The Bad Batch has been delayed, but it’s still coming soon. Dave Filoni announced at the D23 event on Saturday that the second season of the animated series will premiere on Disney+ on January 4, 2023. The first two episodes will premiere on that date.
That’s several months later than the original plan. At Celebration in May, a vague “fall 2022” time frame was given, and not long after that a leaked date of September 28 appeared. But Lucasfilm has been very silent about the project ever since, and even though that’s par for the course with the franchise at times, we didn’t know much about it. This would explain why.
From a logistical standpoint, it makes sense. We’re still getting a lot of content this fall, with Andor premiering on September 21, all six episodes of Tales of the Jedi dropping on October 26, and Willow arriving on November 30. At some point it is likely that there will be multiple shows running simultaneously all throughout, but I was fearful that The Bad Batch would get a bit overlooked by running alongside Andor. This allows it to have a bit of breathing room on its own, which it very much deserves.
So I guess I’m actually not upset about this delay, because I really want Star Wars animation to thrive. Amidst the live-action craze I’m hopeful that the franchise embraces its animated legacy and continues to give us more and more, and if this allows it to do better numbers and convince Disney and Lucasfilm of it, then I’m sold.
Plus it’s just nice to have some actually official dates, since those are notoriously hard to come by from Lucasfilm. So at least we know something for sure now.
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