Obi-Wan Kenobi

Mandalorian season 2 was - IIRC - eight episodes. Each episode, more or less, felt relatively standalone. Mando went to a planet and had to deal with an immediate problem - giant spiders, broken ship, whatever. He usually teamed up with one or more guest characters who came into and out of the narrative in that episode. There was a lot of visual variety, often in simple things like the colour palette of the environments, different weather conditions, etc. At the end, he flew off again with his bambino to the next adventure.

But at the same time it carried across an arc. He was trying to find out who the Child was, where he came from, and find people who could look after him. Threads were woven in, including elements from previous Star Wars shows and ones that hinted at stories set in Mando's future. We had a Big Bad and we knew we'd end up with a confrontation at the end. That climax - the season finale - brought back most of the major characters and was suitably epic.

So I think it's definitely possible to make a serial show, where storylines carry over week to week, feel compelling each and every week. It just boils down to treating each episode individually and making them all work on their own. I wonder perhaps if having different directors helps, although something like Picard is very treads-water-week-by-week and that had different directors, so it's not hard and fast.

As much as I hate old-style American 24-episode seasons - if I had my way every series would be one twenty-minute episode, like a Lego holiday special; that way I'd get through a lot more Peak TV - I do miss when you'd get totally random one-off little stories, like that "below decks" episode of TNG or the Cher episode of The X-Files.

I guess Stranger Things tried to do that, in a weird way, with that episode of season 2 where Eleven snuck off to the city and hung out with some super-powered punks, but it wasn't very good.

Light sabre through the blast doors!

If only they saw sense to build the blast door out of trooper uniforms, then the saber would have bounced right off it

Still a more life-like performer though.

Some of that RLM treatment.

It’s Jones but being manipulated through sane tech as used for Luke in BoBF

It’s super ok.

But, yeah, I’m caught up and it has improved. They were really lucky Ewan McGregor is so watchable, though. You could watch him bumbling around for hours.

Feel my flippancy hasn't come across here. I don't want him "murdering everyone", but in the prequels Obi was shown to be phenomenally capable. He handles dozens of droids, shows no fear, defeats Anakin, and usually has quite an upbeat, flippant, humorous demeanour.

Whilst I get he's tortured and defeated, he's lost all his skill. I want to see some great lightsaber action and so far there's been very little. They've made it a plot point how much he's slipped. I wish he'd still been, y'know, good at stuff.

I also found it strange he's lost so many of his skills. I thought he was there to protect Luke. If there was a sudden attack on the homestead he'd be absolutely useless in the state he's in at the start of the series.

He might be able to use the blaster on a few, but without his super force speed he used in Phantom Menace the attack would be over by the time his space camel trotted over.

Spend enough time away and you get rusty. I mean, have you played online lately? Exactly.

Ive also read it as him losing/rediscovering his faith. Every time he gets a power boost its because he needs to start acting like a jedi again. He handwaves the first jedi off with a 'jedi r ded, son' and then starts to remember why he did what he did.

Other than, y'know, being kidnapped as a child and being indoctrinated into a religious order he didnt choose but whatever...