Pretty much the only long-running scifi show that manages to avoid that trap is Doctor Who, since it essentially gets a soft reboot every few years when a new Doctor comes along. Still, every now and then the showrunner will build an episode around a character or alien race that appeared in one episode like 40 years ago and the audience will just be exptected to know who they are and how the Doctor knows them.
Doctor Who also benefits from having new companions, so the Doctor can explain the backstory when needed. (ETA: Also, they conveniently rewrite history every now and then, so the cannon of the past isn’t always quite accurate.)
I know I’ve missed a bunch of stuff in The Mandalorian, because I’ve only seen the main movies, and even then only partially paid attention. I enjoy the show, but learn more about what actually happened in this thread 
I’m also not a celebrity watcher, so I don’t notice most of the guest stars until I read someone pointing them out.
We live in an age where viewers either want all of the back story to be explained to them so they don’t get lost, or none of the back story to be explained to them so they can participate in figuring things out for themselves. This show has a lot of back story it can draw on, but it trusts the viewers to find things out on their own time, and if they don’t want to do that, then the story should speak for itself. Sure, there’s plenty of context that might be helpful, but it’s not necessary to understand what’s going on, it is all sufficiently explained if you are paying attention.
Before The Mandalorian I had little exposure to the Star Wars universe outside of the feature films. When one of those characters from Clone Wars or a video game showed up, my brain treated it the same as if I’d missed a previous episode and just dealt with it the same way it did in the bad old days before streaming and DVD collections. It makes watching the show quite similar to watching those old TV shows that I think it is paying homage to.
That’s the key clause.
If the story does not successfully speak for itself for those who haven’t done that (even if they may later) then it fails at a major level.
This season dropped the ball there many times, even with something as simple as assuming viewers had wasted their time with, I mean watched raptly, Boba Fett. Some in show way to explain why Grogu was back would not have been difficult. And I say that as someone who saw all of Boba Fett, waiting for payoffs that never came.
I do NOT expect Din to be killed off this finale, but his continuing to star in a show in which he rarely shows his face, as he has exploded as a star, does strike me as odd.
Have they gotten to point that there is someone else in the outfit under the helmet doing the scenes, and he just adds in the voice parts later?
Would the show runners admit to that?
Personally, I wouldn’t care if they did. I’m at best a C-grade Star Wars fan (all the movies in theaters, but only once; most of the live-action series, but only once, and none of the animated series or other media), but I was able to relate to R2D2 as an actual character despite his having no facial expression (and not even any spoken language, for that matter).
I don’t have a problem (any more than ancient Greek audiences did, btw) with the protagonist of The Mandalorian being just a guy in a mask, and it doesn’t really matter to me whether or not it’s the same guy wearing the mask and doing the voice.
It didn’t bother me that David Prowse was in the suit with James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader. Which is why I wonder. There’s no particular need for Pascal to be there live.
And according to some disneygoss whose accuracy I cannot vouch for, at least, he often isn’t.
And when they took off Vader’s mask, it wasn’t even Prowse underneath! Talk about a thankless job parading around in that black suit armour for all that time.
I’m sure I read somewhere that Pedro Pascal never set foot on the set of Book of Boba Fett. It was all stunt men, and he just recorded the dialogue later.
Edited to add: The two names that appear in the credits of every episode, Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, are the primary Mando doubles.
In the credits of every episode this season are two names: Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne. Both of them (they are stuntmen and actors both) have portrayed Din in the suit since it began. Season 2 had the most Pedro Pascal in the suit under the helmet (every episode for at least some of the time), but seasons 1 and 3 (and BOBF) had him almost never there. He was shooting The Last Of Us at the same time as 3, for example.
He should be more available for S4, if they have one, as I anticipate more helmetless scenes are in the character’s future.
Two things…Yes, the big beast should have been a Mythosaur because how much random mega-fauna does this blasted out planet need to have?
And two… Why was it anything? It was such a weird random and unneeded moment of fake danger. We didn’t need that moment.
Something needed to push them into fleeing into a cave. And, obviously, what better way to inspire cave flight than a subterranean, burrowing monster? I mean, if they had jetpacks or something, maybe they would have fled above the monster, out of their reach, but what is this, Star Trek?
By now, I think it’s been established that every planet in the Star Wars galaxy has some variety of kaiju living on it. They have the technology to destroy whole planets but can’t contain or eradicate dangerous beasties.
The tragic part of it all is that Prowse didn’t even know they were going to be dubbing over his lines until he saw the finished cut of A New Hope. He wasn’t even given the “No, I am your father” line in Empire - the script called for him to say “No, Obi-Wan killed your father,” and George Lucas whispered the actual line to Mark Hamill just before they filmed so that he could react appropriately.
On an unrelated note, here’s a clip from earlier this season in which Grogu is possibly attempting to say “This is the way.”
Thank God he didn’t try to say, “The way, this is.” Syntax is a weak spot in Jedi training.
It could last indefinitely if the writers decide to turn the planet into a sort of Tortuga in Space. Which would seem like a good candidate, given the planet’s status with the Republic is ambiguous to non-existent.
No it didn’t, thats where they were going in the first place!
Saw this pointed out elsewhere; the most recent episode was called “The Spies”, plural, but we only saw one actual spy. Meanwhile, Gideon knew that Bo-Katan had the Darksaber back, which presumably is something only the other Mandalorians would know about. Therefore, one of the Mandalorians must have betrayed them to Gideon.
Who could the spy be? Axe Woves is a possibility, since he’s presumably royally pissed about getting booted from his spot as head merc. I also wonder if the Armorer might be responsible and is using this whole “bring all the Mandalorians together” thing as a ruse to wipe out the Nite Owls who have strayed from the Way.
Guess we’ll find out on Tuesday night.