Yes, it's another damn post about Andor

If it seems as that the world is broken into two factions: Those who have seen Andor and can't stop talking about it, and those who have not seen Andor and wish the first group would just please, please shut up ... You're not wrong. Put the word "Andor" into a search engine and see how many reviews and videos show up urging you to consume this Disney production. Note that I'm not asking you to actually watch all those reviews—not unless you need a hobby for the next decade. Just gawp at the sheer number.

As someone who considers themselves not just a science fiction writer, but a fan, here's a horrible admission: I never liked Star Wars. I don't just mean that I didn't like Jar Jar Binks, or the increasingly awful prequels and sequels. The original film just never quite grabbed me. Part of that was simply timing—I was too old to ever own a Darth Vader lunchbox—and part of it was that I had already seen the "chosen one" storyline played too often in books and films. Part of it, probably too much of it, was that Princess Leia looked a lot like a girlfriend with whom I'd recently had a bad breakup.

I watched many of the subsequent films and streaming series, and they sometimes generated a moment of amusement or admiration for the pure visual spectacle. But rarely did anything in Star Wars move me beyond the "meh" of that first impression.

Until Andor.

This is a series centered around a character who plays a secondary role in a spin-off prequel to the original film. That may sound like the basis for the nerdiest shit ever to hit a screen of any size, and if you've seen any of the other series Disney has foisted on the public over the last five years, you have very good reason to suspect that it's going to be awful.

But Andor is simply the best series I've watched in … honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of anything else that really compares. There are funnier programs. There are more violent programs. There are certainly programs that have stretched on far much longer than Andor's two seasons, heaping on many more characters and situations. However, I'm not sure that, hour for hour, anything really knocked me for the kind of emotional and intellectual one-two that this show delivered.

In part, that's because Andor touches me where I am—in an authoritarian regime where most people continue to behave as if they still live in the country they've always known.

There are no Jedi in Andor. The phrase "may the force be with you" is used exactly once. No farm kids show up, get handed a fighter craft despite zero training, and become heroes all in the same day. But the story does include undocumented immigrants being abused by sneering police, prisoners consigned for life over the most trivial offense, peaceful protests being used as a justification for state violence, propaganda from complaint media used to shape public opinion, and congress members lining up to sing the praises of a genocidal egomaniac.

Many reviews might suggest that Andor isn't really a Star Wars story, but that's doing it a disservice. This is the story of the people who are willing to admit that their freedom is gone. It's the story of the banality of evil, the death of truth, and the incredible cost of fighting an adversary that has every possible advantage. Star Wars is the story people tell themselves decades later. Andor is what happened.

This is just one monologue from a single character, but it shows that this is a program that understands the stakes of the conflict.

This speech perfectly defines the character of Luthen, but it doesn't describe the whole of Andor. This is one of those amazing works in which every character, every character, gets their own arc. That includes the bad guys, some of whom have particularly interesting—and particularly relevant—stories. In fact, one of the points of the show is that fascism eventually destroys everyone, including the fascists.

Please don't get the impression that this is one of those shows where the term "grim" or "gritty" is used as an excuse to cast every moment in darkness and answer every question with violence. It’s not that. It's also not a story that uses "morally complex" as an excuse for characters behaving erratically. It's better than that. It's realer. It's more painful ... and more hopeful. It is, even at its bleakest, a story about hope.

Oh, and Andor has female characters, on both sides of the line, who are as richly realized as any of the men. (I want to give a particular hat tip to Elizabeth Dulau, who plays Luthen's associate, Kleyi. This is her first professional acting role and she knocks it completely out of the park.)

I want you to see Andor. If you don't have Disney's streaming service and don't want to give them your dollars even for a month, I completely understand. I may not be willing to send you $10 so you can watch ... or am I? (No, my wife informs me that I am not.) I want you to see it in part because I think it's a moral masterpiece, and in part for the most selfish reason — so we can talk about it.

But hey, if you just don't want to. I understand. Sort of.

Let me give you one more video. This is a "manifesto" from a character only briefly seen in early episodes. Based on what we've already learned at that point, the character and his statements seem naive. But over the course of two seasons, his words spread, proving to be as important, maybe more important, than any victory on the battlefield. Here they are set against scenes from both Andor and the movie Rogue One.

What may be most impressive about Andor is that director and writer Tony Gilroy started working on this over a decade ago. For the second season alone, he wrote every single day for six years. The series shines because it was given time and attention to polish every moment. That time and polish show in the universality of the events in the series.

The last episode was in the can well before Donald Trump took office ... and still, every single note seems to be a riff on a story that came from this week's headlines. That's because Gilroy drew from history. And while history may not repeat, it certainly echoes.

And in Andor, it sings.