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The Mandalorian is the most in-demand show on Earth thanks in no small part to Baby Yoda
While it's only aired four episodes of its debut season, The Mandalorian on Disney+ has already cemented itself as one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons of the decade.
According to a new report from Parrot Analytics, the live-action Star Wars series created by Jon Favreau is now the most in-demand TV show in the entire world. At the Global TV Demand Awards, it beat out streamer darlings such as The Boys (Amazon), See (Apple TV+), Chernobyl (HBO), and The Umbrella Academy (Netflix).
Since its debut in early November, the program has unseated other in-demand small screen touchstones like Stranger Things, The Crown, The Flash, and even Game of Thrones.
"For the prior seven days ending December 1, The Mandalorian was 31.9 times more in-demand than the average title on a global basis," says Parrot. "In comparison, The Crown achieved 15.0 times the average, Stranger Things registered 18.9x, The Flash 21.6x and Game of Thrones managed 28.3 times."
Obviously, we can't talk about The Mandalorian without talking about Baby Yoda, a character that has turned out to be more famous than the titular hero played by Pedro Pascal. After the mysterious child was rescued in Episode 3 (titled "The Sin"), we got to see a budding father-son dynamic between Mando and Baby Yoda on the secluded forest planet of Sorgan. Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, Episode 4 (titled "Sanctuary") introduces Cara Dune (Gina Carano) and features a thrilling battle against an AT-ST.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dallas Howard revealed that her children had to keep Baby Yoda a secret for an entire year. Can you imagine keeping something like that to yourself at school?! We'd probably explode from the pressure.
"The thing I was most nervous about was that my kids had been on set quite a bit," she said. "So, they had seen Baby and interacted with Baby. When we were filming, my kids were 6 and 11; they’re now 7 and 12. When the kids went back to school, every single day I would say, 'So, what are you not gonna talk about today?' And they would say, 'Baby!' I’d be like, 'That’s right!' I would just consistently remind them that there’s no circumstance that could ever arise where they’re allowed to talk about Baby."
Howard, who was influenced by The Village and Jurassic World for her episode, found it interesting that Favreau didn't see the child as something to be written off as totally harmless.
"In the case of Baby, Jon was really, really wise in that even though Baby was cute, he was like, 'We can’t just treat Baby like this cute little stuffed animal; we need to treat him more like a little baby crocodile, sort of amphibian like and is cute but also could maybe kill you,'" she continued. "It’s not just leaning into the fact that Baby is adorable. In my episode, because there are children in the episode, we’re allowed to see how others react to Baby, and we were able to lean into that a little bit."
Episode 5, which was written and directed by Dave Filoni, premieres on Disney+ this Friday.
