Entombed (The Bad Batch - S02E05) - Animated Series

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"You're just making this up as you go!" SPOILERS.

Yet another pointless adventure awaits us

I will try to make it short and painless this week. "Entombed" is yet another perfectly average, mediocre, pointless stand-alone adventure. Only difference this week is that instead of Cid ordering the Bad Batch around and sending them on some wild goose chase it's new character Phee Genoa, voiced by Wanda Sykes, who takes the Bad Batch on a wild goose chase that results in exactly: nothing at all. What we get is a Star Wars version of Indiana Jones basically. Only less fun and without the charm.

This could literally be a screenshot from the episode

Omega finds some doodad in a junk yard. Phee Genoa determines that the artifact is some kind of compass that points to a planet with potential treasure. So treasure hunting we go. The Bad Batch find a structure on said planet, then there are riddles and booby traps, Phee Genoa finds the golden idol (some alien artifact instead, of course), removes it from its pedestal, which in turn activates something. Some old war machine it turns out.

Imagine a Horizon Zero Dawn Tallneck, only with a Death Star Laser attached to the head

Now the Bad Batch desperately try to find a way to disable the war machine. It turns out there is a convenient socket placed in the control room of the machine and the alien doodad needs to be inserted to deactive the machine. Tech wittingly remarks that this puts them at 0 for 2 for treasure hunting and off we go. That's it.

All for nothing, as usual

"Entombed" was a very odd episode. First, let's briefly talk about the new character voiced by Wanda Sykes. Why does this character even exist? What's her purpose? All she is is Cid 2.0, she gives the Bad Batch silly nicknames like Cid, she orders them around like Cid and sends them on pointless adventures like Cid, all things Cid already does. So why do we need two Cids now? What is the point here? Replace Phee Genoa with Cid and literally nothing would change about this episode. This is just puzzling. Why add a new character that is the same as an already existing character? Was Cid's voice actress not available for some reason so they came up with replacement Cid? It makes no sense.

The Indiana Jones inspired adventure is ok-ish, who doesn't enjoy a good archeological mystery and treasure hunt, right? However, the episode never really does anything with any of that. It's basically the first 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only without any of the plot that follows. We never learn anything about who built the machine, we never learn anything about what really happened on the planet (a war, sure, but who and why?), in fact, the entire episode is mostly just action again with no actual plot.

Once more the episode is not "bad", young kids certainly can have fun here, the treasure hunt itself is fine, but the series is getting very tired and it keeps treading water with nothing, literally nothing at all, happening week after week after week. So far we had one episode that was actually relevant. The other four episodes can easily be skipped and are ultimately forgettable. You'd miss out on nothing.

Now, if you have 30 minutes extra time to burn and you're bored, you can certainly watch "Entombed", but I still don't think that this should be what a Star Wars series is about, killing time.

If things don't change very soon I fear this series is a lost cause and simply not worth the time. If I did not review it I would probably stop watching now, only checking out the episodes with either Crosshair or Rex to see if something of interest happens. As things are though most of the time nothing happens, the Bad Batch drift aimlessly through the season with no direction. And the wild goose chases never result in anything, like credits or treasure or relevant plot developments. Everything is just utterly pointless. And while kids won't be bothered by it adults will realize how derivative everything has become. Last week it was Ben Hur, now it's Indiana Jones in space with some designs borrowed from a video game. Star Wars used to be creative and on the forefront of things. At this point a series with the female Star Wars version of Indy, Dr Aphra, would make more sense probably.

So if you have really nothing better to do you can certainly watch "Entombed". It won't hurt your brain. It's just so painfully average and mediocre and therefore utterly forgettable. It's just yet more content for a streaming service. Star Wars should be more.