The End of The Mandalorian is the Beginning of the Star Wars Streaming Universe

 The Mandalorian Season 2 has ended on a surprise SERIES finale. The word "series" might be a point of contention here. Yes, The Mandalorian will get a Season 3- however for all intents and purposes the story of Din Djarin the Mandalorian who travels the galaxy with little Grogu in tow is finished. What comes next... is going to look quite different.

A live action Star Wars series was always a long shot. How could you possibly take the concepts of space battles, lightsaber duels and the Heroes Journey and jam pack it into the format of a weekly drama? The answer is that you can't. Lucas tried for half a decade to figure it out. He had some of the biggest names in science fiction write over one hundred scripts. But at the end of the day it could not be done.

Directors of the Mandalorian Seasons 1 & 2

Disney was able to bring Star Wars to television successfully with the following caveat (psst, it's not television). The Mandalorian, it turns out, is a mini-series on a streaming service. Remember that streaming does not have the same restraints as TV. There are no commercial breaks. There is no set episode length. The budget can allow for big special effects by curtailing the runtime of an episode down to 30 minutes.

Furthermore, Star Wars probably can't work as a "problem-of-the-week" kind of show. It's a Space Opera. It needs a heroes journey and you aren't going to milk 20+ annual episodes out of a heroes journey. The Mandalorian was already starting to feel formulaic after the first 15 episodes, so it's not surprising that the story had to wrap up with the 16th episode. 

The path of Din Djarin

And the finale episode of this miniseries doesn't just wrap up The Mandalorian as we know it, it also sets up... an extended universe of many more miniseries.

In a year from now The Mandalorian will continue in name only. However, when it continues it will have a big asterisk in the form of a subtitle: "The Book of Boba Fett". Holy Force! The Mandalorian Season 3 is going to be centered on a different Mandalorian. Or perhaps "The Book of Boba Fett is a different show all together and the Mandalorian title will just be put on ice for a while.  

Regardless of  how The Book of Boba Fett is ultimately defined, we know it is going to be airing alongside of at least two other mini-series: "Ahsoka" and "The Rangers of the New Republic". We are told that these three shows will end in an epic crossover event finale.

This only highlights the fact that Disney is not producing Star Wars TV. It's producing a handful (or several handfuls) of mini-series each designed to last somewhere between 6 - 16 episodes.

As for Din & Grogu- these characters will almost certainly be sidelined as fans are subjected to the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Casian Andor, Ahsoka Tano, Lando Calrissian, Boba-Fett, and probably a dozen other shows centered around a dozen other legacy characters. 

"The Book of Boba Fett" announced the day after the death of original Fett actor Jeremy Bulloch

And yet we have Din & Grogu and their magical 16 episode story-arc to thank for launching this Star Wars Streaming Universe. Who knew that pairing a non-clone version of Boba Fett with a baby version of Yoda would be so effective?