I wrote a piece yesterday saying that there will never be another show like Andor within the Star Wars universe, based on budget, talent, double season greenlighting, 12 episodes seasons and a host of other reasons. But as we all say farewell to the show (and subsequently watch Rogue One one more time), it’s nice to see that Andor has set a rating record that will be hard to beat. (Spoilers follow)
Not in terms of viewership, albeit Andor season 2 has seemingly done better than season 1 in that regard, but this is user rating, and Andor is now the only show in IMDB history to have five episodes in a row rated over a 9.5/10. That would be:
- Season 2, Episode 8: Who Are You? – 9.8
- Season 2, Episode 9: Welcome to the Rebellion – 9.7
- Season 2, Episode 10: Make It Stop – 9.6
- Season 2, Episode 11 – Who Else Knows? – 9.5
- Season 2, Episode 12 – Jedha, Kyber, Erso – 9.7
So those are obviously the last five episodes in the series. In order those ones are:
- The massacre at Ghorman, the highest rated one.
- The Mon Mothma speech and escape episode.
- The one-woman Kleya infiltration to kill Luthen after he’s captured.
- Cassian’s rescue and extraction of Kleya on Coruscant.
- The grand finale that may not have been as action packed, but is the emotional finish and direction connection to Rogue One.
I was trying to think of what other shows might compete with this record. A series like Breaking Bad has an overall 9.5 rating to Andor’s 8.5, but it doesn’t have that string of 9.5+, It has four in a row, including the finale and the famed, perfect-scored Ozymandias episode. Chernobyl is close, but has 9.3 and 9.4 episodes out of five.
If Episode 11 eventually dips down below 9.5, Andor would lose this record, but everyone is so high on the finale right now, I doubt that will happen. Does this mean Andor is one of the greatest shows of all time? That’s sort of a personal question, but it’s easily the best Disney+ show, it could in fact be the best-sci fi show, and I mean, it’s up there, more generally. But that’s for you to decide.
Everyone is moving on. Tony Gilroy isn’t returning. The show’s surprising champion, Kathleen Kennedy is leaving Lucasfilm. Disney is not going to spend $600 million on another series. So we just have Andor. And maybe that’s enough.
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