Star Wars Skeleton Crew Season 1 Review – It’s Star Wars but For Kids

I find it extremely difficult to talk about how I feel after watching Skeleton Crew. The Star Wars TV space has been incredibly hit-or-miss ever since it started with The Mandalorian. I didn’t even watch The Acolyte because of the numerous backlashes surrounding it, but I gave this show a chance because I heard far more positive things about it overall. Yet, as my Star Wars Skeleton Crew Season 1 review will attest, just because something “isn’t as bad as something else” doesn’t mean it’s that good either.

If you don’t know, Skeleton Crew is set on a typical “homely world,” where a group of kids tries to “break the cycle” of their boring lives when they accidentally uncover something they weren’t supposed to. These four kids—Wim (get the joke?), KB, Neel, and Fern—soon find themselves on a spaceship that takes them to the depths of space, and they don’t know how to get back home. Thus, their “real adventure begins.”

Now, as I joked subtly, this is very much the plot of Treasure Island or Treasure Planet, depending on which you prefer, and the team went hard with that storyline. Pirates in both name and style, a “trusted ally” that couldn’t be trusted, a long journey for the “mythical treasure hoard,” and so on and so forth. For the record… that’s not a bad thing! It’s a classic, and it’s honestly something that Star Wars hadn’t done yet.

To its credit, it didn’t just hit “certain beats” with that premise but expanded on it in its own way while also expanding the Star Wars universe in certain key ways. One of my favorite parts by far was seeing brand-new alien races within the Star Wars universe, including a certain pirate leader, Kim, and more. I’m glad that some people are trying to expand the lore and universe in meaningful ways, as it’s been really easy to fall into certain tropes and callbacks… as I’ll get to soon enough.

Also, for what it’s worth, this show took a more “bare-bones” approach to effects and such, and it looked good from start to finish, with only one or two scenes where you could easily tell that “everyone was in front of a green screen.” I even saw a Twitter post about a certain “crab monster” that was done with stop-motion! Not that you could tell as you watched. I just wish things had been that creative and clever throughout the rest of the show. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up that way.

I’ll start with the bluntest statement here: this is a kid’s show. It just is. Typically, Star Wars is something that “kids can enjoy,” but it’s also fine for adults to watch on their own, like with Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, etc. Those shows are tailored to all ages, but those who have “been around the franchise a while” will get the most out of them. In contrast, Skeleton Crew doesn’t really try to hide that it’s a kid’s show, which you can tell by the dialogue, the way the plot unfolds, and the insane amount of “plot armor” that all four main kids have.

Case in point: there are multiple times when a very serious situation is unfolding, and then the kids… just act like kids. “But they’re kids!” you say, “That’s how they’re supposed to act!” At times, yes, I agree with you. Yet, multiple times, this is after they’ve had death-defying events happen to them, and they absolutely need to act “a bit more mature,” but they refuse to. I was literally rolling my eyes at what was going on at times because of the “kid logic,” including when “Captain Fern” used an insanely stupid child’s game to retake control of the ship in the penultimate episode, and the ship’s droid went, “Yeah, close enough,” and then obeyed her bidding.

Another problem with the overall plot was the very nature of the “insulated plot” that allowed everything to happen as it did, including the kids “not knowing about the larger galaxy” for reasons other than “they’re just kids” (even though that was a plot point that was mentioned) and the adults being powerless to do anything… acting like serious idiots until the very literal end.

In truth, if there had been a more significant parental storyline outside of the last two episodes, I probably would’ve liked things better. Instead, the parents (mainly Wim’s and Fern’s) were over-obsessive, couldn’t tell that their kids were very clearly hinting that something was wrong with Jod, and even when the kids were in the right and trying to save everyone, they resisted almost every move the kids made.

It didn’t help that the kids were all very tropey in nature and didn’t really have character arcs at times. Wim was the “obnoxious dreamer” who believed everything without consequence until it bit him in the face. Neel was the “timid, scared kid” who “finally stepped up” in key moments. KB was the “reserved, brilliant one” who didn’t get enough time dedicated to her. Finally, Fern was the “bossy type” who tried to talk her way out of everything until she learned that wasn’t enough.

Even Jod wasn’t exempt from such tropes. Jude Law was easily the best performer of the lot, and yet he was weighed down by the material given to him. The question of “Is he a Jedi or not?” was meaningful… until he suddenly was… and yet wasn’t, and it became yet another example of Star Wars being unable to escape the shadow of its “Force-wielding past” in significant ways.

And that brings us to arguably the biggest low point of my Star Wars Skeleton Crew Season 1 Review. That low point is the need of Disney/Lucasfilm to “connect everything” instead of truly forging ahead with something new. In this case, the story of Skeleton Crew is set in the age of the New Republic, which isn’t inherently bad… until the story makes it a key focal point at the end for no real reason, even contradicting its own lore to deliver a “big save.”

In the final episode, the kids call in their “old friend” Kim to alert the New Republic to their plight, and a bunch of X-Wings come in with cruisers to take down Jod’s pirate vessels and save their homeworld. The problem is that we know from The Mandalorian Season 3 and Ahsoka that the New Republic doesn’t just “help planets that need it.” Recall that when a literal pirate king was ravaging a non-aligned planet, the New Republic didn’t intervene—it was Mando and his crew of Mandalorians who saved the day then.

Also, in Ahsoka, when Hera appealed to the New Republic Council to investigate the Empire faction that created that massive hyperdrive ship to find Thrawn, the council belittled her, dismissed the Mandalorian story as an “isolated incident,” and almost arrested Hera, despite her being a war hero! Plus, the kids’ planet was one that had been hidden from the galaxy since the days of Order 66 (which is its own plot hole, but I’ll let that go), so why would the New Republic rush to its aid… when it didn’t even know it existed before that call?

Finally, in the literal sense, the show just… ended, without any serious fallout being shown for what happened to the planet. Jod was simply… staying around the Supervisor’s area, watching his ship go down, and the last scene was Wim looking up at the X-Wings above his head. It felt like a very rushed ending, leaving far more questions than answers, especially given all the lore built up around the planet beforehand.

In the end, you might wonder why my Star Wars Skeleton Crew Season 1 Review is scored the way it is. That answer ties back to what I said at the beginning: “Just because something ‘isn’t as bad as something else’ doesn’t mean it’s that good either.”

If you asked me what’s “truly bad” about Skeleton Crew, I wouldn’t be able to say much outside of the “kid’s show vibe” and some awkward dialogue. However, if you asked me what was “really good” about it, I wouldn’t have much to say, especially for long-time Star Wars fans.

There’s a nice adventure to be had here… but you’ve seen better in this universe. Some will enjoy it, but others will want a lot more. Sadly, based on the ratings, this show likely won’t get another season, making it yet another “failed Star Wars attempt”—something no one wants to hear. Yet, when a show is as average as this can be at times… what did you expect?

Star Wars Skeleton Crew Season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.