‘The Mandalorian’: Pilot Episode To Air on FX, ABC, and Freeform on February 24 for One Day Only
After experimenting with putting the first two episodes of Andor on affiliate platforms last Thanksgiving, Disney has set up a broadcast debut for the hit streaming series The Mandalorian ahead of the launch of the third season of the show, sharing the episode that started it all.
Collider has revealed that Disney are going to show the very first episode of the series on ABC, FX, and Freeform a week before the series returns for its third season on Disney Plus. Unlike last time, Star Wars will be skipping out on broadcasting on Hulu — Disney Plus remains the only streaming home for the series, even with a series of one-time broadcasts on network television and cable. However, the episode will simulcast across all three networks on Friday at 8:00 PM EST on February 24, 2023.
Set five years after the defeat of the Galactic Empire at the Battle of Endor, a Mandalorian bounty hunter named Din Djarin cashes in on another successful bounty before taking a mysterious new offer from the local head of the bounty hunters guild, Greef Karga. Karga sets Djarin up with a new job: to capture and a fifty-year-old target hidden within a desert fortress on a remote world. After teaming up with another bounty hunter to fight off a mercenary army, Djarin discovers that the fifty-year-old target is a Jedi youngling who appears no older than an infant. The Mandalorian bonds with his unexpected bounty, and what initially seemed like a simple job ends up being the start of an unforgettable journey in the galaxy far, far away.
The series stars Pedro Pascal, Katee Sackhoff, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, and Amy Sedaris, and will feature episodes directed by Weathers, Rick Famuyiwa, Rachel Morrison, Lee Isaac Chung, Peter Ramsey, and Bryce Dallas Howard. Showrunner Jon Favreau wrote all eight episodes of the upcoming season, co-writing with Dave Filoni on two of them, and co-writing with The Book of Boba Fett veteran Noah Kloor on one.
The Mandalorian returns to Disney Plus on March 1, 2023. Both of the previously released seasons of the show, alongside the spin-off The Book of Boba Fett, are available to watch exclusively on the streaming service.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
