The sixth and last season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, entitled “The Lost Missions”, just premiered on Netflix. As the final season of the excellent series it’s a shortened one with 13 episodes as opposed to the usual 22. The purchase by Disney brought about the cancellation of the series and the creative team led by Dave Filoni has moved onto the upcoming series called Star Wars Rebels.

This sixth season has four story arcs which begin with a very interesting storyline about a clone trooper named Tup that suddenly attacks and kills his commanding Jedi general. His fellow clone trooper named Fives (Dee Bradley Baker) investigates what caused this violent behavior and uncovers a conspiracy going back to the creation of the clone army in their birthplace planet Kamino and the Sith Lord Darth Sidious (Tim Curry). This story, as well as others in this season, lead directly to events in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of the Sith, which makes this season a very good send off for the show.

The next story arc involves Senator Padme Amidala (Catherine Taber) and an old flame named Clovis who gets involved with political intrigue involving the Banking Clan as well as Sith Lords Sidious and Count Dooku (Corey Burton). While this may not sound very exciting, these episodes actually show how Palpatine further consolidated his control over the Republic and also have both Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter) and Padme questioning the nature of their secret marriage.

The third story arc features everyone’s favorite Gungan Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) and Jedi Knight Mace Windu (Terence ‘T.C.’ Carson) trying to solve a mystery involving a planet where its spiritual leaders are disappearing and dealing with a prophecy about darkness taking over the galaxy. These two episodes were good although not quite as significant to the overall story of the Clone Wars as compared to the other arcs.

The last batch of episodes deals with the Jedi trying to find out about the murdered Jedi Sifo-Dyas and Yoda (Tom Kane) being contacted from beyond the grave by Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), who shows him how he can continue to exist after death. Qui-Gon has him travel to a world that is the origin of the Force itself and face his worst fears. This references a scene in Revenge of the Sith where Yoda tells Obi-Wan Kenobi that he has discovered the secret of existing in the Force after death. It is a great way for Star Wars: The Clone Wars to end, with Yoda knowing that while the Clone Wars may end badly, there will be a way for the Jedi to continue on.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars was in the middle of production when it was cancelled, but the last season is one of the strongest in the series. The quality of these episodes shows that even at the end the writers still came up with very interesting ideas and perhaps the shortened run prevented any weaker episodes from coming up. Overall, Star Wars: The Clone Wars will go down as first rate Star Wars action and drama that did justice to its cinematic counterparts. Hopefully the upcoming Star Wars Rebels series will continue this trend.

C.S. Link