The Best Series of 2023, #20-11

It bothers me that top 10 lists from major publications every year contain 9 series from the U.S. and one thing from the U.K. A “Squid Game” might make it in now and then when it’s undeniable enough, but mainstream U.S. critics are watching television very differently from U.S. audiences that have embraced K-dramas, not to mention “Lupin”, “Money Heist”, “La Reina del Sur”, “Demon Slayer”…the list goes on.

The viewership numbers are right there with U.S. work, and that should’ve pushed a shift in mainstream coverage and criticism long ago, but it hasn’t. Even this year, when the U.S. had both writers’ and actors’ strikes that meant there were materially fewer American series, I read list after list that features only English-language work. We’re really so exceptional that we make the 10 best shows in the world even when we’re not actively making shows? That’s a neat trick.

U.S. productions tapered out toward the end of the year, and the gold rush for K-dramas has expanded with Hulu/Disney and Amazon both racing to catch up to Netflix’s strong production partnerships in Korea.

We’ve also had the strongest year for American viewership of Japanese titles, as measured by the record-setting box office of “Godzilla Minus One” and “The Boy and the Heron”, as well as the strong performance of “Suzume”. That’s on film, but it’s reflected in the viewership numbers of anime series and increasing access to Japanese live-action TV.

Look, 9 of my top 20 are U.S. series. That’s still more than from any other country, with another from Australia and the U.K. each. So 55% of this list is still English-language, and I honestly feel like that overrepresents – let alone the 100% or 90% of other places.

If you’re wondering why there’s so much from outside the U.S. on this list, the answer’s simple: because other cultures are also making some of the best series we get to watch. Why wouldn’t we recognize that?

One more thing I can’t stress enough: the difference between #15 and #11 doesn’t matter. Someone else might reverse them and be no less right than I am. Take any two numbers and shuffle them around and that holds true. Top [your favorite number here] lists should not be read objectively. They serve as a way to help you find new shows and reconsider ones you’ve seen. They may strike conversation about what a series does well, or about what a series could do better to become something even greater. I could wake up a month from now and think I should’ve placed #17 higher, or lament that I didn’t include #21. The numbers are largely arbitrary on every top-whatever-list that anybody makes. The writing and discussion those rankings enable is what should be important.

20. Insomniacs After School

(HiDive) This could be the best year we’ve had for anime that falls outside of shonen (battle) series. “Insomniacs After School” may be the most low-stakes of the bunch, and I mean that as a compliment. Two students with insomnia sneak into their disused school observatory to rest. They’re caught and end up shielding themselves by starting an astronomy club. At first, it’s an excuse to catch up on sleep, but the pair get guidance from an alum and quickly become wrapped up in learning astrophotography.

One of my favorite sequences of the year is simply following that alum as she packs up her camera, cat, a tupperware of batter, and a skillet in the dead of night. At a remote park, she leashes her cat, sets up her camera, and begins cooking pancakes. Pictures of the night sky take time, and we share this little bit of calm, this magical, quiet, private ritual, the kind of moment in this world no one notices about the next person. It stands as the single most realistic portrayal of a private moment I’ve seen this year, and “Insomniacs After School” is filled with such moments.

The series finds a deep magic in the ordinary, interstitial spaces when people get to rest and breathe, a peace we often neglect and forget to yearn for, sometimes so long we don’t even remember what the yearning feels like. Art can capture it, and it does so here. (Read the review.)

19. Copenhagen Cowboy

(Netflix) Nicolas Winding Refn’s experimental Danish actioner follows a spirit named Miu. She’s sold to a brothel in hopes of bringing good luck to the owner’s sister. The women there are trafficked, their papers withheld as they’re forced to work. The owners can’t imagine that bringing a supernatural being into that mix and making ultimatums could go wrong. Whoops.

Miu begins a journey that’s part exploration, part protection of others, part vengeance, and part inexplicable. A half-vampire sex predator becomes obsessed with her, she gets involved with the Chinese mob, she’s briefly a drug dealer, there’s a guy who tours the world giving lectures to people about how great his penis is. It’s…unique.

If you get into the extremely slow pace of its craft and its self-consciously Freudian obsessions (which are very big ‘ifs’), “Copenhagen Cowboy” is amazingly shot and experimentally told. Long takes, wordless slow zooms, and 720-degree panning shots abound with a tantalizingly slow choreography to it all. There’s always something interesting happening, if you’re OK with ratcheting back your internal clock as a viewer to something this deliberate. There’s nothing else like “Copenhagen Cowboy”. I don’t know if it belongs on this list at all, or if it belongs much higher on it. Suffice to say, I’ve found myself thinking back to it often this year. (Read the review.)

18. Ahsoka

(Disney+) I made no bones about the first episode of “Ahsoka” having some major pacing issues, but the potential in the Rosario Dawson-led Star Wars series was still apparent through that murk. Lovable jank quickly turned into a commanding Arthurian-style legend of witches, lost heroes in distant lands, and a burgeoning evil drawing closer.

Most importantly, it returns the sense of the unknowable to Star Wars. The franchise has delivered some quality shows, but with clear flaws. The once-backwater planet of Tatooine appears everywhere. Getting across the galaxy to ridiculously distant worlds feels like a hop and a skip. “Far, far away” started to feel strangely claustrophobic.

“Ahsoka” returns the vast and mysterious to a space fantasy that should rely on that sense of awe. It does so by distance traveled, but that’s not what I mean. In “Ahsoka” and last year’s “Andor”, Star Wars finally seems to have re-embraced the sense that its universe is vaster than we can imagine and than its characters can handle. Every new planet can promise hope, fear, and adventure again, but it starts as a mystery to learn. (Read the review.)

17. The Diplomat

(Netflix) Debora Cahn’s “The Diplomat” is a riveting political thriller about, well, diplomacy. Ambassador to the U.K. is often a comfortable position awaiting a campaign donor who knows how to act at royal dinner parties. It’s not usually given to nose-to-the-grindstone, career Foreign Service experts. That’s why it’s so surprising when Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is pulled from her new assignment as ambassador to Afghanistan and reassigned to the U.K.

A British aircraft carrier has just been attacked and the Prime Minister is on the warpath before anyone even knows the culprit. Wyler has to talk him down while using her expertise and working across departments and governments to determine the real attacker. Her husband was once a much more popular ambassador with a heroic mythology that’s come at the expense of others. He doesn’t behave well as the ‘trophy wife’ in the relationship – he has a habit of subverting Kate, in ways that both help and hinder.

Russell and Rufus Sewell’s on-the-rocks relationship sparks of a Katherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy quality of contention, creating both drama and some surprising comedy. The series’ writing focuses on hard nosed, practical diplomatic work, feeling very akin to “The West Wing” (where Cahn once wrote and produced). If you like political thrillers, this is a standout. (Read the review.)

16. Sugar Apple Fairy Tale

(Crunchyroll) This isn’t going to be found on many top 10 anime of the year lists, and that’s a shame. I watched because I was looking for something extremely light and noncommittal. How could something titled “Sugar Apple Fairy Tale” be anything else? Yet only a few episodes in and we’re already deep into a story about generational slavery, men taking credit for women’s work, a stalker, attempted murder, and the balance between an artist’s desire to create and the impostor syndrome that makes her consider not trying.

The adaptation of Mikawa Miri’s light novel reminds me of “The Last Unicorn” in the way it investigates the mythic – not as violent confrontation, but as an insistent, indomitable endurance. Both recognize that kindness can also house its own type of anger.

The chaste romance of the piece centers on 15-year-old sugar glass artist Anne and the fairy she frees from slavery, Challe. As there often is with supernatural romances, one’s a teenager and one’s lived more than 100 years, and at the same time they’re coded within the story somewhat differently. There are arguments against this narrative and for reclaiming it. I’ll just tackle this show alone: the emphasis is thankfully on the chaste in chaste romance and the series doesn’t ignore the imbalance. It uses it to engage the power dynamics that play between the two. Challe is all but immortal. Anne owned and used him for a few days before freeing him. Even the best person in the series was willing to sacrifice her ideals for convenience, and the series uses this to open up on intersectional themes, such as how one disempowered party can victimize another in turn.

A later character has been denied all her dreams and opportunities, forced into an arranged engagement, and to cope is obsessed with owning Challe – rather than fighting her cage, the woman seeks to cage another. How “Sugar Apple Fairy Tale” engages social narratives within the framework of a medieval-renaissance-mashup world is often surprising and remarkable. It uses its messiness with accountability to explore some very layered themes. That doesn’t even talk about its beautiful art, or its clear-eyed moments of portraying an artist’s resolve. At one point, Anne keeps working on a piece, the beginning of a war that threatens to burst into her very room at that moment be damned. “Sugar Apple Fairy Tale” is somehow the sweet, light, sugary series I was looking for, but those qualities open into a world that’s portrayed with complexity in ways that glare back at our own. (Read the review.)

15. Abbott Elementary

(ABC) One of only two entries on this list I’d refer to as sitcoms, “Abbott Elementary” keeps the mockumentary era of TV comedy alive. In a format once highlighted by the schadenfreude of “The Office”, “Abbott Elementary” takes a different tack. It follows a group of teachers making do with what they have in a Philadelphia elementary school. The show is often kind and understanding, finding ways for its characters to work together and solve each others’ problems rather than create them. It’s not about dysfunction, it’s about making things work in an underfunded, under-resourced environment.

Much of the second season is about the looming threat of a charter school that would help some children, but leave many with even fewer educational resources than before. The themes are spot-on and gently elucidate topics like these in ways that demonstrate their impact on a community. It helps us understand both the broad consequences and the personal ones.

On top of this, the will-they/won’t-they romance between Quinta Brunson’s Janine and Tyler James Williams’ Gregory is taken in a direction that isn’t often tackled. It’s a much more considered, mature, and thoughtful approach to relationships and romance than we typically get to see in TV series.

14. The Bear

(Hulu) This landed on a lot of top 10 lists this year, so the question about “The Bear” might not be why it’s on this list, but why it’s not in the top 10. The series about a near-disastrous restaurant launch is often genius and can deliver beautiful and magical tone poems. It captures the energy of Chicago like no other show I’ve seen.

Yet the second season bends over backwards to justify its premise, requiring every decision maker involved to be foolish – to put it lightly. That’s fine, it’s just a premise to get our suddenly out-of-debt chefs back into debt so the show’s bread and butter – chaotic panic – can be further explored.

Yet it just doesn’t know when to stop sometimes, when it’s shown us enough to let its writing and gorgeous performances sing. It often sits on moments well past the point of their impact so that they begin to poke at the line of a parody feel. Couple this with a clearer telegraphing of some (but not all) of its physical comedy, and the series can start to feel like a shaky diorama for its performers.

But oh those performances. “The Bear” boasts one of the top handful of ensembles going today, and many of its episodes do know when to stop before getting in their own way. Like its subjects, the result is messy, but often captivating. Some episodes are awe-striking, some need a little better scene selection and tighter editing, but the overall result is still one of the better shows going. (Read the review.)

13. Spy x Family

(Crunchyroll) Who said the sitcom is dead? Sure, its premise and its animation mean “Spy x Family” can be a lot more imaginative and wide ranging than 99% of sitcoms that’ve come along, but that doesn’t change the fact that its fundamental premise is as an anime sitcom.

You’ve got your handsome spy, who’s got to find a family to keep his cover in a hostile country. He adopts Anya, a girl who passes his tests not because she’s the genius child he’s looking for, but because she happens to be able to read minds. Then there’s Yor, who needs a husband in order to maintain her own cover as one of her country’s premiere assassins. And they adopt a dog who can see the future because: why not? Anya’s the only one who knows of anyone else’s secret, but never reveals them out of worry that those revelations would break her newfound family apart.

What “Spy x Family” so brilliantly turns on its head is the sitcom’s need for lies that drive anxiety and produce the format’s comedy. I grate at so many traditional sitcoms because these families who should trust each other are constantly lying to each other. Here are these people who supposedly love and support each other, but who are always a sentence away from lying to each other out of fear of judgment. Why would I want to watch and laugh at a bunch of abusive people? Sounds horrible.

In “Spy x Family”, however, the lies are expressions of care and growing commitment. The lies are so they can stay together and increasingly rely on and care for each other. They inhabit their lies to protect a world that Anya and other children will grow up in – even though their ideas of that world are different. They learn to bring each others’ strengths out and work to be considerate to each other, to give Anya a fiercely supportive family. It’s a gorgeous inversion of the sitcom format.

The second season covers some darker territory, even including one of the better action sequences this year, but it never forgets the glorious, joyous chaos it does better than any other show going.

12. Bloodhounds

(Netflix) Set during the height of COVID, two boxers team up to protect a woman who’s investigating the loan industry. The friendship between the protective Geon Woo and the chaotic Woo Jin is an electric bromance. It’s the best example of close male friendship I’ve seen this year as two very different people with extremely different histories learn to admire, trust, and protect one another.

The series sharply critiques the loan industry and how it targets people during disasters to trap them in permanent debt. Its portrayal of COVID is exceptional, too, with streets eerily empty and events held in auditoriums without crowds. There are multiple strains of humor here, too. The two boxers and the woman to whom they’re assigned tease each other in non-toxic ways. There’s a far darker comedy at play as well, best exemplified by a remarkably desperate chase scene centered on ludicrous priorities midway through the show.

The most captivating aspect of “Bloodhounds” is its fight choreography. Geon Woo fights close in, absorbing punishment as he locks others up and creates opportunities for heavy strikes. Woo Jin dances and weaves, relying on maneuverability and quick strikes but opening himself up in a riskier style. There’s a 30-on-2 fight scene that manages to pull the feat off without opponents waiting to attack one-by-one, and the choreo of “Bloodhounds” sells you on the idea that it’s still an even fight.

This would be far higher, perhaps even one of the top 5 shows of the year, but for a cast exit late in the season. One of the supporting cast members was caught drunk driving, which is a much bigger deal for a celebrity in Korea than it is in the U.S. That meant an actor and their character leaving and being replaced with another. Both are successful in their roles, but that initial role was important and its loss – and the introduction of a new character – both feel awkwardly shoehorned. It’s the only weakness in what is otherwise the best action series of the year. (Read the review.)

11. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

(Amazon) This Australian series may be the most visually stunning of the year. The thick, cinematic melodrama has atmosphere to spare and so many of its shots are lit like paintings that carry deep into the background. Nine-year-old Alice grows up under an abusive father, until her parents are lost in a fire. She’s adopted by her harsh grandmother June, played by Sigourney Weaver. She runs a flower farm where survivors of domestic abuse are kept safe through her own unique methods.

The series is a mystery of codes: social codes, the language of flower arrangement, record-keeping, metaphors that tell us truths before we know how to fully recognize them. It’s a gorgeously layered series with towering performances.

It is tough to watch because of its focus on domestic violence, but showrunner Sarah Lambert’s adaptation of the Holly Ringland novel handles its subject matter with an unblinking and forthright sense of responsibility. Weaver’s performance has an argument as her very best, and she’s surrounded by one of the best ensembles of the year. (Read the review.)

What are my top 10 series of the year? Which is the best? I don’t want to cause any evil beef beyond this journey by being unreasonable, so hold your reservation, dog, and skip by later for what I’m cooking up to crown as the last of them. I couldn’t fit apothecaries in that sentence, I’m not perfect.

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The Best Credit Sequences of 2023

I always watch the credits. They set the scene. They prime you for what’s to come. Sometimes they tell the story before you know it, letting you recognize piece by piece what you should have known before. When they close an episode, they can offer bitter irony, desperate need, or taper off an intensity of feeling as if you’re being weaned back into the real world. They can give you permission to lose yourself, or to cry, to close the world out and open yourself up, or to silently scream at heartbreak. I always watch the credits because they’re part of the story.

Some stick in my mind and some don’t need to. Each does something different. In 2023, here’s how:

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House

(Netflix) The Japanese series tells the story of best friends Kiyo and Sumire, who train to become present-day geisha performers. Sumire is a natural, but Kiyo flunks out. Rather than going home, she takes over as her house’s new chef, or makanai. She finds deep satisfaction in this, and the opening credits serve to clarify that Kiyo didn’t fail as an artist, but simply found a different form of art. She finds value and joy in practicing that art, and those around her appreciate it not as an expectation or chore, but as a daily gift she gives them.

“The Makanai” has very little conflict, and what conflict there is tends to be solved with a minimum of drama or be forgotten in realistic ways as time passes. Yet it is one of the most compelling and captivating series this year, finding a measure of calm I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed in a show before. That starts with the credits, which present what its characters do in artistic, caring detail.

Map Break!

Why are there so few English-language entries here? There’s a trend in U.S. and U.K. series to completely do away with opening credits. Just slap the title up in all-caps, drop a loud note over it, and call it a day. Edgy.

You know what we do love, though? Maps. Oh my god, give us a map and we can spend all day with it. It might be tempting to blame “Game of Thrones”, but I think our dysfunction goes back further than that. Psychiatrists shouldn’t ask us how we feel about our parents; they should ask us what’s our deal with J.R.R. Tolkien? If you approach me at the bar, don’t buy me a drink or compliment my eyes. Show me a map you drew with mountain ranges at absurd right angles to each other.

(Netflix) The live-action “One Piece” adaptation delivers on the map front like you wouldn’t believe. The endearingly cheesy pirate adventure features close-ups of maps, panning shots over islands we’ve visited, clues to episodes we haven’t seen yet, and realizations of how episodes we have seen link together geographically. Makes you want to settle your tab and pop a ride-share back to Oda Eiichiro’s place.

Every end credits sequence gets a different song, which isn’t that rare, but many are variations which capture the theme of that particular episode or center on specific characters. What’s more is that the maps themselves and their creation eventually play a major component in the season’s most emotional plot reveal.

(Disney+) The other quality credits map we’ve got this year belongs to “Ahsoka”. It’s a little harder to keep track of since it’s two-dimensional layers in a three-dimensional space, but it communicates the notion of traveling across the galaxy and – as the villains attempt – traveling to another galaxy altogether. Its markings of creatures and threats also help return that original trilogy feeling of the unknown and uncharted to Star Wars, an element where “Ahsoka” excels.

Kevin Kiner’s yearning but lurking score is exceptional. Between “Ahsoka” and “Andor”, we finally have new musical identities in Star Wars rather than folks just trying to emulate John Williams over and over again. It’s a big galaxy; it should cover just as much music.

Hell’s Paradise

(Crunchyroll) “Hell’s Paradise” is full of mood, tragedy, and mindfucks. So are the opening credits. The story follows criminals who are condemned to death but are given an opportunity for a pardon…if they can retrieve an elixir of immortality from a mysterious island. Everyone who’s gone there has died, or returned as their body transforms into flowers.

The animation is often astounding, and the storytelling is well-delivered. A good chunk of the first season is getting to know most of the ensemble right before they die. It’s not an upper, but it is thrilling. It gives into a few shonen cliches, including one I hate, but it is the best action-oriented anime of the year.

The credit sequence immediately gets your adrenaline pumping, and the scenes tell stories we immediately want to know more about.

Skip and Loafer

(Crunchyroll) For the complete flipside, we’ve got “Skip and Loafer”, which is the credit sequence that best sticks in my mind this year. You may wonder for the first half why. Song’s good, the visuals are pleasant enough, but nothing’s really popping. Then they get to the dance. It perfectly captures the nature of our two leads and their relationship – the driven, ambitious, yet anxious Mitsumi and the popular but egoless, and endlessly supportive Sosuke.

“Skip and Loafer” is so, so kind and real. Mitsumi isn’t as gorgeous or stylish as her classmates, but she’s substantive and honest. Sosuke harbors regrets and a quiet depression, but his own ambitions lie in bolstering and supporting the people around him. Mitsumi is someone with whom he can realize that ambition, someone he can steady and support. She knows what she wants out of life, but is shaky without kindness and acceptance. His dream is to give that kindness and acceptance, and have it be accepted in turn.

This approach ripples throughout the entire story of “Skip and Loafer”. Mitsumi’s Aunt Nao is cool, protective, caring, and wise. As a trans woman, she sometimes needs kindness and acceptance in the face of social judgment. Mitsumi is there to love, accept, and reassure her. In turn, Nao offers that kindness and acceptance when one of Mitsumi’s friends is having difficulty in their friend group.

The series is filled with beautiful moments: a trip home, a familiar family snack, a moment on a train where one person supports another, a casual comment that turns someone’s embarrassing classroom moment into one that people admire. There’s endless kindness in “Skip and Loafer”. It is a constant painting of loving support, and that dance in the intro encapsulates that permission to be imperfect in front of one another with unconditional acceptance.

See You in My 19th Life

(Netflix) K-Dramas tend toward iconography that’s key to the plot, which means their credit sequences open up the more of the show we see. As we learn to recognize the motifs that keep returning, we can plug their meaning into the opening and understand more and more what it’s telling us.

The opening credits for “See You in My 19th Life” may be briefer than other sequences, but they pack a lot in. They initially speak to protagonist Ji Eum’s ability to remember her past lives, and her goal of reconnecting with a love interest in a former life that was cut tragically short.

I love the retro imagery in this, and the light, hopeful touch of the theme, but every piece of iconography in that credit sequence takes on a meaning by the end of the show. Some take on two or three meanings in a series where that layering across lives constantly offers new ways of understanding both people and plot.

The Last of Us

(Max/HBO Max) “The Last of Us” is a journey through a post-apocalypse where fungus has destroyed society. As it evolves to endure higher temperatures, the same fungus that can control ants and spiders begins to survive in mammals. One girl is found to be immune, and she sets off with an ill-equipped guardian to find a surviving science base that might be able to develop a vaccine.

The series is both dire and beautiful, and constantly finds in its cinematic post-apocalypse ways to reflect our slow-motion one. It is haunting, and its opening credits always set this tone.

So much is hidden in the artistically spreading fungus: sky scrapers, a map of the U.S., a screaming human face. At one point, a baby is seen in razor wire – imagery that should’ve stayed in fiction, but we discovered this year is a reality for the way our National Guard treats refugee and immigrant children. Who needs fungus to steal our humanity when we can do it ourselves?

Just as the series does, the credits comment not just on a U.S. in this recent alternate history, but a U.S. at a juncture in the current history of our own real world. It is horrific and something we all understand, that we can all recognize the spread of, yet that we simultaneously can become lulled and hypnotized by. Sometimes credits help transport us to another world. Sometimes they clarify that the horror we see on-screen is best recognized from right where we’re sitting.

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“Ahsoka” Returns Meaning to Star Wars Fight Choreography

One of my favorite parts of “Ahsoka” is the fight choreography. People have fallen into two camps on this, with many thinking it’s just not as flashy as previous, prequel-influenced takes on lightsaber battles. I’m of the opposite mind because the choreography isn’t dependent on how pretty spinning lights are, but rather the intention of specific movements and how they tie together.

One of my favorite types of fight choreo is when everyone gets a different style and you can see them pitted against each other. It’s harder to pull off because training for everyone has to be different and then the final choreography has to combine them. Fight choreo can be thought of as styles having specific phrases. As you learn nearly every martial art, you learn forms of step sparring, where you repeat “phrases” of movements against an opponent to drill them into your muscle memory. It helps you unconsciously sort through which combination of movements are useful in a given situation.

Think of it this way: if you don’t know a book and you’re flipping through pages for what you need, the process of finding it is slow. If you know the book and already have it opened to the correct page, you can find what you need immediately. That step sparring – that learned phrasing of a martial art – means you can immediately open to the right page for what you need without hesitation or giving someone else an opening. That practice is a key component of being able to control the situation and how the fight evolves.

When you watch fight choreography, the same thing takes place. Characters participate in phrases and when they’re both fighting in the same style it’s straightforward to visually translate the give-and-take of the fight. When two characters are fighting in different styles, it becomes the job of the choreography to visually translate two different languages of fighting, two different phraseologies. You’re not just reading to the audience from one book, you’re actively translating for the audience from two.

This is where the Star Wars prequels fell down for me. Gone were the longsword-inspired duels of the original trilogy, replaced with a heavily Westernized imitation of wuxia films. They borrowed a style without seeming to understand its depth, distracted by spinning swordplay and missing the cultural context and martial intent that gave it weight. It took only the flashiest elements to offer an empty and homogenized style because theater-sized spinning lights were admittedly awfully pretty in the 2000s. Yet the moves themselves often lacked meaning, intent, and connectedness. The choreography shouted words instead of phrases, like a friend who says they know another language because they’ve learned a few swears in it.

It’s fine to know words of another language without knowing how to string them together into complete thoughts, but it’s another thing to then present those phrases as exemplary poetry when that culture already has its own complete with the embedded experience of context and intent. The Star Wars prequels didn’t string moves together because they created full phrases, they chose them because they looked fancy with giant glowsticks. If I saw Obi-Wan have one more fight where he’s waving his lightsaber a foot directly over his own forehead, I was gonna scream. (And yes, that is a stance – but it’s one you combine with other stances in specific ways, not go through the whole fight holding so you can twirl your sword constantly.) I think Auralnauts said it best:

“Ahsoka” bravely returns us to a time when characters could last through a fight without forgetting their goal was to actually hit each other. That’d be great on its own, but our lightsaber-wielding villains hew closer to the original trilogy’s fight choreo. That treated lightsabers along the lines of what we now call historical European martial arts.

The argument here isn’t that I’d rather they use European than East Asian martial arts. The argument is that I’d rather they use what they’ve bothered to learn in full, because that then enables you to create full choreography. You can’t learn the swear words and flashy phrases you like, forego countless elements of substance, and think you’re equipped to translate something in its entirety to an audience. Take one of my favorite parts of “Ahsoka”, introduced in the first sequence.

Two non-Jedi with lightsabers and Force powers board a prison ship. The master is a tall, burly man named Baylan Skoll. The apprentice is a tall woman named Shin Hati. She comes off as much shorter and I’ll get to that in a moment. The prequels had Jedi constantly waving their lightsabers around to deflect incoming blaster fire because they liked the spinning lightsabers, but there were few moments of actually coming into a guard stance. Instead, they just looked like they were clearing cobwebs with a duster.

Here, Skoll uses guards in form, coming to a stance and holding it as you would in a real sword fight to block or deflect an incoming blow. The guards he uses are for something heftier, like a longsword, which immediately communicates his strong and very deliberate fighting style. It also lets him remain more upright, as strength and leverage from that kind of style come from outreaching your opponents. It’s a clipped, clean, matter of fact choreography that’s based in shifting from one stance to another efficiently.

We know our heroine Ahsoka wields one normal and one shorter-length lightsaber. This is influenced by daisho, or the pairing of matching long and short blades, as well as Miyamoto Musashi’s development of wielding both simultaneously. This usually means using the short blade to block, clear, and create openings. If anything, her spinning and constantly shifting choreography keeps the prequel choreo alive, but even here it’s much more grounded and a lot of her steps signal her predictive use of the Force to react to movements before they happen. (I’m fond of this and I’ve written about predictive fight choreography before.) In comparison to Skoll, however, we see Ahsoka using a shorter blade. Skoll’s upright stances that convey length and leverage immediately suggest this as an advantage he’ll have over her as the big bad.

Meanwhile, Hati’s blocks are lighter and often one-handed. She uses the lightsaber more like a sabre. The actress is 5’8” so she’s tall, but unlike Skoll’s upright stances, Hati is often half-crouched. That communicates someone wound up and raring to go. She keeps her weight on her back foot a lot, which makes creating or closing distance much easier – it’s very much the opposite of Skoll’s upright, centered stances, and plays into a choreography that sees her assess a situation before bursting into extremely aggressive attacks.

Now, we’ve had Jedi and Sith and everyone in between running around in cloaks for decades both realtime and in-universe. Maybe I’m forgetting someone, but in the Star Wars Extended Cloakiverse where everyone with a sword or neat stick you can pretend is a sword wears a cloak or a half-cloak or two cloaks, no one ever uses the damn cloak in combat. Hati’s use of her cloak when fighting Sabine Wren in “Ahsoka” is the first time in Star Wars I can remember seeing the cloak used to obscure vision for a following strike. It’s gorgeous to see because yeah, obscuring someone’s vision so they can’t see the angle or timing of a strike is pretty helpful.

And I get it, the Force would allow you to sense the strike without having to see it yada yoda, we’ve known that since Luke first put on the blast visor so Obi-Wan could prank the kid and while away the hours on a long trip. But it’s still sword choreo and technically Hati’s fighting someone who’s exceptionally weak in the Force, so at a certain point in your interconnected Cloakiverse use the cloak for something other than accentuating your space rizz. And they finally did it.

Beyond this, Hati uses hand grapples in her swordplay. A lot of European sword work relies on hand grapples and working the sword against your opponent’s not for a strike but to create leverage for a wrist grab or stab. If you can control or disable the wrist, you can control the sword, and the opponent has to go where their sword goes or be disarmed. Since we started by talking about step sparring in various martial arts, let’s go to a good example of what this can look like:

Obviously, the hand-and-a-half work (where you put a hand on your blade) won’t work with a lightsaber, but that’s only a fraction of what’s represented. There are still many interchanges here where you’re manipulating or targeting your opponent’s wrists more than their sword.

A lot of movies use very simplified and unrealistic versions of this. The “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise has a lot of great fight choreo, but they also overuse the moment in a sword fight where the opponents stand hip to hip and somehow, magically, each hold the other’s hands down so they can chat face-to-face. Never mind there’s no real control of the other person’s hands or wrists, it lets you get the dialogue in mid-fight with both characters facing the camera.

In “Ahsoka”, Hati uses hand grapples to control her opponent. Assuming this video stays up, you can see her control Wren’s wrist and swing her off-balance to take control of a stalemate. She then wraps Wren’s elbow with her own to hip throw Wren to the ground. Both of those moves are taught in historical European martial arts schools of various types.

(Forgive the weird intros and outros on some of these, you do what you can with the clips out there.)

Unlike the Westernized cannibalization of wuxia that the prequels dove into because they thought certain things looked pretty – regardless of how they might be realistically used or strung together – “Ahsoka” keeps intact the martial intent of how those steps are connected. When you can keep those phrases of movement whole, fluid, and cogent, you can communicate how two characters’ intentions clash through their movements. That’s what makes fight choreography tense and dramatic. I’ve long said that a good fight scene should be able to do the same things as a good dialogue scene. It should be able to change our understanding of a character or story, or their understandings of themselves, often in place of dialogue or doing something dialogue can’t.

“Ahsoka” has that in spades and it gives us an embodiment of what choreography can do at its best. I get that it’s not as flashy, there’s not much lightsaber spinning, but when that’s your focus, your fight scenes lose their ability to communicate. They need to be interrupted with dialogue in order to convey story instead of relying on martial art forms that have so many languages in which to communicate meaning just as beautifully.

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Magic, Beautiful, Janky, Flawed — “Ahsoka”

There’s so much that works here. There’s so much that doesn’t. I love messes that could go either direction and new Star Wars series “Ahsoka” has a ton of promise. There is a show in here that could be vaster and more free and fun that anything in the franchise since the original trilogy. There’s some phenomenal mood and one particular performance that’s an absolute standout. There are also cracks in the craft and massive pacing issues that could derail the whole thing.

Sometimes-Jedi Ahsoka Tano is searching for a map her enemies also need, which is frustrating since this was essentially the plot of both J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars movies. At a certain point, any single mystery box stops being mysterious when your franchise keeps throwing new ones at me. The map to Luke Skywalker, the map to Space Voldemort’s stronghold on Exegol, the map to Thrawn – I’ve got a room full of Star Wars mystery box maps and at some point you make me start to wonder why I’m not just re-watching “The Goonies”. I love all of these map-based projects and like re-watching them, but at a certain point overuse of this one MacGuffin in a single franchise becomes a detriment I have to overcome, not a strength. Sometimes all I want is people getting stabbed with lightsabers, a snippy droid, and some weird new space pet that’s undoubtedly going to be a marketing bonanza.

Luckily, people start getting impaled with moldable plasma real fast, we’re soon bedecked with herds of gremlin-looking chickencats, and we’ve got a fitful jerk of a droid who just dumps out his toolbox looking for stuff to throw at other ships like he’s the cranky dad in a 60s or modern CBS sitcom: terrible in any other form; endlessly charming as a droid.

We’re introduced to morally gray, Force-using, red lightsaber-wielding, mercenary sorta-Jedi in the first scene, so we have our villains established and they’re pretty exceptional to start. I’m going to make fun of a few things later, so let me get this out of the way: Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno’s Shin Hati are both exceptional performances that give us immediately compelling, intriguingly efficient villains. I love them and they ground the series more effectively than our heroic duo of sorta-Jedi.

Rosario Dawson is good as Ahsoka, particularly when the character’s trademark smug grin sneaks through her stoic Jedi countenance. Stoic only goes so far, though, and while Natasha Liu Bordizzo is good as hotheaded former apprentice Sabine Wren, the script does her an early disservice by going out of its way to force contrived moments that come off less as rebellious and more as incompetent.

The first episode is also a bit of a slog. It’s chock full of emotional conversations, introspective looks, and loaded pauses that I initially thought were simply filled with references to “Star Wars Rebels”, the animated series which told the story of many of the heroes earlier in their lives.

It can feel like walking into the middle of someone else’s private conversation and wondering if you should come back later. But then I talked to people who had seen “Rebels” and they felt the same way – too many weighty pauses and moments of gravity that forget to fill us in on the context of why they’re being thrown at us. Make it through these, though, and things clean up quickly.

Setting Interchangeable Mystery Box Map to Character Who Will Become Important Later aside, the other parts of the plot are pretty good. We’re world-hopping quickly, there are opportunities for archaeological high jinks in the style of Indiana Jones, old-fashioned space chases, we don’t have to wait long for lightsaber battles, and there’s a great sense of foreshadowing later doom in the classic space opera sense.

The standout here is Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who is one of a handful of actors who are must-see no matter what they do. On top of an unpredictable but very choice eye for the projects she chooses, she’s given two of the most idiosyncratic action performances in memory with “Kate” and “Birds of Prey”. Paint her green, stick tendrils on her head, and start her bickering with droids as Twi’lek General Hera Syndulla, and she leaps off the screen as having the time of her life. Her infectious sense of fun immediately becomes our access point to envisioning ourselves in Star Wars. Even though half her scenes in the first two episodes are in hologram communications, holographic green Mary Elizabeth Winstead (this is the future that liberals want) still holds the room over characters we actually get to see in full.

In a show where Ahsoka is stoic, her former apprentice Sabine Wren is haunted, her David Tennant-droid (this is also the future that liberals want) is a stickler for regulations, and her enemies are a Macbeth witch, Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf by any other Ray, and Hollywood’s new favorite villain: unblinking blonde with messy shoulder-length hair…it is Winstead’s performance and the writing of Syndulla that give the show its spark and momentum.

Where I do have some issues is in the cinematography. Much of it is great and there’s a wonderful sense of mise-en-scene in standalone moments that feel close to concept art. I like that some non-dialogue scenes take their time – such as flying through a New Republic fleet and seeing all these other ships lumber or zip past from inside the cockpit.

Showrunner Dave Filoni’s experience up to this point has been primarily in animation. He showran “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, “Star Wars Rebels”, and “Tales of the Jedi”. He’s also produced on live-action “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett”, but he hasn’t held showrunner positions on them like he does for “Ahsoka”.

Animation adds a layer of disbelief. To get the audience to crest that higher bar of difficulty, many animation showrunners utilize more foundational shot set-ups. There tend to be more two-shots and medium shots with characters at 90-degree angles to the camera. The effect can be a little flatter, but in animation this aids the audience’s sense of being observers. It’s a world-building hack for animation, and it’s a very good one. Obviously, not all animation directors subscribe to this, but showrunners with riskier aesthetics such as Natsume Shingo (“Sonny Boy”) or Christian Linke/Alex Yee (“Arcane”) tend to be the exceptions.

Like I said, I haven’t seen “Rebels” but I can sure tell you that two-shots, medium shots, and flat-plane foregrounds were used a lot in “Clone Wars”. That’s not a knock on animation, Filoni, or any showrunners who utilize these techniques. Smart use of them can create room to push further than live-action can in selective moments – and the same is true in “Ahsoka” when we have those concept art-styled iconic shots. There’s absolutely an artistry to the increased use of medium shots in animation. “Clone Wars” had to hop around a lot in its simultaneous storylines across the galaxy, so use of these foundational shots helped to ground the audience immediately in whichever story we were switching to at that moment.

And yet…that approach often transfers very badly over to live-action. It’s used in animation because enough of the audience has hold-ups with the medium that prevent their suspension of disbelief. Many need that bit of hand holding to initially buy in. That same hand holding isn’t needed in live-action because the audience is much more willing to invest right off the bat. When used in live-action, too many medium shots and two-shots of characters facing each other on a flat plane make the show feel either too simplistic, or as if it’s not trusting the audience enough. It’s a frustrating trap to get caught in – the same techniques you utilize in one medium because the audience is less trusting come off as patronizing in another because the audience’s suspension of disbelief now doesn’t need it.

“Ahsoka” struggles with this, but like its weird initial pacing – it’s not enough to ruin anything, just to make it feel off.

I’ve got way more to say on the fight choreography, which is so far gorgeous and varied. It can veer from cheesy fun to pitting different real-world styles against each other in intentional, captivating ways. It also thankfully avoids the prequels’ Westernized, piecemeal attitude toward cannibalizing wuxia choreography.

The fight choreo is worth the price of admission. There’s so much in it and each character gets a very different style that’s exciting to see in contrast to and in conflict with the next. I’ve got so much to say about my love for the fight choreo that I’ll write another article about it, but suffice to say I’m in love with the use of multiple distinct styles.

In total: that’s a big mix of mess and promise, right? Overall, I’d recommend “Ahsoka” – but viewers are likely to vary on this. For many, it’ll seem slow, disjointed, and certain early scenes will come off as contrived. For others, the connection to the beloved dark sheep of the franchise “Rebels” is more than enough to keep them intrigued. For me, chaos goblin Mary Elizabeth Winstead and really good fight choreo are enough to keep me happy, and as a critic, half the fun is seeing if they do or don’t sort out the weird pacing and shot choices into something steadier.

Right now, “Ahsoka” is lovable jank where you have to provide a lot of love for something about it coming in. That could be an actor, character, or element of the artistry, aesthetic, or franchise you find intriguing. This makes it a fan show and that can make it less accessible to non-fans. At the same time, the work of loving something that is simultaneously fun and beautiful but janky and flawed is often part of the fandom that fans love most. We all have something we’re fans of where that feeling makes complete sense. “Ahsoka” is the Star Wars version of it.

“Ahsoka” is on Disney+.

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New Shows + Movies by Women — Ahsoka, the Devil, and Emma Seligman

I love weeks like this when I want to see everything. I try not to introduce my personal judgment into this feature when it comes to being apprehensive about a series or movie. If I could recognize all implicit bias I might let in, then it wouldn’t be implicit. I try to keep things informational, unless I have something positive to say. If there’s a reason I’m excited for something, then I’ll absolutely say it, and this is one of those weeks where I can’t keep my mouth shut.

First off, “Ahsoka” looks exceptional. There’s no question Disney’s dropping the multiverse ball when it comes to splitting their attention too many different directions while also trying to unify their Marvel stories, but their Star Wars work has remained very strong. “Obi Wan” and “The Rise of Skywalker” are admittedly average stories, but they still serve as foundations for strong worldbuilding, character work, and artistic flair. If those are really the worst entries while you keep developing exceptional shows with the quality of “Andor” and “The Mandalorian”, you’re doing just fine. “Ahsoka” arguably joins “Andor” as having the best put-together cast of the bunch. More on that below.

You probably haven’t heard of “Our Father, the Devil”, but it joined last year’s most talked about movies on awards platforms – just without the same fanfare as things like “Women Talking” or “Bones and All”.

I’d lost sight of when “Bottoms” was coming out and it just popped up this week. I can’t say enough about its director Emma Seligman, and that’s entirely based on her first film “Shiva Baby”. The story of a college student running into her sugar daddy (and his wife) at a Jewish funeral service is a darkly funny and strangely accessible comedy. It’s something that captures anxiety as a three-dimensional thing you can poke and prod, both empathize with and laugh at, and that gives the viewer a unique perspective on their own emotional experiences. I feel very comfortable calling “Shiva Baby” one of the top 5 comedies of the last 5 years. Seeing Seligman’s new film “Bottoms” and reading the absolutely ridiculous cast list really has me charged up to see it. (It’s in limited release, so check your art theaters, and stream “Shiva Baby” in the meantime”.)

These aren’t the only entries, but I’ll talk about them all below. They each look good, and that gives us a wealth of new shows and movies by women to catch up on in the next few weeks.

NEW SERIES

Ahsoka (Disney+)
half-directed by women

The newest Star Wars entry follows Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, a former Jedi-in-training who left the order to carve out her own path. She’s on the hunt to stop a resurgent Empire after the events of “Return of the Jedi” and “The Mandalorian”. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Tennant, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo also star.

The series appears heavily influenced by Timothy Zawn’s excellent “Thrawn” trilogy, which gave many a dearly held version of the Star Wars sequels before the official ones were made.

Half the episodes are directed by women. Steph Green helms 2 episodes. She was nominated for an Oscar for her short film “New Boy”, and has directed on “The Americans”, “Watchmen”, and “The Book of Boba Fett”.

Jennifer Getzinger has directed on “Jessica Jones”, “Westworld”, and “Dead to Me”. Geeta Vasant Patel has directed on “Dead to Me”, “The Great”, and “House of the Dragon”. Each helms an episode.

“Ahsoka” is on Disney+. The first two episodes are out, with a new episode every Wednesday for a total of 8.

NEW MOVIES

Our Father, the Devil (in theaters)
directed by Ellie Foumbi

An African refugee in southern France recognizes her town’s new Catholic priest. He was a warlord responsible for the slaughter of her family. Babetida Sadjo and Souleymane Sy Savane star.

This is the first feature from writer-director Ellie Foumbi. You’ve probably heard of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and if you pay a lot of attention to film, you’ll also recognize “Bones and All”, “Women Talking”, and “Tar”. Those were four of the five nominees for Best Feature at the last Independent Spirit Awards. Not getting anywhere near the media attention was the fifth: Foumbi’s “Our Father, the Devil”.

“Our Father, the Devil” opens in limited release tomorrow, Friday August 25.

Bottoms (in theaters)
directed by Emma Seligman

Two unpopular queer high school students start a fight club after school, with the goal of somehow turning it into having sex before they graduate.

This is the kind of indie comedy that might fly under the radar, but really shouldn’t. It has a who’s who of incredibly talented people involved. First off is Emma Seligman, who wrote and directed “Shiva Baby”, an acidic and poignant comedy that tightens the screws on its lead over the course of its 80 minutes.

That lead is Rachel Sennott, and she rejoins Seligman here. Beside her is Ayo Edibiri, co-lead of “The Bear”. Add in Ruby Cruz (“Willow”) and Havana Rose Liu (“Mayday”) and you’ve quietly got one of the most talented ensembles gathered this year.

“Bottoms” opens in limited release tomorrow, Friday August 25.

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (Netflix)
directed by Sammi Cohen

A girl’s plans for her bat mitzvah start to unravel, with a little help from her friends and parents. Idina Menzel and Adam Sandler co-star. The film’s based on Fiona Rosenbloom’s 2005 novel.

Sammi Cohen directed last year’s “Crush”, and started in the industry as an editor.

“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” is on Netflix starting tomorrow, Friday August 25.

Scrapper (in theaters)
directed by Charlotte Regan

Georgie is a 12 year-old girl who lives alone in a London flat. That is, until her estranged father shows up and brings her back to reality.

Writer-director Charlotte Regan has directed a number of music videos. This is her first feature.

“Scrapper” opens in limited release tomorrow, Friday August 25.

Take a look at new shows + movies by women from past weeks.

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