Here's the Best Way To Watch Star Wars: Andor (And It's Not the Way You Think)
By now you may be hearing the buzz: Star Wars' newest TV series Andor is being called some of the best content the franchise has produced – if not one of the best TV series of 2022. Even as Andor continues getting the same kind of praise as the most prestigious TV series out there, it still needs a boost in viewership to put it on the level of popularity as The Mandalorian or Obi-Wan. However, Disney and Lucasfilm have admittedly not done the best job of informing viewers what kind of show Andor is, or how they should watch it. So we're picking up the slack:
Here's the best way to watch Star Wars: Andor – And it's not the way you may think!
Andor Season 1 Story Arcs Explained
Andor Season 1 is 12 episodes long, by showrunner Tony Gilroy and his team of writers and directors chose to break those episodes into smaller story arcs, averaging about 3 episodes long. What this basically means is that Andor is a show that defies both models of streaming TV that fans are familiar with: weekly episode releases or binge-watch releases of entire seasons at once.
Here is the unofficial non-spoiler breakdown of Andor's story arcs by episode:
- Recruitment Arc – Episodes 1-3
- Heist Arc – Episodes 4-6
- Prison Arc – Epsidoes 7-10
- Finale Arc – Episodes 11 – 12
What's the Best Way to Watch Andor Episodes?
The best way to watch Andor Episodes is by taking out time to watch a complete "block" or "arc." Since the runtime of each arc can be anywhere from 30-60 minutes, making each arc about the length of a movie. The advantage with Andor is that episode breaks give you a good way to "pause" or "break" if that feature-film runtime is too long.
Andor is NOT A Binge Show
The multi-episode arcs of Andor also mean that viewers who are waiting for the show to be finished airing weekly episodes – in order to do their usual "binge it all" runs – may be sorely misguided. Andor is not a binge show, by any stretch; it is too dense and actually requires deep focus on scenes of character interaction and dialogue – not to mention some really high tension. Too much of that in one sitting gets tedious, even for the biggest fans.
"Binging" Andor in more digestible episode blocks and story arcs is great way to get enough but not too much of the show. It also means that jumping into Andor is something that everyone can do right now. At the time of writing this, Andor has only Episode 12 (the finale) left to air. It would be a great message to Disney if the Andor Finale came with a big swell in viewership.
Where Can I Watch Andor?
Andor only streams on DIsney+. Andor will also air on Disney TV channels including ABC, FX and Freeform, and Hulu, from November 23rd – 25th.
