Star Wars Resistance took it’s time setting up the world in its two-part season premier, spending a good portion of the episode introducing the new characters and the Colossus, but the third episode shifts the focus to Kaz (Christopher Sean) as he attempts to figure out just who he wants to be.
With it still being very early on in the season, and all of the regular characters being new creations for the show, the audience doesn’t have a good grasp on who people are yet, why they’re on the Colsus, what their motivations are, or how they feel about the Resistance and First Order. Triple Dark keeps the focus squarely on Kaz, with the other main cast members being featured very little, yet despite this it’s hard to get a feel of who Kaz might be.
This is in large part down to the fact that he doesn’t seem to know who he is himself. He wants to be a pilot and racer, he’s trying to be a mechanic, and he’s desperate to prove himself as a spy. Sadly, he doesn’t seem to be particularly good at any of these three things. It’s clear that the series is going to tackle this during the course of it’s run, and as with previous Star Wars television shows will give it’s characters room to grow and evolve but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated with Kaz in this episode.
He has no mechanical skills at all, but instead of informing Yeager (Scott Lawrence) of this and finding a work around or a way of him learning some skills he tries to guess his way through, with disastrous results. He’s not much better when he’s trying to be a spy either, if he’s not sneaking around the station like a loony tunes character and crashing into things he’s loudly talking about being on a secret spy mission in front of people.
Fortunately the episode picks up in its second half when the titular triple dark storm hits the station, allowing a fleet of pirate ships to attack. The pirates are a great bunch of characters with some brilliant designs. Led by the vicious looking Quarren Kragen Gorr (Gary Anthony Williams) the pirates include a Trandoshan, and someone wearing looted original trilogy Stormtrooper armour. The group is visually exciting and make for an interesting group of antagonists for the series. The revelation that they’re working for the First Order in an plan to make the citizens of the Colossus willing to let the First Order take over the station to stop the pirates is an interesting plan, one that feels very much in the vein of Palpatine working both sides of the Clone Wars.
The pirate assault gives the audience some fun action as the ace pilots engage in a dog fight in order to stop them, revealing that the racers are more than just recreational pilots, but also the main defence for the station. The attack also gives Kaz the opportunity to shine and save the day. Rather than going for the obvious choice of having him get in a ship and join the fight the writers have him use his intelligence to force the pirates to break off their assault, all while keeping his involvement a secret. The first real indication that he might actually be cut out as a spy.
Triple Dark feels more like an episode of two half than the double length premier, with the first half of the episode unsure of the tone that it wants to capture and offering little in the way of story or character development. Thankfully the second part of the episode picks up in quality and delivers an interesting and engaging story, as well as introducing a brand new faction.
Star Wars: Resistance Season 1 is now airing on Disney XD.