…I like Omega because (with all due respect to Dee Bradley Baker who does ALL of the clone trooper voices) the actress is Michelle Ang, a New Zealand actor and that’s a real Kiwi accent, and (for me, anyway) that’s just great to hear 
I expected this to be a ~30 min episode so I was going to watch it last night. Saw how long it was going to be and I was to tired to watch the whole thing so I will put it in my (mental) queue.
Brian
Well, to be fair, the clones aren’t actually from New Zealand, of course. They’re from Space New Zealand, I guess. It does lead to the question of where they get their accent from. The Kaminoans have an “American”-ish accent. Jango Fett had a Kiwi accent because the actor is actually from New Zealand, but why would his clones have it? Are accents genetic in the Star Wars universe? And why do the clones have fake Kiwi accents? Genetic drift or mutation in the genes that control the accent phenotype? And does that mean that Omega for some reason got an uncorrupted version of that gene sequence?
(To be clear, these are not serious questions, and I realize trying to rationalize how accents work in the Star Wars universe is a fool’s errand.)
Can we get ruling on spoilers for this thread: boxed or unboxed?
I watched it last night. Overall, I liked it.
I liked Omega. I knew she was a clone almost immediately. Obviously some sort of “final” experiment.
The character development of the Bad Batch is looking favorable. There’s lots of good stories to get out of them. I’m hoping we can see more of Omega’s Kaminoan mentor. And also Tarkin. When does he get promoted to Grand Moff?
I’m hoping we’ll get to see a grown-up Omega in one of the live-action series. Real potential in that character, if the writers are competent.
I can’t really give a ruling, but as the OP I’d say that unboxed spoilers should be fine. Boxed at posters’ discretion, if something really twisty comes up, of course. I’ll flag this post and ask for a mod to add “Unboxed Spoilers” or such to the thread title.
Modding: Done, we usually use [Open Spoilers] for unboxed spoilers, so I went with that.
The same place anyone does. Their environment. The NZ accent is learned from the other clones they (acceleratedly) grow up with on Kamino. And though the Kaminoans in the animated series are American, in the movie Attack Of The Clones they were played by a Kiwi (Rena Owen) and an Aussie (Anthony Phelan).
It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
I did watch episode 2 as well – don’t remember Cut and I feel I should.
Brian
Cut Lawquane was a clone trooper deserter that Captain Rex met back in Season 2 of The Clone Wars in an episode called The Deserter. I don’t recall Rex spending all that much time with the Bad Batch, or discussing the incident in particular with anyone else, but I guess it’s just assumed it happened at some point.
Thanks – season 2 was a long time ago. I started watching on netflix, then stopped (for at least 2 years) then picked up in Disney.
Brian
I’m guessing when his minions have minions of their own, in their downline, as it were.
I haven’t seen the show yet. I presume that now he’s just a regular Moff so far, yes?
No, in the first episode, he’s still a mere Admiral. Of course, the first episode begins just before Order 66, so when Tarkin appears, the Galactic Empire has literally just been established. The position of “Moff” probably hasn’t even been established yet.
Tarkin was a Governor on Rebels before he left to go be promoted so I would guess his last appearance here will be him leaving to take that promotion.
Can someone who never saw anything of the other animated Star Wars dive right in, or will we be hopelessly lost and frustrated by fan service items that leave us as not in on the jokes?
H’m. Dunno. Considering it’s set just as the Clone Wars series was ending, and it has a lot of characters who were at least briefly in that series, maybe not. It is pretty much a continuation of the history, starting at the point and showing the transition from Republic to Empire.
Maybe give the first episode of Bad Batch a shot. It’s an hour and a quarter, so at worst, you’ve wasted that much time.
I’d certainly recommend watching the Clone Wars series, by the way; it’s got some ropy episodes, but overall it’s pretty good, and in many instances great.
I’ve seen the other animations, but at the same time, my memory is shit. I hardly remember anything about them and I’m enjoying watching Bad Batch.
The story so far is easy enough to follow.
There’s a narrator at the beginning of each episode that breaks everything down for you.
Were you one of the folks bothered by the fan service stuff in season 2 of Mandalorian? Because it’s basically that, but more so.
I was bothered when the fan service ONLY worked as fan service and failed as entertainment otherwise. Some of the fan service was like that and some was not.
So far I am sure I am missing tons of references meant for those familiar with the other series, but this works well enough standing alone, for what it is. (Yes some of the characters are two dimensional and cartoonish … but they are two dimensional cartoons so deep characters are not expected!)
So, I thought that Clone Wars was really up and down. I thought the clone trooper episodes were some of the best Star Wars stuff around, in any medium, while the droid episodes were generally unwatchable. The Bad Batch is a spin-off that’s nothing but clone troopers. Yay! Except, somehow, we still got a droid episode. To be fair, I didn’t think this episode was unwatchable, since the droids were only in a few scenes as “comic relief”, but still…
Overall, I’m kind of disappointed with the series. It just isn’t very engaging, at least for me. The characters all seem like hollow archetypes, without real personalities or development. I realize, it’s kind of hard for the writers, they’re all literal clones, but I thought Clone Wars actually did a pretty good job with various clone troopers as characters. Of course, that series had the advantage of being able to go back and forth with episodes focused on non-clone characters, and giving the clones other, non-clone main characters to interact with. But I’m still finding the Bad Batch just kind of dull.
I’m also finding The Bad Batch as a series kind of dull. I thought the premise was supposed to be them acting as mercenaries and adventurers in a changing Galaxy as the last vestiges of the old order crumbles and the Empire rises, which seems like it might be interesting. Instead, they’re just kind of…wandering around. And not really doing much of anything.
We’ve gotten a lot of focus on the institution of the chain code, which seems like a totally unnecessary elaboration of an off-hand plot device from The Mandalorian. It also doesn’t really jibe with how it’s presented in that show, where it seems like a well-established universal identification used even in the Outer Rim and the underworld, not an Imperial scheme that was only recently instituted.
Other than that, though, we’ve seen remarkably little of the rise of the Empire. And so far, it doesn’t even seem like a bad thing, other than Tarkin trying to kill Our Heroes. It doesn’t seem like a good thing, either. Which is actually worse, dramatically. It’s just kind of…there.
And, personally, I’m finding Omega to an Annoying Kid, and worse, an Annoying Kid Who Constantly Needs To Be Rescued. She seems to mainly be a ham-handed plot device. Although, I thought “Snips” was similarly annoying when she first appeared in Clone Wars, but Ahsoka developed into probably the best character in the series, so maybe the writers will eventually figure out something more interesting to do with Omega. Maybe. I hope they do it soon.
The Mandalorian is set something like 30 years after Bad Batch.