The Acolyte has quickly become one of the most controversial Disney Plus Star Wars projects in the entire era, right up there with The Last Jedi. But all the hate and/or support aside, there is a simple question: Will The Acolyte get a season 2?
Ever since the last few excellent episodes I have gone from mixed on the show to a supporter, and no matter what happens in the finale, I’d like to see it continue. But I have to admit that seems exceedingly unlikely based on what we know.
No, it’s not about the show being woke or it being bashed by Star Wars YouTubers and their audiences. Rather, it’s pretty simple: Cost versus viewership.
Estimates of the cost of The Acolyte put it at $180 million for what are effectively eight, thirty minute episodes. That’s an absolutely wild amount of money for a Star Wars thing that is nowhere near theaters, but rather the sixth Disney live-action Star Wars series instead. And while I think the show has a solid aesthetic, no, it does not look like a $180 million production, and you have to wonder where much of that money went.
Then there’s viewership, where if it was a breakout smash hit, it might be worth spending that for another season. But it’s just not there, based on what we know. Disney does not give out official numbers but Nielsen says its premiere was half the viewership of Ahsoka and 75% lower than The Mandalorian. Reportedly, it’s the second-least watched show, also behind The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan. I cannot imagine it surged in popularity from there.
Before you say “well it’s just so bad, that’s why viewership is low,” you should know the least-watched show is Andor, universally praised as one of the best things in Star Wars history, even past the Disney era. It did in fact get a season 2, however, on a reported $250 million budget. Disney might have been okay doing that once given the sky-high reviews and massive praise for it, but The Acolyte certainly doesn’t have that, and no one is saying it’s anywhere close to the quality level of Andor.
I’ll be honest, I hated Acolyte at first. I decided to keep watching, since I hated the first three episodes of Andor but it got really good later on. I’ve been enjoying the story so far in Acolyte, but it has so many flaws that it’s really difficult to love.
The biggest issues to me were the stilted dialogue, trying to shoehorn in a kung-fu gimmick that makes no sense, and the fact that the show constantly not only goes against Star Wars canon, but can’t seem to even keep its own facts straight within the context of the show itself.
I think what frustrates me the most is that I can tell there is a great story going on and it just seems to constantly be getting lost under a mountain of junk to make the snow more marketable. It’s like someone at some point wrote a great Star Wars story and then 30 other writers all tried to add stuff to it.
I really do enjoy the story though, and I think all of the actors are well suited to their roles.
If they do make a second season I would probably still watch at least the first few episodes if not the whole thing though. Especially if they fix some of the problems the first season has had.
Thanks for that response. I’m still in those first few episodes, wondering if it’s worth sitting through more
They start to drop a lot of the kung-fu stuff by the third or fourth episode and focus more on the story. To me personally it seems like it’s getting a lot better as it goes but there are still some glaring issues with it