‘The Bad Batch’ Will Release May 4th
It was around this time last year that the final season of The Clone Wars was airing on Disney+. One of the arcs of the season featured a squad of elite clone troopers known as The Bad Batch. Some predicted that the characters would get their own spin-off series, and that was confirmed months later. Since then, we have seen a trailer showing that the series will begin around the time that the events of Revenge of the Sith take place.
Now, we finally have a series premiere date. The first episode of The Bad Batch will come out on May the 4th, a day that is very meaningful to Star Wars fans. In fact, it will be the one-year anniversary of when The Clone Wars aired its final episode, "Victory and Death." The second episode of The Bad Batch will come out on Friday May 7th. The announcement on StarWars.com continues:
"Subsequent episodes will premiere on Fridays. The series follows the elite and experimental troopers of Clone Force 99 (first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars) as they find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the Clone War. Members of Bad Batch, as they prefer to be called — a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army — each possess a singular exceptional skill, which makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew."
As we got closer to spring, it seemed to make sense that the series would premiere on May 4th. Marvel's WandaVision has been "the thing" for Disney+ lately. That will be ending on March 5th, with a documentary about the show coming out on March 12th. March 19th will see the premiere of the next MCU show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which will have six episodes total and have its finale on April 23th. If it follows the trend, it could be followed up by a documentary of its own on April 30th. With this being the case, everything lines up pretty well.
The StarWars.com announcement does not detail how many episodes the season of The Bad Batch will have. If we infer that it has 12 episodes like The Clone Wars season 7 did, then the finale would be July 16th. This is speculation, of course. For all we know, there could end up being more than 12 episodes of this weekly series.
The upcoming animated series is expected to delve into how clone troopers deal with their purposes in the immediate aftermath of the Clone Wars. This era has been explored in a lot of different places, but it should be unique getting the perspectives of these particular troopers, who themselves have their own air of mystery. The characters who seemed like archetypes or stereotypes initially could potentially get more depth within their own spin-off series. Only time will tell just how well the show deals with its characters.
Source(s): StarWars.com