2022 Was a Year of TV Prequels; Here’s a Report Card on How They Did

Kenobi

Kenobi is Star Wars’ first stab at an MCU-esque spinoff show, and the result is mixed. Its first half promises a quasi-thriller which turns out to be toothless. It doesn’t help that we now have Andor, a more dedicated political thriller which would stand out even without the Star Wars label. Judge it as a prequel in a long line of prequels, however, and it fares a bit better.

Usually it’s another Solo, a hodgepodge of answers to questions we never asked. There are some unexpected delights, such as Haja (Kumail Nanjiani), a grifter posing as a Jedi. Haja is a clever bit of worldbuilding in a series that often struggles with it—a sign that its society is responding to the absence of the Jedi in complex ways.

Furthermore, there are scenes which give necessary closure. Kenobi’s (in)famous parting words to Vader on Mustafar always felt like half of a conversation. From Phantom Menace to Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker (and Hayden Christensen’s unfortunate performance) was an emotional dead zone, but the loss of his brother-in-arms should have evoked some pathos. If nothing else, Kenobi delivers that.

Still, the big picture takeaway doesn’t make this show more meaningful. These contributions are too negligible to sustain anything more than a faint curiosity. At its best, Kenobi is restoration work. It’s putting a bit of blush on some wooden characters and smoothes out a few curves. At its worst, it’s a Post-it note slapped on someone else’s work. A parasite.

Prequel Strategy: Restoration

Grade: C-

Rings of Power

Rings of Power repeats the mistakes outlined above and invents a few more. On the one hand, it follows suit with House of the Dragon and relies on shorthand for the development of its newest characters. On the other hand, its treatment of legacy characters such as Galadriel or Elrond is more akin to Kenobi. Unfortunately, it inherits the worst aspects of both approaches.

Halbrand is an intentional riff on Aragorn. Any warmth in Elrond and Durin’s relationship belongs to Legolas and Gimli. The elf-man romance of Arondir-Malva is reheated Arwen-Aragorn, which was itself an in-universe echo of Lúthien-Aragorn.

Galadriel, the one Tolkien holdover Rings tries to engage on a deeper level, is a poor subject. It’s an example of restoration gone wrong. Our existing portrait of Galadriel is of an ageless, serene queen. By framing her as an angry, impulsive warrior princess, it’s trying to create contrast and intrigue. But there’s so little overlap between one and the other that the likeness feels unfaithful and dishonest.

I stand by what I’ve written about it before. Count no man happy until his end is known and let a thousand flowers bloom. But Rings of Power’s handling of its IP is as subtle as a howitzer. Its first season shouldn’t be emulated.

Prequel Strategy: Recycle and Restore

Grade: F

Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul’s sixth season wrapped up earlier this year. It’s an alumnus to the rest, which are conspicuously freshmen.

The show is a peculiar specimen. The saga of Breaking Bad seemed like a closed book. Arguably, it didn’t have a universe to cultivate. Putting aside the druglord props, it was a flavor of George Saunders or Raymond Carver. Walter White is grounded in that old “search for meaning in middle America” which still holds heavy real estate in literary fiction. A prequel to Breaking Bad sounds about as appetizing as a prequel to American Beauty.

But Better Call Saul is magnificent. It proved that, when it comes to sequels and prequels, we often look in the wrong direction.

After it falls out of in medias res, Breaking Bad’s first scene shows Walter White describing chemistry as “A study of change. . . . [Chemistry is about] growth, decay, then transformation.” Of course, Walter White is really talking about what’s going to happen to him (duh), but creator Vince Gilligan latches onto that as a unifying thesis. His twin character studies chart a progression between (seeming) opposites so immaculately and logically that they approach the elegance of formulae.

Gilligan and his incredible team of writers are not the first artists to use metamorphosis as a spine for their work. Saul’s mention of H.G. Wells’ Time Machine in its sixth season is, amongst other things, a deliberate nod to that heritage. It’s their choice of medium and tools, TV and long-form character study, that make it remarkable as a whole. They wandered so far from that 2008 scene physically, but their spirit didn’t.

And they were unusually perceptive in their choice of protagonist. Bob Odenkirk brought a great deal of charm to Saul Goodman, but he was initially painted in broad strokes. His characterization landed somewhere in the ballpark of Grand Theft Auto V.

That’s entirely fine. He was detailed enough to pass cursory inspection, and more depth might have been a distraction. When they returned to him after Breaking Bad, there were no preconceptions to sort through. Saul may not have given the fans what they thought they wanted most, but his lack of definition was an asset.

Better Call Saul’s weakest moments (for lack of a better term) come from trying to make a spiritual connection too literal. Gus Fring and the Salamancas are integrated as smoothly as humanly possible, but their inclusion still feels like a drug show is invading our white-collar crime show. Maybe it should have been content with Mike Ehrmantraut and Tuco.

Nevertheless, Saul’s restraint and cohesion mark it as a masterpiece of the form. Gilligan makes an airtight case against anyone who considers prequels lesser-grade narrative. Arguably, nothing on this list would exist without it.

Prequel Strategy: Spiritual Successor; Minor Recycling

Grade: A

Andor

I’ve written more than a few words praising Andor and I won’t reproduce them here in full. Instead, I’d like to concentrate on one sentence: “Every step [Cassian Andor] takes toward the Rebellion brings him closer to [his death] in Rogue One.”

Cassian Andor’s big, inspirational arc is about believing in more than yourself, but the “right choice” is going to kill him. That’s the tug of dramatic irony—the Greek tragedy kind. Peripheral awareness of the future informs the central drama.

Crucially, Andor accomplishes this without stressing IP in the manner we’ve come to expect from Disney. It’s such a standalone tale with such a unique angle that it could have survived an off-brand transition.

Call the Empire the “Pangalactic Hegemony” and it would still be a great story about revolutions. Firefly proved that can be enough. But the privilege of using the Empire of many childhoods—its icons, its visual language, its position in our psyches—makes it hit harder than you would expect. It’s that spiritual connection again.

As a side effect, it makes everything else in the Disneyverse look less like it’s supplying a demand and more like it’s been cutting our Star Wars beer with water.

Prequel Strategy: Spiritual Successor

Grade: A

Final Thoughts

The wild peaks and troughs of 2022’s prequels have taught me this: There’s no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. There’s only more hard work. No matter how you cut it, your audience knows how your story ends. The thrill of discovery and surprise are harder to replace than you think.

This isn’t a new problem, but actually an old one. Over two thousand years ago, Greek playwrights trafficked exclusively in retellings of common myth. Every member of the crowd knew those myths by heart. They probably knew multiple variations of each. By the time Euripedes trotted out his rendition of Antigone, they might have seen three forgettable ones. Another Heracles play this season? Snore.

The best of them neither ignored nor relied upon that dynamic. They toyed with it. In that context, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is one of the best examples of trolling in the history of theater.

Prequels will never become IP’s silver bullet or the gateway to endless exploitation. Nothing about them is reproducible or universally applicable. In most situations, they’re riskier than making something entirely new.

But it could become a new canvas. That’s a creative vision, not a corporate one.

Sean Weeks is a student of classics and mythology who’s wandered slightly off course. If you want to join him in his odyssey, you can visit him at www.weeksauthor.com.

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