The new Star Wars collection Andor, a prequel to the 2016 movie Rogue One, is a dramatic examination of the early days of the Rebel Alliance. Science fiction writer Matt London was impressed by the present’s refined characterization and dialog.

“There’s so much subtext in the dialog of Andor, and there’s so much communicated in the silences,” London says in Episode 533 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “It’s not passive viewing. I think it takes an active mind to engage. It’s not a kid’s show.”

TV author Andrea Kail agrees that Andor is a mature, advanced piece of storytelling. “In every other Star Wars, there’s black and there’s white,” she says. “There’s no crossover. Everything in this show is about moral ambiguity. It’s about the gray tones in every single situation. And that, for me, is why this is an adult show. Nothing is black and white in the world. Everybody makes choices, and some of those choices hurt other people. That’s the way life is, and that’s the way war is.”

Andor largely eschews many Star Wars staples, equivalent to wacky creatures and humorous droids, focusing as an alternative on the realities of energy and violence. Fantasy writer Erin Lindsey, who labored for a few years as a UN assist employee, discovered the present’s depiction of politics to be fully plausible. “I think there are clearly people on the writing team who are students of spy novels like [those by] John le Carré and who are students of politics and students of history, who are really looking at how revolution has happened here on Earth and what that looks like,” she says.

Despite its prime quality, Andor‘s ratings have lagged behind Star Wars shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian. Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley hopes that Andor will entice a bigger viewers in season 2. “It’s so good,” he says. “It deserves higher ratings than it’s gotten so far. And I definitely want to see more shows like this. This is the kind of show—especially the kind of Star Wars show—that I’ve been pining after for all these years. So please let’s all just give it as much support as we can.”

Listen to the entire interview with Matt London, Andrea Kail, and Erin Lindsey in Episode 533 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And try some highlights from the dialogue under.

Andrea Kail on Obi-Wan Kenobi:

I hate spunky little lady characters. The factor about Leia is she’s a sensible lady, and the kid that they portrayed is a spoiled little lady who goes operating off as a result of she doesn’t wish to do what she has to do, and within the course of she will get an entire bunch of individuals killed. And that’s by no means addressed. She’s simply this cute little lady and everyone’s supposed to like her. I’m sorry. She’s a spoiled youngster who obtained a bunch of individuals killed as a result of she didn’t wish to go to one thing along with her mother and father. … When you’ve got this a lot cash and in addition a fantastic forged, and then you definitely put as your heart character a spoiled youngster, that makes me loopy.

David Barr Kirtley on characterization:

There was an outline I heard as soon as of a deep character, which is that this can be a character who can do one thing that fully surprises you, however it’s fully per all the things that you recognize about them. And [Andor] is filled with deep characters. In so many science fiction reveals and Star Wars reveals, the characters are one-dimensional within the sense that in each scene they’ve the very same character, and also you by no means see them in any second that’s completely different from that. But you see these characters in these personal, susceptible moments the place you see completely different however fully constant sides to them.

Erin Lindsey on Syril Karn and Dedra Meero:

What makes a authorities of any sort work is the technocrats and the apparatchiks and the bureaucrats, and so they have quite a lot of completely different motivations. And one of many issues that they’ve obtained [in Andor] is these two characters who showcase very clearly the diploma to which private ambition is the form of be-all and end-all of motivations for these characters. What I hope we see going ahead is at the very least a few characters who’re doing the unsuitable issues for the proper causes. Because imperialism was overwhelmingly a mission that was enacted by a bunch of people that legitimately thought they have been doing the proper factor.

Matt London on the Andor season finale:

I believe I anticipated extra of a payoff within the ultimate episode. Lots of people are going to be like, “What? There’s so much incredible stuff that happens in the final episode.” It’s true, there may be. But I believe that there’s messaging within the present that to defeat an empire you of need to change into a terrorist, and to defeat an empire individuals are going to need to die—there are going to be sacrifices. And so I felt like in some methods perhaps, within the spirit of realism, the physique rely ought to have been increased. … We already understand how this story ends, proper? Everyone dies in a ball of fireside. So why are we holding on to a few of these characters? Couldn’t we give them extra definitive conclusions?

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