Disney has officially confirmed when each episode of The Mandalorian will be released on Disney+, revealing how they're working around Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's release. There has been a lack of Star Wars content to this point in 2019, but the final two months of the year will be packed with new releases. In addition to the final Skywalker Saga film and the first live-action Star Wars show, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be out in just a few weeks.
The influx of Star Wars content will make the end of the year an exciting time for fans of the galaxy far, far away, but also a difficult one for time management. Instead of following the Netflix binging model, it was previously confirmed that The Mandalorian will release new episodes weekly. The prolonged nature of the rollout will give viewers more time to sit with each episode, but it also presented Lucasfilm and Disney with a clear overlap with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's release. Many wondered how this would be handled, and we finally know the answer thanks to the official release schedule for The Mandalorian.
As confirmed by Disney, the eight-episode first season of The Mandalorian will release its first episode on Disney+'s November 12th launch day, but new episodes will not arrive every Tuesday. Instead, the second episode of The Mandalorian arrives on Friday, November 15th and will release new episodes on following Fridays, but it is unknown what times the episodes will go live. The outlier to this release model though is episode 7, which will be released on Wednesday, December 18th instead of going head-to-head with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's December 20th rollout. The season finale will then air on Friday, December 27th.
Moving The Mandalorian's penultimate episode of season one up a few days is clearly the right move to make. Instead of having two pieces of Star Wars content competing for the attention of fans, The Mandalorian will now be able to release its seventh episode before the masses see how the Skywalker Saga ends. This will then allow the focus of the fans to stay on The Rise of Skywalker for the next week and a half (allowing for plenty of repeat viewings) before needing to see how The Mandalorian ends.
In addition to the moving schedule to avoid clashing for attention with The Rise of Skywalker, fans anxiously anticipating The Mandalorian are sure to be pleasantly surprised that the first two episodes will be available within such a small window. Disney easily could've held off on the first episode until the first Friday that Disney+ was up and running, but they'll instead allow fans to see the first episode on day one and see what happens next just three days later. So, as long as The Mandalorian hooks fans immediately, the wait won't be long to continue on the adventure.
Source: Disney
