Maul — Shadow Lord Proves The Real Star Wars Show Disney Plus Should Make Next

There's always a narrative tension in Star Wars, going back to 1977. On the one hand, you have the epic — the side of George Lucas' space fantasy universe where a mystical energy field guides all macro events in the galaxy, and where heroes and villains rise and fall with massive individual influence. And then, on the other side, there's the hyper zoomed-in, lived-in, day-in-the-sci-fi-life stuff: the cantinas, the small Outer Rim towns, and the regular people living under whichever Republic or Empire happens to be in power.

Like many Star Wars stories before it, "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord" balances both. The eponymous villain-leaning-antihero is one of the big cosmic players in the larger story of the franchise, but his primary foil in the new animated series is local Janix detective Brander Lawson. Lawson feels freshly plucked from the neo-noir, one-case-away-from-retirement mold, complete with space coffee, digital corkboard, and a general aura of disillusionment. He also makes a strong case that this sort of approach could work on a much larger scale in Star Wars.

Here's the pitch: a high-budget, live-action crime procedural set in the Star Wars universe, preferably on some heavily urbanized planet like Coruscant, maybe following a team of New Republic investigators. It's a tried and true TV formula, and it would help Disney+ recapture some of that casual audience that made the first season of "The Mandalorian" such a big hit — very little homework required, with an episodic formula that embraces the best of the network procedural model.

While the big, mythic side of Star Wars is essential, it's those zoomed-in stories that make the universe stand out. Since 1977, Star Wars has been a lived-in space. People gamble and barter, ships break down, and folks wake up every day with a fresh pot of caf (or some peezos if you're feeling spicy, preferably the greenie green ones) and go to work.

At the same time, Star Wars has always loved the underworld. Smugglers and bounty hunters have been part of the saga from day one, and "Maul — Shadow Lord" finally makes good on an eight-year-old Star Wars promise by continuing to explore the politics of galactic crime syndicates in the early years of Imperial rule. That kind of storytelling is always fun and pulpy when it stars action-figure-friendly characters like Boba Fett, but there's something uniquely compelling about "Maul," where the police angle is centered squarely on a regular guy going through a complicated divorce, and his over-eager droid sidekick.

Part of why crime shows have been so dominant on TV for so long is because of how they blend relatively extreme episodic storylines with pretty mundane material for the core characters — a mundanity that, by juxtaposition, becomes a riveting sort of drama in its own right. So why not take that model and throw a couple of Zabraks, Weequay, and Bith into the mix?

Picture this: the "Law and Order" theme fades in over a blacked-out screen, but with just enough brass pushing through to give it that John Williams lilt, courtesy of the Kiners. Then the narration kicks in: "In the galactic justice system, beings are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the 'too-old-for-this-poodoo' inspectors of Coruscant's lower depths, who investigate crime; and the Republic Justices, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

Okay, it's a little on the nose, but it writes itself. Give it six episodes a season, set it in literally any corner of the Star Wars timeline, and run wild with the prosthetics and puppets. While some of the most successful Star Wars projects over the last several years have been more epic in scale, like "Andor," there's also been a very positive reception to smaller-scale stories like "Skeleton Crew" and the animated "Tales" anthologies. 

A live-action Star Wars crime procedural would hit that same casual fan base, providing an accessible weekly on-ramp to the rest of the series, while maximizing all of those classic Star Wars aesthetics. Dave Filoni, make it happen. This could be one of the best things Disney has done with Star Wars.