For the first time ever Star Wars had content with a black lead as Jedi Temple Challenge debuted on YouTube. It was even so special that Ahmed Best, who was such a victim of hate in the Star Wars community, filled that role.
As Star Wars Celebration 2019 showed, Best has been embraced by the community once again. The fandom does seem to be as divided and toxic as ever but that event gave us a glimmer of hope that wounds can be healed.
Jedi Temple Challenge is a cute kids “game show” sort of along the same lines as Legends of the Hidden Temple from back in the day. There’s three teams and three stages of challenges and a team is eliminated after each round.
It starts with some “physical challenges” and then moves onto a “knowledge challenge”. The one team remaining moves onto the Jedi Temple where they go through a series of tasks to get their Kyber crystals so they can complete their lightsabers and become Jedi Knights.
For what the show is, a web based kids game show, it really is perfect. Best plays Jedi Master Kelleran Beq and hosts the challenges alongside the humorous droids of AD-3 and LX-R5. The three have very enjoyable Star Wars commentary along the journey.
I’d like to see more of a variety of tasks/challenges and I’m sure those will come as there has only been two episodes thus far.
In the middle section (the knowledge challenge) the kids hear a tale from AD-3 and must remember certain facts from the story. The stories created were enjoyable to listen to and felt “very Star Warsy”. A great touch.
Best was a great choice for this gig and Mary Holland is fabulous as AD-3. I can’t wait to see more from this as I have always loved shows of this style since Double Dare, Nick GUTS, and Hidden Temple!
9/10
