My worry for The Mandalorian Season 2

(Don’t worry folks, your regularly-scheduled Saturday post is still coming, but since everyone and their mother is watching DisneyPlus today, I had to get this out there and off my chest)

After first approaching it with caution, by the end of its first season, I was 90% on-board with The Mandalorian…all the way up until the last shot with that stupid ‘darksaber’ (Pete the Retailer agrees). Then earlier this year, I started seeing second season rumour-mill headlines that Lucasfilm was bringing in Temuera Morrison to play Boba Fett, while all signs were pointing towards Rosario Dawson (of all people) playing a live-action Ahsoka Tano. A few weeks later, a rumour that they were also looking for a live-action ‘Ezra Bridger’ (whose SWarsy naming-game I’ve always thought was amazingly weak) from Rebels. WHY?

This is a very annoying problem with Lucasfilm’s post-Disney creations: between The Clone Wars, Rebels, and now The Mandalorian, we have three TV series featuring some combination of Ahsoka, Captain Rex, robo-legs Darth Maul, the ginger Mando I’ve been told is ‘Bo Katan’, and this kriffing ‘darksaber’ continuing to show up and dominate the story. I suspect the real issue here is Dave Filoni’s fear of creating new characters once audiences are invested with existing characters.
Either that, or Disney is pressuring Lucasfilm to play their MARVEL game, and boost their synergy with inter-platform crossover characters or some such garbage.

Here’s the thing: the GFFA is a big galaxy, yet post-Disney Lucasfilm continues to shrink it.  The great thing about The Mandalorian was how it felt like a true anthology series; it took place on the edges of the galaxy, with no already-known characters, and Jedi only got referred to like, once! (Also, it seemed to play pretty nice with the EU…since it was set on the galactic periphery (for the most part), there was little to remind us we are in post-Disney Land. My other main fear is that down the line the show will start overlapping with Sequel Trilogy nonsense like ‘Snoke’ or the ‘First Order’…which is when I’ll switch it off).

But instead…we seem to keep getting this ever-shrinking SW ouroboros where characters are introduced in one property and continue to reappear in every subsequent property…. and I can’t feel anything but ‘blehhhh’.

Since the Titular Mandalorian’s overarching ‘quest’ now appears to be ‘find some Jedi and return the Child to them’, I would be totally fine if down the road, they make it to Luke’s academy, where we get a quick de-aged Mark Hamill cameo and see a handful of Jedi trainees…all of whom are no-names. But instead, what do you want to bet that when the time comes to hand off the Asset, Titular Mando links up with Ahsoka, Rex, Hondo, middle-aged Cal Kestis, and the rest of the crew from Jedi Fallen Order?
I really hope I’m wrong.