The Bad Batch, are they really that bad?

Disclaimer: Spoilers for the first episode below.

As someone who hadn’t finished all of the Clone Wars seasons, I was intrigued to know how well I could understand the Bad Batch, ultimately a spinoff from Disney’s high horse.

I was pleasantly shocked at how well I was easily able to adapt to the episode and with very basic knowledge from Clone Wars and the three prequel movies. The first episode, found on Disney +, was just around an hour long and it really didn’t feel like it. The show, similar to most Star Wars media, is usually shrouded in dark lighting and where it ruins the experience for most media it works perfectly well here. The dark, damp lighting reflects the characters and how they’re vastly different from their counterparts, who are usually shown in a bright, sterile light; although perhaps that’s me thinking too much.

The Bad Batch wouldn’t nearly be as good without its amazing cast, let’s see, we’ve got Michelle Ang as Omega and Dee Bradley Baker as...everyone else. Although voicing pretty much any trooper on scene, Baker does a good enough job at making them all distinct in a subtle way, this is seen a lot more with each main character in the Bad Batch.

The leader of the chaotic group, Hunter, seems to be giving off some Mandalorian vibes with the way he takes in Omega, very much a ‘I’m not her father but I’d die for this kid’ type trope. We then have the big muscle of the team, Wrecker, who is the stereotypically all muscle little brains, yet the biggest heart out of them all. Tech is undoubtedly my favourite in the group, with every big-brained, science character, he has to have goggles to show his intelligence, but I do love his witty remarks and factual...facts. Crosshairs and Echo are the two characters that I feel have very little going for them, personally, but I will hold my judgement on them until I’ve seen a few more episodes.

Now one character I really want to focus on is Omega, to simply put it: I can’t stand her. She very much reminds me of the same problem Ashoka faced in the first few seasons of Clone Wars, she comes across as arrogant and annoying. Maybe she’ll improve in later episodes, but to me she seems to be the underdog who’s got a secret wrapped around her family, or something like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the season she’s revealed to be a clone or some experimental clone, call it a hunch, but I don’t think we truly know her yet.

The action in this show is good, most being just a lot of blasters and blue and red lasers. The animation is just Clone Wars, but some aspects do look like they could be cut right from a movie, I've never really liked the look of people in Clone Wars but I'm slowly warming up to it. The writing in the show is okay, I imagine to someone who’s actually seen all of the Clone Wars series more of it makes sense to them or they get a reference that I might not. The best aspects of the writing usually come from the group itself, the character interactions between Tech or Hunter are some of my favourites.

Overall, I’m quite excited to see where this show goes and can’t wait for the next episode to come out. Although I have relentlessly battered the show in my review it is fun to watch and kept me entertained throughout. The action is what you would expect of a Star Wars show, and that’s all I really have to say about it. New episodes of the Bad Batch come out every Friday on Disney +.

I’d give the first episode of the Bad Batch 3 Techs out of 5.