Andor is the latest Star Wars series. The first three episodes came out this week and the show looks incredible so far. As I understand it, each three-episode arch will get a new director. I’m hoping that’s a good thing. The last two series, Obi-Wan and The Book of Boba Fett were extremely uneven. The Boba Fett series in particular had some great writing and some bad writing, mixed in with uneven acting, directing and tone. Because it was such a missed opportunity, I’ve been thinking about how it could have been better.

The Problems
What were the biggest issues with The Book of Boba Fett? The first is that fans wanted to see Boba Fett kicking butt, but the show is set in the Mandalorian time-period, five years after Return of the Jedi when an older, wiser and sarlaac-pit scarred Boba Fett is attempting to build a crime syndicate. Boba seems ridiculously out-numbered. His crew is in the single-digits until late in the series when he recruits a town of reinforcements. The scale always seems off. Lastly, the look and tone don’t match the plot. Any story about a crime syndicate begs for dark, late-night encounters but this series takes place almost exclusively during the day. Instead of scenes filled with the strain and emotion of hard choices, most scenes play out as ho-hum comic book panels where the characters don’t make things happen, they just bounce to the next page.

Fix Number One: Three Stories
One thing the series does well is to tell two stories: the story of the crime syndicate and the story of Boba Fett’s recovery and rehabilitation among the Tuskan Raiders, which we see in flashbacks when he’s resting in his bacta tank. The Sand People segment is both well-written and touching and shows us the reasons that Boba Fett has become kinder, gentler scum. Or has he?

My fix: weave three stories instead of two. Obviously, you can cut the inexplicable Mando-only episodes out of the middle of the series to save run-time. The third story, which we’d also see in flashbacks while in the bacta tank would be of a bounty hunter mission from Boba’s past. Presumably it’s a mission that goes terribly wrong. He’d display the cunning badass persona he’s famous for, as well as total ruthlessness. This would contrast with the Sand People storyline of redemption. The question going into the final series climax would be this: Can a man like Boba Fett really change or will the pressure of his predicament push him back to his ruthless ways?

Fix Number Two: The Crime Syndicate Story
The “present day” story is a mess. Characters are introduced but never developed and Boba never seems to have an adequate crew or plan. I’d restructure it as a series of problems and solutions. Each time, his reward is more allies. First, he negotiates with the Hutt Twins, then he manages to win over the Trandoshans. The whole time it’s clear his chief rival is Shaiz but we also learn the Pykes are coming. A storm is brewing and he’s out-manned. His next hurdle is winning over the Wookiee bounty hunter Krrsantan. It’s a big win, but when he tries to recruit Cobb Vanth’s town we see that the Pykes have recruited Cad Bane. Checkmate. Only as a showdown becomes inevitable does Boba Fett turn to his ace-in-the-hole, the Mandalorian. There’s a big fight of course, with different factions facing off, but Boba eventually triumphs. Shaiz is defeated and at his mercy. The question is whether Boba will delivery vigilante vengeance or true justice. Has he really changed?

Fix Number Three: Less Phantom Menace, more Rogue One
As I mentioned earlier, the bright, comic book look and tone of this series doesn’t match up with the expectations of a show about an infamous bounty hunter forming a crime syndicate. Read that description again and tell me if you see sunshiny days and smirking faces. With the introduction of the bounty hunter mission storyline, which could take place in dark city streets somewhere, the tone of the series immediately gets better. Add in some Mos Espa night scenes where bad things happen. Throw in a lightning storm. The day scenes work better as slow-burning suspense if we know that each night there will be a reckoning.

Overall, Boba Fett was both fun to watch and full of problems. Star Wars fans can be a tough crowd, but that doesn’t excuse lazy writing and uneven craftmanship. The Book of Boba Fett was a missed opportunity, but based on the first three episodes, Andor looks like a smash hit.

The finale for the History channel’s popular new reality show Alone will air this Thursday, August 20th at 9pm CST. Here’s a recap of the season (major spoilers) and my thoughts on what might happen on the last episode.

Week One
On the very first night, Josh tapped out after being accosted by a family of bears. It was bad luck that he was dropped off near an active bear den, but it also sounded like Josh was done the second he hit the ground. For some guys, the reality of what they agreed to do must have been tremendous.

On the second night, Chris heard a bunch of wolves howling, got scared and quit. Apparently he had a childhood fear of dogs. Chris looked to be out of shape and was uncomfortable in the woods without a firearm. In my opinion, he was not a worthy competitor. Next up was Joe, who lost his firestarter and, realizing he wouldn’t last, decided to go home sooner rather than later. I felt bad for Joe because he was doing well and was very comfortable in the wild. He could have gone far.

The bears ran off Wayne next. Brandt drank salt water and became ill. After a major storm, Dustin decided to call it quits too. None of these three were equipped for the long haul. After one week, only 4 men remained.

The Fantastic Four
The four guys who survived week one were all badasses. Each had the skills and attitude to win it all. Lucas is an amazing guy whose strategy was to keep busy. He built a canoe, a yurt and a ukulele, but seemed to be dealing with personal demons too. His mom told him, “Lucas, please don’t go crazy.” After six weeks Lucas picked up the sat phone and tapped out.

A few days later, Mitch did the same but for a completely different reason. His mom was diagnosed with brain cancer before he left and the more he sat in the woods, the bigger his concern became over missing his mom’s final days. I think Mitch made the right decision to go home in time to see his mother for Christmas.

The way I see it, every man had an internal clock and when the alarm went off, he was ready to go home. It was incredibly challenging to survive on Vancouver Island, but each man had the skills to do so. With the exception of maybe Brandt and Joe, each man left when he simply couldn’t take the isolation and elements any longer.

The Last Episode
It’s interesting that the two goofiest guys are the last ones to leave. They’ve both struggled, but have managed to lighten things up at times and deal with the solitude. I think Alan will win. He’s been eating better than Sam and has set up a more sustainable existence. Sam’s wife has a baby on the way and he’s not been eating well. How long can Sam last?

We don’t know exactly how the show will end. Let’s say Sam taps out. Will Alan be left to stick it out in the Canadian wilderness until he breaks? Will he get a phone call? Because this is television, I think the History channel has something dramatic planned. I envision a helicopter descending upon the winner without warning. We’ll see the raw reaction of the last man standing as he’s told he’s just won the first season of Alone. We’ll all watch as he leaves the wilderness that’s been his home, $500,000 richer and crying with joy.

HBO has remastered The Wire in full-frame 16:9 HD and it will be released December 26th on HBO GO. From the press release:

The entire series has been beautifully re-mastered in 16×9 Full-Frame HD from more than 8,000 reels of original 35mm camera negative, allowing for a tighter fit on widescreen TVs and computer/tablet screens. The original negatives were scanned, edited, dust-busted and color-corrected with great care and attention taken to stay true to the look and feel of the original Standard-Definition 4:3 version.

And fear not, HD snobs, David Simon was involved in the process. He writes long here about the care that was given to scenes that were originally composed for the 4×3 format. Trade-offs were made, sure, but the transfer was not done haphazard.

There were many scenes in which the shot composition is not impaired by the transfer to 16:9, and there are a notable number of scenes that acquire real benefit from playing wide. An example of a scene that benefits would be, say, from the final episode of season two, when an apostolic semicircle of longshoremen forms around the body of Frank Sobotka. Fine as far as it goes, but the dockworkers are all that much more vulnerable, and that much more isolated by the death of their leader when we have the ability to go wider in that rare crane shot.

But there are other scenes, composed for 4:3, that lose some of their purpose and power, to be sure. An early example that caught my eye is a scene from the pilot episode, carefully composed by Bob, in which Wee Bey delivers to D’Angelo a homily on established Barksdale crew tactics. “Don’t talk in the car,” D’Angelo reluctantly offers to Wee Bey, who stands below a neon sign that declares, “burgers” while D’Angelo, less certain in his standing and performance within the gang, stands beneath a neon label of “chicken.”

That shot composition was purposed, and clever, and it works better in the 4:3 version than when the screen is suddenly widened to pick up additional neon to the left of Bey. In such a case, the new aspect ratio’s ability to acquire more of the world actually detracts from the intention of the scene and the composition of the shot. For that reason, we elected in the new version to go tighter on the shot in order to maintain some of the previous composition, albeit while coming closer to our backlit characters than the scene requires. It is, indeed, an arguable trade-off, but one that reveals the cost of taking something made in one construct and recasting it for another format.