Ariel Kleiman

Nine years ago, in a profile of Genndy Tartakovsky, we played a quick game of "Name a Jewish Star Wars director". Kershner, sure. Abrams, sure. The joke, of course, was the little-known Tartakovsky, who directed the not-well-known Star Wars animated series, "Clone Wars". It was rather unique at the time.

The key here is "at the time".

Ever since Disney took over Star Wars, the uniqueness is gone. Don't get us wrong, we do not long for the days of the terrible prequels. (Anyone who retcons those to be good can go pound sand. Hated, hated sand.) But what we have now is the disaster that was "The Rise of Skywalker" and the overpopulation of Disney+ with Star Wars show after Star Wars show. Those range in quality from the excellent "Andor" to the headscratchingly-awful "The Book of Boba Fett" (Seriously? How do you screw up Boba?!), It's just a tad too much.

But "Andor"? No, "Andor" is good, even though we will never consider ourselves fans of "Rogue One". The second season of the show might not rise to the heights of the first (it's rushed, squeezing what was supposed to be four seasons of story into 12 episodes), but it still packs a punch. And, look, another Jewish director! Australian Ariel Kleiman (perhaps even lesser-known than Tartakovsky?), who helmed the first half of the season.

So, "Andor": good. Just not unique...