What happened to the ‘Star Wars’ reality competition announced for Disney+?
Post-Gazette TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions online every Friday in Tuned In Journal blog at post-gazette.com/tv. Here’s a selection of recent queries.
Q: My kids love “Star Wars,” so we were intrigued by an announcement last year about a “Star Wars” reality competition show coming to Disney+. Then I discovered it is airing on the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel instead. What happened? Was it not up to the standards of Disney+?
— JUSTIN, SQUIRREL HILL
Rob: With “Star Wars” there is a history of burying some projects, whether it’s the atrocious “Star Wars Holiday Special” from 1978 or the adult animated comedy Lucasfilm developed and produced just before Disney bought the company and then was never heard of again, “Star Wars: Detours.”
I had no idea “Jedi Temple Challenge” had premiered on YouTube. Never got a press release or anything, and my family had been looking forward to it, too. After watching two episodes on YouTube, I do suspect it wasn’t up to snuff for Disney+.
While host Ahmed Best (aka the actor who played Jar-Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy) does a fine job as a Jedi host, the game play is so similar from episode to episode that it really is nearly a see-one-episode-you’ve-seen-them-all kind of show (my kids liked “Jedi Temple Challenge” anyway, at least for a few episodes). Even Netflix’s “Floor Is Lava” changes up its competition space episode to episode.
I recently discovered the move was announced on StarsWars.com in May — but how many more people would have learned about it if Disney had sent an announcement to entertainment journalists? — with Lucasfilm’s senior director of online content/programming Mickey Capoferri saying, “With so many children and families home and looking to “Star Wars” for hope and entertainment, we wanted to make “Jedi Temple Challenge” available to as many young fans as possible by airing the series on our Star Wars Kids network for everyone to enjoy.” Maybe they didn’t want questions about why it moved from
Disney+.
Q: Could you please tell me the channel number for Disney+ so I may watch “Hamilton”?
— BETSY, BRIGHTON HEIGHTS Rob: I hate to break it to Betsy, but Disney+ is a streaming service, not a cable channel. Some cable customers can subscribe to Disney+ through their cable/satellite service, including Verizon, but not Comcast. It’s also available on Apple TV, Amazon devices, Google Chromecast, Playstation4, Xbox One, Roku and many smart TVs.
Q: I loved “Anne With an E” on Netflix. I heard they made a fourth season but chose not to show it because the young actor who played Gilbert died. Is this true? If it’s true, I think they should show the final season to honor the actor who played Gilbert.
— PAMELYN, NEW KENSINGTON Rob: This sounds like a game of telephone played on the internet that went wrong.
The actor who played Gilbert in Netflix’s series is very much alive.
The actor who played the role of Gilbert in the previous “Anne” series of movies from the 1980s is the one who died.
“Anne with an E” was canceled solely
because it was not financially advantageous to continue. No fourth season was filmed.
Q: I noticed certain shows like “The Sinner” on USA Network and “Very Cavalleri” on the E! network have the first commercial break only one minute long and have a clock count down the minute, but the rest of the commercial breaks are normal. What is up with that? What are they trying to accomplish?
— REBECCA VIA EMAIL
Rob: Both USA and E! are NBC Universal networks. I’ve also noticed this same phenomenon on “Project Runway” (Bravo, another NBCU network) and on NBC’s “This Is Us.” The one-minute ad break is an effort to keep viewers, especially younger viewers, from tuning out when watching TV live. NBC asked advertisers to pay a premium for their spots to appear in these “prime pods,” the first commercial break, with the theory being viewers are more likely to stay tuned and pay attention to commercials that air during a briefer ad break.