I used to think I was unreasonably harsh on Disney’s attempts at live-action Star Wars because I didn’t like any of it. Then I watched Andor and saw what a legitimately good Star Wars TV show looked like. I’d rather not go back to the old normal. But despite its attempts to pretend otherwise in the two episodes provided by Disney+ ahead of the series premiere, the old normal is exactly what Ahsoka represents. Unless you’re a Rebels fan dying to follow up on that cliffhanger from the series finale, there’s no reason to watch this show.
Ahsoka begins with a pair of villainous Force users–Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati–invading a New Republic Cruiser to rescue a one-off villain from Season 2 of The Mandalorian named Morgan Elsbeth. As we learned back then, Elsbeth knows something about the location of the missing Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, and they imply that somebody (it’s not said who) paid these Force-wielders to rescue Elsbeth and help with her quest to bring him back.
Coincidentally, in the very next scene we see Ahsoka Tano reenact the opening credits of Guardians of the Galaxy, but more boringly and without dancing–she visits some kind of ancient archaeological site in the middle of nowhere on some nothing planet to recover a magical orb, after which she is immediately confronted by and has to fight some baddies who work for the main villain. This orb contains the map to Thrawn, who may or may not be in a different galaxy. So Ahsoka reconvenes with surviving characters from Rebels, Hera Syndulla, and Sabine Wren, and the race to Thrawn is on.