'Star Wars' Series Officially Coming to an End

After just three seasons, Disney/Lucasfilm has confirmed that a beloved Star Wars show is officially coming to an end.

Star Wars animation has turned out some of the franchise’s best projects, from the highly-praised Star Wars: The Clone Wars to Star Wars Rebels, to the more recent anthology series, Tales of the Jedi. Unlike their live-action counterparts, these shows, in most cases, have the benefit of getting longer, 20+ episode seasons, helping audiences become more invested in the characters and their stories over time.

Lucasfilm animation’s technology has only improved over the years, as well. The Clone Wars paved the way for many 3D animated TV shows, breaking creative boundaries with every new season. Sadly, most, if not all of Star Wars’ animated shows survive past their third or fourth season, aside from The Clone Wars, which even faced a cancellation of its own before Disney+ revived it for its seventh and final season.

Picking up on the open threads left by The Clone Wars, Star Wars: The Bad Batch continued to explore this era in the galaxy far, far away. The show first premiered on Disney+ in May 2021, and centers around a specialized group of mutant clones called “Clone Force 99.” Picking up immediately after the events of Order 66, the animated series follows the adventures of Hunter, Tech, Echo, and Wrecker (all voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) as they hide in the shadows of the Galactic Empire, and from ex-Bad Batcher, Crosshair.

After Crosshair pledges his loyalty to the Empire, the rest of the group find themselves being hunted after helping an unusual clone named Omega (Michelle Ang) escape the cloning facilities on Kamino. Now on the run from the Empire, the Bad Batch has to find a way to survive in a quickly-changing galaxy, all while bearing witness to a sinister cloning plot that threatens the lives of their “reg” brothers.

The Bad Batch‘s sophomore season ended with a bombshell revelation and a tragic conclusion for one of the show’s primary characters, Tech. And just weeks after airing the finale, Star Wars announced that the series would be coming to an end with its third and final season in 2024. Check out the official announcement below:

Just announced at #StarWarsCelebration:@StarWars: #TheBadBatch will return for a third and final season on @DisneyPlus in 2024. pic.twitter.com/3R2zSeMrKa

— Star Wars (@starwars) April 10, 2023

Exclusive footage released at this year’s Star Wars Celebration Europe gave fans a glimmer of hope, implying that The Bad Batch Season 3 will be coming soon. While the teaser has not been made public yet, the footage shown at the event reportedly showed Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and his guards visiting Mount Tantiss, declaring the facility’s importance and stressing how it must remain secure. Omega and Crosshair were also shown being experimented on, with Omega insisting that she’s “not giving up” on her brother.

There also seemed to be a shot of Commander Wolffe and fan-favorite Clone Commander Cody in The Bad Batch Season 3, the latter of which defected from the Empire in Season 2, Episode 3, “The Solitary Clone.” But perhaps the most exciting glimpse at a character was of bounty hunter Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), who fans first saw in live-action in The Mandalorian before she appeared in a Season 1 episode of The Bad Batch.

Additionally, a chase scene showed a Sarlacc-like creature grabbing the Batch’s ship, with Wrecker dropping a grenade in its mouth to make it let go and promptly stating, “Why is there always a huge monster?” Although the show has undoubtedly gotten dark in recent episodes, it’s refreshing to see that it still has its fair share of lighthearted moments.

It’ll be heartbreaking to say goodbye to Clone Force 99. However, if The Bad Batch series finale leads up to the inevitable conclusion that Palpatine cloned himself in the Sequel trilogy using the resources at Mount Tantiss, and we get to see a satisfying end for Clone Force 99, then why drag it on?

Animated storytelling is one of the franchise’s best assets, and for a reason: it’s efficient, contained, and ridiculously fun to watch. Lucasfilm seems well aware of this. Plus, The Mandalorian is exploring a similar cloning storyline. So, sad as it is, maybe it’s for the best that the series is ending on what will hopefully be a high note, quitting while they’re ahead.

It seems like the release of The Bad Batch Season 3 is coming sooner than expected, which will come as a relief to fans who are still reeling from the Season 2 finale. It’ll be interesting to see how the show decides to wrap everything up and if the series’ conclusion will deliver on giving these fan-favorite characters a much-deserved happy ending when it arrives on Disney+ next year.

Are you sad about Star Wars scrapping The Bad Batch after just three seasons? Let us know in the comments below.