Ahsoka

Essential within its own thread and close to unwatchable cold. This is the sequel to Rebels: it resolves that show's final cliffhanger, continues its plot, and reintroduces four of its characters as though you already know them. A viewer arriving from the films will spend eight episodes being told that people they have never met are important.

With that behind you it is a strange and often beautiful programme. Dave Filoni directs it at a deliberately slow pace, with long silences and a mythic register, and it is much less interested in plot momentum than anything else in the live-action era. The sequence between Ahsoka and her old master in a space between worlds is the most ambitious thing the franchise has attempted on television.

Rosario Dawson plays the title character as subdued almost to the point of absence, which is a choice that divides people, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo's Sabine carries much of the emotional load. Ray Stevenson's Baylan Skoll, in one of his last roles, is the most interesting new character the Disney era has produced: a fallen Jedi looking for something he will not name.

Thrawn's return is the point the whole thing is building toward and it is handled well. Watch Rebels first. There is no version of this that works otherwise.