The Monitor is a weekly column dedicated to all the pieces occurring within the WIRED world of tradition, from films to memes, TV to Twitter.

Say it plain: Star Wars has had a tough go of it these days. Audiences acquired the final movie within the franchise, 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, tepidly. Its TV universe has crammed some voids, however regardless of breakouts like The Mandalorian, the success fee since has been hit and miss. The Book of Boba Fett didn’t make a lot of a splash; Bad Batch appeared alright. Even ostensibly stellar sequence like Obi-Wan Kenobi have needed to face different issues, like racist followers upset with the sequence’s casting. At a time when it may very well be dominating, Star Wars today feels prefer it’s simply trucking alongside, a droid misplaced within the desert.

Or, it did till Andor.

For a present with massive straight-to-video vitality—an origin story for a supporting character in a one-off film in regards to the plot to steal some blueprints—the most recent Star Wars story to hit Disney+ is well essentially the most engrossing factor to come back out of the franchise this yr, if not in a few years.

Driven by a painfully nuanced efficiency by Diego Luna (Cassian Andor), it’s out-prestige-ing status tv. Palace intrigue, minus the incest of House of the Dragon. Space stuff, nevertheless it doesn’t dangle its hat on pew-pew-pew. Andor is the right Star Wars present, one which lastly tackles the franchise’s messages about fascism with out getting slowed down in them.

So much has been stated in regards to the on-the-ground nature of Andor. There are not any Sith or Jedi; even Emperor Palpatine will get talked about solely in passing. Whole plotlines develop out of the each day insecurities of mid-level Empire cogs. (Syril Karn’s passive-aggressive blue-milk breakfasts together with his mom are notably illuminating.) For the primary time in what looks like endlessly, a Star Wars enterprise has earned its viewers’s funding in its characters, relatively than borrowing it from their financial institution of nostalgia for acquainted names and faces.

Thank Tony Gilroy. Star Wars followers know his identify as a result of he was the one introduced on to repair Rogue One, the movie the place Cassian first appeared. Cinephiles know him as the author and director of Michael Clayton, some of the underrated movies ever. He lives for these things. He will get below his characters’ pores and skin, and as creator of Andor he’s drawing the sorts of personalities that might danger all the pieces to cease the ascent of an evil empire. There isn’t any mild aspect/darkish aspect Force discuss. Viewers aren’t meant to consider in each Rebel on sight; Empire baddies aren’t soulless a lot as flawed.

Gilroy’s present then, could also be that he’s not a Star Wars fanboy. Creators like Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni make nice exhibits as a result of they know the dogma out and in. But Gilroy, who’s stated in interviews that his studying curve for the franchise was steep, appears freed to develop new sorts of Star Wars tales by not being doggedly dedicated to the canon.