Most of the rest of Season One plays out as it originally aired. Here’s a look at the next four episodes airing in syndication and my timeline notes.
“Rookies” (S105)
A division of rookie clone troopers assigned to a quiet monitoring post near the manufacturing facilities on Kamino are faced with a desperate situation when a surprise attack by a team of droid commandos leaves them alone and without guidance.
The troopers from “Clone Cadets” (S301) first appeared in this episode. Here they wear the standard white clone trooper armor. At the start of this episode, they mention a sighting of Grievous in the Balmorra system; Anakin’s squadron flew the Balmorra Run in “Shadow of Malevolence” (S103). This is the first time we see commando droids, which are new to the series. This is also the first time in the series that the 501st clone trooper unit is mentioned by name.
“Downfall of a Droid” (S106)
When R2-D2 vanishes during an intense battle in space, Anakin must go on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines to rescue him before the Separatists can help themselves to the Jedi military secrets stored in his memory banks.
“Duel of the Droids” (S107)
As Anakin, Ahsoka, replacement droid R3-S6, and a group of clones break into General Grievous’ secret post to rescue R2-D2, the cyborg general seems to anticipate their moves and it becomes apparent that a member of their team is tipping him off.
S106 and S107 make up one of several two-episode story arcs in Season One. One of the members of Anakin’s unit has unique blue vertical lines that go down the eye sockets. This is clone trooper Denal who will appear in later episodes. Anakin’s starfighter gets shot down, but don’t worry — there’s more where that came from.
“Bombad Jedi” (S108)
The Separatists are stunned to find that the comical Jar Jar Binks is a Jedi Knight as the Gungan pairs with C-3PO to prevent the evil Viceroy Nute Gunray from having Naboo’s queen, Padmé Amidala, executed.
This is Nute Gunray’s first speaking appearance in the series. His story thread here will be carried over to the next episode. Padmé loses a second H-type Nubian starship. Rodian Senator Onaconda Farr makes his first of many appearances in the series. Commander Gree, who serves under Luminara Unduli and will later be seen with Yoda in Revenge of the Sith, also briefly makes the first of multiple series appearances. We’ll see Silood again in the series, albeit under much more solemn circumstances.
- Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
- “Cat and Mouse” (S216)
- “Hidden Enemy“ (S116)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008 theatrical release)
- “Clone Cadets” (S301)
- “Supply Lines” (S303)
- “Ambush” (S101)
- “Rising Malevolence” (S102)
- “Shadow of Malevolence” (S103)
- “Destroy Malevolence” (S104)
- “Rookies” (S105)
- “Downfall of a Droid” (S106)
- “Duel of the Droids” (S107)
- “Bombad Jedi” (S108)
Leland Y Chee is the Keeper of the Holocron at Lucasfilm and writer of the Star Wars Insider magazine “Ask Lobot” feature. Send your “Ask Lobot” questions to starwarsinsider@titanemail.com. Also, you can follow @holocronkeeper on Twitter.
It’s great to finally see the order! Does this mean that the Season 1 webcomics are non-canon?
This is only chronicling the episodes, not the webcomics or anything else. The episodes are most important because the chronology is so confusing.
So, we can obviously that the next two episodes in the line-up are “Cloak of Darkness” and “Lair of Grievous” come next, right? Honestly, I’ve always just considered those two episodes along with “Bombad Jedi” to be the NUTE GUNRAY TRILOGY. They all mesh together as well as any arc should, with the rascally Viceroy being the common link between the three.
I really do appreciate Leland Chee for taking the time to do this for us. We’ve all had to form in our minds the order we THINK the episodes officially play out, but it’s nice to get the definitive word on the timeline by the Keeper himself.
If Commando Droids appeared in the training area as targets on “Clone Cadets”, why were they (Dominos) surprised to see Clone Commandos in “Rookies”? They were indeed supposed to be new in “Rookies”, so this is a “Clone Cadets” inconsistency, I assume.
P.S: Can Agen Kolar in Chapters 21 and 22 of the Clone Wars micro-series be retconned to be Eeth Koth, since they used the appearance of the latter?
First of all wouldn’t you be surprised if commando droids attacked your outpost without warning? And obviously it hasn’t been a very long period of time between “Clone Cadets” and “Rookies”, so commando droids are still deemed as new.
Leland,
Shouldn’t ARC Troopers come soon after Rookies? Isn’t the whole purpose of the attack in Rookies to attack Kamino? And aren’t the jedi tipped off to the Separatist attack in ARC troopers?
Sorry if my names not Leland but if I’m right Dave said that the reason why “Arc Troopers” didn’t come immediately after “Rookies” is because they wanted to let Ehco and Fives get some experience first. Also I believe that the reason why the Separatists didn’t attack Kamino right away is because Grievous originally was going to launch a surprise attack on the cloning facilities. After he was discovered, Grievous was forced to change tactics.
Thx again for another nice update !
nice update! looking forward to more of these.
but I’d too like to hear about the canon status of the webcomics please
Love these articles
“The Separatists are stunned to find that the comical Jar Jar Binks is a Jedi Knight as the Gungan pairs with C-3PO to prevent the evil Viceroy Nute Gunray from having Naboo’s queen, Padmé Amidala, executed.”
Padme is actually Senator at this point because Jamillia replaced her as queen prior to the events of Attack of the Clones.
Thanks for this! This is one of my only problems with the Clone Wars series–trying to figure out where the episodes fit in to the Sagas timeline and EU. (Also, I think the Onderon arc we’re watching now comes before ‘Revival” correct? I think so lol.)
Fangirl in the Force,
Lillian Skye
So far this is way more straightforward than most of the fan chronologies I’ve seen (including my own). I suppose the simplest solution is often the best. Really surprised there weren’t more episodes set before the movie/introduction of Ahsoka. There are still a few kinks in the original air order that I hope Mr Chee can tidy up / clarify in due course.
[...] continued laying out the chronology of The Clone Wars in syndication, from ‘Ambush’ to ‘Rookies’ to ‘The Gungan General.’ Share [...]
I have a doubt with the place of “Rookies” episode. In the resume at the beggining of the episode we see a scene with Kit Fisto and Nadha Webb which is contained in “Lair of Grievous”. So I think Rookies must be placed after Lair of Grievous. It doesn’t change anything in the story.
Thanks for your work.