Highlights
- Despite a strong start and impressive debut, Star Wars: Ahsoka ended its first season on a less impressive note, experiencing a 40% drop in viewership compared to The Mandalorian's third-season finale.
- Ahsoka's reliance on prior knowledge of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels made it less welcoming to new fans, resulting in a decline in viewership as the series progressed.
- Despite the drop in viewership, Ahsoka still resonated with older fans who appreciated the show's animated roots and callbacks to Star Wars lore, showing that the series is in good hands with Dave Filoni.
Despite Star Wars: Ahsoka getting a tremendous start with a stellar two-part debut on Disney Plus, recent analytics suggest the show ended on a far less impressive note despite pulling out all the stops for its first season.
Star Wars: Ahsoka had the groundwork laid for it by leading lady Rosario Dawson portraying the titular character’s live-action debut on The Mandalorian and its spinoff, The Book of Boba Fett. The Ahsoka characters and plotlines took a lot of inspiration from the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, and Dawson's take on Ahsoka had an unlikely inspiration from an iconic fantasy character. The show was a success on its debut, pulling in more views than any other Star Wars show on the streamer.
Ahsoka's New Enemy Type Could Be Great Fodder in a Star Wars Game
The new enemies introduced during the final few episodes of Ahsoka would make for some unrelenting foes in a Star Wars video game.
In a recent post on social media, SambaTV delivered disappointing news through an infographic highlighting the Ahsoka finale's viewership numbers. The post reads, “The finale of #Ahsoka landed on #DisneyPlus last week to 863k US households watching. Older millennials tuned in at the highest rate to watch whether #Thrawn made it off Peridea. #SambaTVInsights #AhsokaTano #StarWars.” This means that despite the Ahsoka premiere beating The Mandalorian season 3's kickoff, the spin-off show ended the season down by 40% compared to the latter show's third-season finale.
This was a major viewership loss for Ahsoka, which debuted on Disney Plus with 1.2 million households and then proceeded to ramp up the fan attraction with live-action debuts and callbacks in each new episode, ending on a high note by debuting an iconic location in live-action for the Ahsoka finale. While the viewership numbers are not terrible, the downward trend indicates how many fans dropped off throughout the show’s first season. While The Mandalorian was much more well-worn and started its third season with less fanfare than Ahsoka, it drew an audience of 1.4 million households within the first few days of its final episode being on the streamer.
With the season in the rearview, it is now undeniable that Ahsoka was not welcoming to new fans as previously promised by Dawson, with every major plot point and set piece in the series so far requiring knowledge of and emotional investment in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels to understand or fully appreciate. Considering that drawback, Ahsoka was almost destined to see a falloff in viewership as the weeks wore on and the show inched closer to the big events that longtime fans (and them alone) had been waiting to see in live action for years. Despite bringing a splendid cast together and faithfully adapting the source material, Star Wars: Ahsoka failed by doing all this too well.
Despite this disappointing news, Ahsoka left a lasting impression on older fans who were in step with the show’s animated roots and callbacks to expansive Star Wars lore. If nothing else, the season was a treat for those in the know. Ahsoka proved The Mandalorian movie is in good hands with Dave Filoni, who showed love and understanding for the franchise that is uncommon even among the most dedicated showrunners.
Star Wars: Ahsoka is currently available for streaming on Disney Plus.
Source: SambaTV/Twitter