There are a fair few shows coming down the pike for Star Wars fans with Disney+ memberships in the months and years to come, but perhaps the most mysterious at present is The Acolyte.
It's taking us to a part of the series' timeline that we've never seen before in the films or shows and promises to explore some interesting stories. Here are all the details you need to know.
The Acolyte release date
We don't have that much firm information about when to expect The Acolyte beyond the fact that it is indeed definitely coming - Disney and LucasFilm have shown off its logo a few times as part of the upcoming suite of Star Wars shows, after all.
However, at present the show is believed to still be casting its characters and getting ready for production, which is apparently scheduled for late 2022 or early 2023. That means we don't think you'll be sitting down to watch the show anytime before the very end of 2023 or even in early 2024.
How to watch The Acolyte
The good news when it comes to a show being produced for Disney+ is that we can still tell you with absolute confidence how you'll be able to watch it - on Disney's streaming service, of course.
Disney+ - £7.99/m or £79.90/yr
Based on the approach it's taken to The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi and more, we're also pretty sure that you can expect a weekly schedule of episodes, rather than a Netflix-style dump of the whole season ready for bingeing.
The Acolyte cast and crew
There hasn't been a casting announcement about the show in any official capacity, so we very much don't know who will be gracing our screens in The Acolyte. However, we do know the showrunner - Leslye Headland, who's previously worked on shows like Russian Doll.
She's a rising star and looks like she'll be taking things in an interesting direction based on the interviews she's given so far.
The Acolyte story and setting
While the only official information we have about The Acolyte is its title, Vanity Fair scooped some juicy details in an interview with Headland in May 2022, giving us quite a lot to go on.
For one thing, we know that the show is going to be set about 100 years before The Phantom Menace, during the decline of what the Star Wars timeline calls the High Republic, a period of peace and prosperity.
It's being explored extensively in novels and comics right now, and a feature of the period is complacency by white-and-gold-clad Jedi that cannot fathom a return of the Sith threat.
The Acolyte's title might well come from a believer in the dark side who's willing to do whatever it takes to bring back the Sith, if rumours are to be believed.
Headland says that the show may focus on "the bad guys" at one of the few times in Star Wars when they're actually outnumbered, so that certainly sounds about right.
Rumours are swirling that the show is also planning to use familiar characters from the excellent Knights of the Old Republic games, too, including the iconic Darth Revan. This would be interesting given that there's a remake of the first game coming, so it could tie in nicely to that story.
Now, the timeline on those characters' inclusion means we might just hear about them in the form of dialogue, or see them in flashbacks, but the fact remains that it sounds like we're going to get a substantial fleshing-out of the Sith side of thing.