Maul – Shadow Lord Timeline Explained: What To Watch Before The New Star Wars Show

A new "Star Wars" show looms on the horizon, and it's a little bit different from what fans have come to expect from Disney+. The latest entry in the fantastic streak of shows from Lucasfilm Animation, "Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord," begins with a two-episode premiere on April 6th, with two more episodes dropping each week through Star Wars Day on May the 4th.

The 10-episode run is shorter than previous "Star Wars" animated series, but longer than the anthologized "Tales" miniseries, and the focus on Maul and the underworld gives the show a slightly more mature tone. This is also arguably the best that the Lucasfilm Animation house style has ever looked, described by executive producer Athena Portillo to StarWars.com as "going back to the practical ways of capturing brush strokes."

Dedicated "Star Wars" fans know that Maul's story has already come to an end in the form of an iconic final showdown on Tatooine with Obi-Wan Kenobi near the end of "Star Wars Rebels." The new series takes place years earlier, near the start of the Imperial era. That places it either in direct overlap with "Star Wars: The Bad Batch" – one of Lucasfilm Animation's more recent long-form series – or, more likely, in the immediate aftermath, according to what the folks in charge have said.

According to StarWars.com, "Maul — Shadow Lord" takes place a few years after Order 66. Since "The Bad Batch" begins at the exact moment Order 66 is enacted, and only lasts for a couple of years, that would position the new series in its immediate aftermath – a kind of hand-off, shifting focus to a different area of the "Star Wars" universe while continuing on a relatively linear path from the last major Lucasfilm Animation project.

The focuses of the two shows don't even seem all that different. Yes, "The Bad Batch" follows a group of renegade clone troopers and not a former Sith Lord, but both stories take place largely in the galactic underworld, with the main characters doing their best to avoid Imperial attention. "Maul" will take place either mostly or entirely on the new urban planet of Janix, whereas "The Bad Batch" hops around a bit more.

That positioning within the larger "Star Wars" timeline also means some familiar faces coming back – and not just Maul. In addition to various underworld figures and Imperial officials, the trailer shows Maul crossing paths with members of the Inquisitorius – the secret group of Force-sensitive Jedi hunters trained by Darth Vader. Both Inquisitors who appear on the show have made previous "Star Wars" appearances, with the helmeted Marrok (also known as the First Brother) facing Ahsoka Tano in her own self-titled Disney+ series, and the masked Eleventh Brother also falling to Ahsoka in "Tales of the Jedi."

Technically, "Maul — Shadow Lord" is a standalone "Star Wars" TV series, though familiarity with the character's arc in "The Clone Wars" and his underworld cameo in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" will certainly both be helpful to ground the narrative. In the latter, Maul is the secret leader of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. Since "Solo" takes place 10 years before "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," that's at least six or seven years after the events of "Shadow Lord." We'll likely see the beginning of Maul's new criminal empire in the new show.

If you're an ambitious fan who hasn't stayed up to date on recent shows, you could binge all of "The Bad Batch" before the "Maul" premiere on April 6. That would fill you in on the first couple years of worldbuilding for the Imperial era, including the implementation of Imperial chain codes, the first wave of TK troopers who bridge the gap between clones and stormtroopers, and the establishment of Imperial governors. There's the added benefit that "The Bad Batch" is a fantastic series, full of stunning visuals and nuanced characters.

For a more manageable homework assignment, you could back-to-back "Tales of the Jedi" and "Tales of the Empire," which include some relevant side stories about the Empire and the Inquisitorius and are both brief at six short episodes apiece. And of course, if you've never seen the four-part "Siege of Mandalore" arc that closes out "The Clone Wars" Season 7, it's a spectacular watch, and one that directly sets up Maul's new story in "Shadow Lord."