With only 3 episodes left before the season 1 (or potentially the series) finale, "Infestation" felt like a bit of a let down. Following the brilliant Ryloth 2-part arch, and Crosshair's vendetta seemingly on the verge of coming to a head, it feels like a step backwards to drop such a standalone episode into this slot in the season. That's not to say the episode itself is bad, it's fine, but in context with the rest of the season it certainly feels out of place. But I suppose that's nothing new with Star Wars animation as they've struggled with season long pacing since the beginning of 'The Clone Wars'. "Infestation", sees the squad return to Cid's parlour to find she's been ousted by a wannabee crime boss, and with a little persuading from Omega, they workout a plan with Cid to wrestle back control. Unfortunately, not everything goes as planned as they get entangled with the Pykes. Like I said, it's fine. Oh, and no Rachel this week as she's on vacation, so it's a Julian solo show, enjoy!

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Jan 16, 2025

SSSW - Skeleton Crew S1E8 "The Real Good Guys"

Well that's all folks! Well possibly anyway. We don't yet have official word on whether Disney and Lucasfilm will bring back 'Skeleton Crew' for another season. So as it stands, this is the story. Overall pretty great, and while we can gripe a bit about the lack of an epilogue to really tie up loose ends, on the whole this finale was satisfying. All four of the kids had an arch that felt complete and inclusion of the parents helped put a bow on that (despite Wendle largely still being an idiot). The episode had strong pacing, as none of the character centric moments felt rushed, though again, it could have maybe done with a few more minutes of run time to make sure that everyone got a fair shake. KB, for instance, got short shrift. The ending itself leaves a lot of story left to be told, and thankfully given it's placement in the timeline, even if we don't get a second season, there should be plenty of opportunity to pick up on some of the loose threads in future Star Wars projects. All in all, 'Skeleton Crew' is one of the strongest outings from Lucasfilm in awhile and it's our sincere hope that it represents a sign of what's to come from the recently maligned studio.

Jan 9, 2025

SSSW - Skeleton Crew S1E7 "We're Gonna Be in So Much Trouble "

Penultimate; everyone's favourite TV word. When it came to 'Game of Thrones', we became accustomed to this next-to-final episodes being a big splash, before a relatively calm finale. That tradition has carried forward into all sorts of different series but Star Wars has never been one to follow the trends. So here we are, 'Skeleton Crew' now only has one episode remaining, and the big question is, did this week's lead-up do enough work setup a satisfying conclusion. In our humble opinions, yes, but that's largely on the back of what is, standing alone, a pretty amazing 30 minutes of Star Wars fun. This episode is full of twists and unexpected turns that left us genuinely surprised. The big factor here though is of course Jod (Jude Law), who has now gone full heel, which has us concerned whether the show has the balls to commit to this turn or unwind it all in the last few moments. Either way, not knowing is part of the fun and as they proved this week there are certainly a lot of ways this show can go to stick the landing. Time will tell!

Jan 2, 2025

SSSW - Skeleton Crew S1E6 “Zero Friends Again”

After a very strong outing last week (maybe the best of the season!), which revealed the pirate lair and cracked the mystery wide open, 'Skeleton Crew' follows that up with the shortest episode so far, which provides neither much plot progression nor anything beyond overly simplistic character beats. Despite that, there is at least one extremely interesting reveal, that begs the question, "why wait this long to reveal this?". With now two episodes left to close out the season, and especially with this week really feeling like it was dedicated to setting up a bombastic finale, we can look forward to the kids meeting the pirate hoard back on At Attin very soon!

Dec 29, 2024

ToB Film Club/Christmas Special - The Family Man (2000) + Superman Trailer

Don’t let it be said that The Tower of Babble Podcast is not generous. Julian and Jeremy are in the giving spirit for the festive season, and in that spirit, they sat down on a wintery weekend morning to discuss in detail a Christmas movie that doesn't get enough attention, the Nicolas Cage vehicle, ‘The Family Man’. Both enjoyed this movie, mostly carried by the great performances, which seems to present a pretty clean moral message. But if you look a layer deeper (which the guys were happy to oblige) it reveals a pretty odd and mixed perspective on what it actually means to have an "ideal life". Luckily that tonal weirdness matches Cage's energy quite well, and ultimately creates a very enjoyable movie. But the ToB gifts don't stop there as your hosts shift gears to provide a bonus conversation around James Gunn's new ‘Superman’ teaser. Happy holidays everyone!

The Bad Batch S1E13 "Infestation"

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