ST Countdown to Episode IX: The Watch Along Thread!

This episode showcases Anakin's cleverness as a tactician and warrior, and I like that a lot.

I honestly prefer this relationship to the one we got in the films.

And episode over!

 

When do we start Hidden Ennemy?

 

I really liked both of these episodes. Cat and Mouse was a fun space battle that shows Anakin as a skilled tactician. I found Trench to be a good match for Anakin and it's fun watching them try to out maneuver each other. I love framing this as an attempt to break a Separatist blockade and deliver supplies to Bail Organa. Hidden Enemy is another fun episode. I like the plot of a clone traitor which allows them to show clones opposing being forced to fight for the Republic. It also allows them to begin showing the clones as individuals. Both of these are common threads throughout the show and are a great addition to the story. I love seeing Ventress, TCW handles her very well and makes her a very interesting character. In both these episodes, Anakin and Obi-Wan are handled well. They have some great interactions. We don't see much of their friendship, but what these episodes shows is good. Both episodes also do very well at showing the Separatists as a threat. They come across as competent and they illustrate how B1s can be dangerous.

I'd give these episodes as 10. It's kind of arbitrary, but I enjoyed them and don't have complaints. Watching these early episodes makes me want a book taking place between them and AOTC. I'd love to see the first weeks of the war, Anakin becoming a knight, and the first encounters with Ventress

 

I believe I am correct in saying that Cat and Mouse is chronologically the first onscreen canon appearance of Anikan’s second lightsaber, the one that was passed on to Luke and later taken up by Rey. Just a random realization.

I thought maybe his second lightsaber might be visible in Attack of the Clones during the wedding with Padme, but I’m looking at the scene and the costumes used for it and not spotting it.

 

Cat&Mouse is one of my favorite episodes of TCW. The space combat is fantastic and Admiral Trench is a great villain.

 

I have a hard time rating TCW episodes relative to the films because they’re such different media, for different audiences, different budgets, etc. So my giving a 7 for a TCW episode may not mean I liked it better than a feature film I would rate at 5. Just getting that out of the way for all the TCW episodes ratings I’ll be doing.

I remember hearing a rumor that Trench was originally intended to be Thrawn, but there was either a rights issue or a higher up not giving permission, but I don’t know for sure.

My wife pointed out that in Cat and Mouse, it kind of felt unfinished. Like there was supposed to be a B plot with Spark, a “ah, now you’re part of the team!” growth, but it kind of doesn’t go anywhere and I don’t know that he even shows up again throughout the series. Pacing for the episode was slow for me, and the animation wasn’t quite to the quality that TCW would later attain. Good moments of dialogue, good demonstration of the Kenobi/Skywalker dynamic, and some cool space battle moments. I give about a 3.

But Hidden Enemy I rank much higher. More tension, more character, setting the stage for the counternarrative to the war that kind of defined the series—the first hint that the war is maybe wrong, that there’s something sinister at play, vaguely, that isn’t reflected in the seemingly clear Republic = Good and CIS = Bad narrative. Slick’s “Jedi coming back” slip seemed too easy to me, but it is that kind of slip up that does catch a lot of people trying to cover lies IRL. I kept wanting Obi Wan and Anakin to bottleneck the droids in the north building, and I thought it really weird a tactical droid was physically leading the attack—seemed like mostly a device to make sure they figured out there was a traitor. Loved the mock-flirting between Ventress and Kenobi, more Skywalker/Kenobi brotherhood development. Good pacing, the B1s were actually intimidating in their silent and relentless advance, good building of tension, good payoff, good setup for the CW film. I give it a 7.

So I guess since we need to rank both together ... averages to 5?

 

I give both of these episodes a 10/10.

As @Darth Chiznuk says, I like the submarine combat feel of Cat and Mouse.

It was interesting to see how deep they were willing to go with this show, with a Clone traitor storyline, in The Hidden Enemy.

 

8/10

Both are great episodes and some of my favourites from the early seasons.

Cat & Mouse has a great villain (wish we had seen more of him) and shows Anakin's abilities as a battlefield commander. Its also nice to see Bail doing what later will be done by his (and Anakin's) daughter in the age of the Empire.

Though I find it weird that despite the fact that everybody constantly keeps mentioning how "this ship is too small to have a cloaking device", we never actually see the proper sized ship with a cloaking device in SW. From the dialogue in the episode, it sounds like they are (or were) cruisers with cloaking capabilities out there. Why is nobody using them during TCW and the Rebellion then? And what is this battle with a corporate fleet Yularen mentioned that happened years before TCW? Why hasn't that appeared in some comic or novel yet?!

Hidden Enemy is our first canon appearance of Ventress and she apparently already personally knows both Obi-Wan and Anakin.

I like the whole story with the clone defector. It shows that at least some clones were smart enough to realize that they are just slaves and tried to do something about it. I wonder what happened to him. Probably discarded for spare "parts" for the other clones. And the reaction of the Jedi? Completely disappointing. Especially from Anakin. I would have thought that as a former slave himself, Anakin would have had more sympathy.

Btw, do we have any official canon info on how much time has passed between the AOTC and Cat & Mouse? When was Anakin knighted? And how did he get his scar?

 

That's what happen's when a good screewriter makes the effort the write Jar Jar properly. He can finaly be what he was always meant to be: a lovalble screwup with a heart of gold.