- Title: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew – This Could Be a Real Adventure
- wiki: link
After producing The Acolyte, what would become the most divisive Star Wars series (and one that I enjoyed for the most part), it appears Disney has retreated to more familiar territory. Skeleton Crew feels like a Disney Channel series with a Disney+ budget. The opening episode, “This Could Be a Real Adventure” introduces us to Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), his best-friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), and a pair of slightly older girls in Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) who, at least so far, is the only useful member of the foursome. Most of the premiere sticks with Wim giving us the basic dreamer/screwup son disappointing his father (Tunde Adebimpe) who isn’t a bad guy but far from a great dad.
While late for school one day, the Jedi-obsessed Wim discovers somethin buried at the edge of the forest which he mistakes for a Jedi Temple. Convincing the cautious Neel to explore, the pair are also joined by mean girl Fern, who overhears Wim speaking of the find, and the more useful KB. What they discover isn’t a temple but a spaceship that one repowered launches into unknown space in the final scene setting up the narrative of the show in the kids attempting to find their way back home over the remainder of the series.
Despite his statement to the contrary that Skeleton Crew is not a kid’s show, showrunner Jon Watts (who also directs the premiere) delivers what feels very much like a kid’s show with its misunderstanding parents and small childish rebellions. The only part of the show that feels a bit more grown up is completely separate opening involving pirates taking over a freighter only to discover that the ship has no credits as the crew quickly turns on the captain. It’s a bit of an odd way to launch a series where the rest of the episode doesn’t deal at all with space travel or piracy, but my guess is it was included to try and balance out the younger vibes of the Wim storyline and also foreshadow the trouble awaiting the kids in space.
