‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finally Premieres Next Month on Disney+

While the ongoing global health pandemic has shut down a lot of television and movie productions around the world, Star Wars fans can rejoice that it doesn’t appear to have had any real impact on Disney’s popular original series, The Mandalorian.

Disney offered up the news via Twitter this morning that new episodes in season 2 of The Mandalorian will start streaming on October 30th.

Of course, this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anybody who has been following the production of the show, since it actually wrapped up filming in early March, just before the novel coronavirus shut everyone else down cold.

Disney’s newly-minted CEO Bob Chapek also confirmed that there would be no delay in the arrival of season 2 of the series thanks to the ability of the show’s team to work remotely to handle editing and other post-production work.

For many Disney+ customers, The Mandalorian has become a big reason to continue paying for the $7/month streaming service; although Disney+ includes an impressively massive back catalog of content from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic, the collection of original shows and movies has been somewhat less gripping, leaving the Star Wars series as one of the few shining gems.

This has especially been true as a result of the times we live in. While Marvel Studios’ The Falcon and the Winter Soldier still sounds like it holds a lot of promise, production delays caused by the pandemic caused it to miss its summer debut, and at this point the new series remains in limbo.

This also appears to be the case for Disney’s other upcoming Star Wars projects, including a new series focusing on Obi-Wan Kenobi that will see Evan McGregor reprising the role of the Jedi Master along with another one centered on Rogue One’s Cassian Andor.

What’s Coming

Disney hasn’t yet offered up any details about exactly how season 2 of The Mandalorian will unfold, although the announcement suggests that it will very likely follow the same weekly release schedule that it did for season 1, as opposed to dropping all of the episodes at once.

This of course serves both the creative purpose of keeping dramatic tension running high between episodes and the more pragmatic business of ensuring that subscribers have a reason to continue paying for Disney+ (not that most of us need a reason).

As for the plot of the upcoming season? Disney hasn’t said much about it yet, but it’s a safe bet that you can expect a lot more Baby Yoda, and it’s fairly certain there will be at least one trailer, if not more, in the coming weeks leading up to the premiere date.

If you’ve missed the first season, this is also a great time to catch up in preparation for what’s coming (and a good time to sign up if you’ve haven’t yet tried Disney+ or you’ve let your subscription lapse). All eight episodes of season 1 are still online of course, and unlike certain “Disney Premium” titles, the entire run of The Mandalorian is available for the normal monthly subscription price.

The Mandalorian has also received 15 Emmy award nominations this year, putting it right up alongside some of the best primetime shows from other networks and streaming services, including a nomination in the top-tier category of Outstanding Drama Series, where it’s competing with Netflix’s Ozark and The Crown, HBO’s Succession, and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

By the time season 2 airs, The Mandalorian may already officially be an Emmy-award winning series, marking one of the few times a new original streaming series has picked up an Emmy in its first season.