Living under the thumb of the Empire is not easy, as several Star Wars movies and shows have emphasized. The upcoming Star Wars series Andor intends to do the same thing, only it may not adhere to the same structure as Lucasfilm’s other Disney+ originals.
The Rogue One prequel series is expected to premiere later this year, and when it does, it’ll shed some interesting light on the origins of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and revisit the Imperial Era of the Star Wars universe. And just because Andor is shaping up to be another prestige Star Wars TV show in the same vein as The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t mean that it’ll perfectly follow in those series’ footsteps. As a matter of fact, it looks like Andor will actually adopt a structure that is entirely unique to its own story.
Two Seasons, Guaranteed — In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Andor creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy said that he expects the Disney+ series to run for just two seasons.
Gilroy revealed that unexpected piece of information in response to being asked about the absence of Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO from the Andor cast. K-2SO was, of course, Cassian’s closest ally in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which led many Star Wars fans to reasonably expect that the droid would appear in Andor. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
However, Gilroy has teased that the fan-favorite character may appear in the second season of Andor. “We don’t have Alan Tudyk. Not yet, anyway,” the Andor showrunner told Vanity Fair.
Gilroy went on to discuss the overall structure of Andor, saying, “It is a second season, but it’s really, for me, the second half of the novel. This first season is about him becoming a revolutionary, and the second 12 episodes take him into Rogue One.”
The Two Halves of a Novel — Assuming that Gilroy’s plans for Andor don’t change anytime in the near future, his comments here suggest that the show’s second season will also be its last. If that’s the case, then that means Andor won’t end up being a limited series like some fans had speculated, but it won’t be an ongoing serialized show either. Instead, it’ll adopt a two-season structure the likes of which is incredibly rare on television.
Most shows that run for only two seasons usually come to an end because they get canceled. In Andor’s case, however, it seems like the show’s second season will fill in all the final gaps in Cassian’s pre-Rogue One journey. On the one hand, it’ll likely act as a perfect lead-in to Rogue One in the same way that the 2016 film perfectly leads into A New Hope. On the other hand, Andor’s predetermined length also means fans shouldn’t expect it to run for more than two seasons.
Gilroy’s comments also suggest that Andor could be comprised of two 12-episode seasons, which means it may end up producing a total of 24 installments. For comparison’s sake, the first two seasons of The Mandalorian each ran for eight episodes, while Obi-Wan Kenobi is comprised of just six.
The Inverse Analysis — While Gilroy’s comments may be seen as disappointing by some fans, Andor’s fixed two-season structure is arguably a good thing. After all, if the series proves to be a hit among Star Wars fans, then its success could give Lucasfilm the confidence to be a bit more experimental with the structure of its Disney+ shows.
Rather than trying to force every project to be either a multi-season, ongoing show or a limited, one-season series, the studio could actually manage to tailor each title’s length to the demands of their stories. Regardless of how you feel about Lucasfilm’s current Disney+ plans, that’s an undeniably exciting thought.
Andor is expected to premiere on Disney+ in late summer 2022.
