to understand all the characters and storylines from the start, and there was a risk that casual viewers would be lost.
3) Disney execs have expressed a desire to start paring down on expensive Disney Plus content. Usually that’s in reference to the recent glut of Marvel shows, culminating in the $212 million, disastrous Secret Invasion, but that could be at play here.
We also just fundamentally don’t official know how Ahsoka viewership was, given that Disney, of course, doesn’t release specific numbers week to week. Disney said the first episode drew 14 million viewers, which is good, but we don’t know how many it hung on to over time. But the fact that there is a conversation leaning toward having a season 2, it may very well have performed good enough for the greenlight.
I would expect news about this to come within the next month or so. Given how clear the other two main Star Wars series were about second seasons (Boba Fett and Obi-Wan always felt like one-offs), Ahsoka is in a unique limbo that hopefully won’t last long.
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