Disney commissions Star Wars: The Bad Batch animation spinoff from Star Wars: The Clone Wars for its Disney+ video streamer following a ragtag team of unique Stormtroopers after the war.

by Thinus Ferreira

The Walt Disney Company's video streaming service Disney+ has commissioned a spinoff from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animation series, entitled Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

Disney+ is not yet available in South Africa or sub-Saharan Africa with no guidance or announcements about any rollout for the African continent from Disney.

Dave Filoni who is the executive producer and a director of Disney+'s live-action drama series The Mandalorian and who created Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels will also executive produce Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch will premiere on Disney+ sometime in 2021.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch will be set after the conclusion of the latest and supposedly final Star Wars: The Clone Wars season, as they try to find their way in a rapidly changing galaxy.

The Bad Batch is a group of Stormtroopers, each with unique abilities, who are now forced to find a new purpose.

"Giving new and existing fans the final chapter of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been our honour at Disney+, and we are overjoyed by the global response to this landmark series," says Agnes Chu, senior vice president for content at Disney+, in a statement.

"While the Clone Wars may have come to its conclusion, our partnership with the groundbreaking storytellers and artists at Lucasfilm Animation is only beginning.  We are thrilled to bring Dave Filoni’s vision to life through the next adventures of the Bad Batch."

Disney drops the official trailer for the final spectacular-looking 7th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars - but South African viewers won't get to see it.

Disney has dropped a fantastic official teaser for the final 12-episode 7th season of the revived animation series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars announcing that it will become available on its Disney+ streaming service from 21 February, with a new episode released on a weekly basis.

South African and African viewers watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars first on WarnerMedia's Cartoon Network (DStv 301) and then followed it to the Walt Disney Company's Disney XD (DStv 304) channel, and then to Netflix.

Now however there will be no legal way for them to see the final season's episodes when it debuts on Disney+.

Disney isn't making its streaming service available in South Africa or anywhere on the African continent which means that viewers who had invested their time in watching it, can't see how it ends.



by Thinus Ferreira

After its cancellation, Star Wars: The Clone Wars that has now been revived, will seamlessly resume where the unresolved storylines left off.

In the final and 7th season viewers will see with the same characters like Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein), Captain Rex (Dee Bradley Baker), Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Arnold Taylor) and Darth Maul (Sam Witwer), using the same voice actors and taking place at the same time period in that galaxy far, far away.

The show is set between the period of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith with the final episodes that will overlap with the events transpiring in Revenge of the Sith and that ends with the Jedi order being decimated through Order 66.

The official trailer shows what looks to be a spectacular duel between the failed Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano and Darth Maul on the planet of Mandalore.

E.K. Johnston's novel Ahsoka revealed that the Siege of Mandalore was brought to an abrupt end by Order 66, which means that the season might very well show how Ahsoka gets forced to break off her fight with Darth Maul to escape the Stormtroopers who will suddenly turn on all Jedi.

Animation series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, revived for a new season by Lucasfilm and Disney for Disney's new video streaming service in 2019.

The Force is strong with this one: Like out of carbonite, Lucasfilm and Disney are reviving the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars that was abruptly cancelled in 2013, with creator and writer-director Dave Filoni stunning the audience at Comic-Con 2018 in San Diego with the announcement that the show will return.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be back in 2019 with 12 new episodes that will become available on Disney's new as yet unnamed video-on-demand streaming service.

"It's an anniversary - it's 10 years," Dave Filoni told the audience who waited with breathless anticipation as he continued: "And you guys deserve something for being so great - a present, if you will. We got together and thought, 'If there is one thing we could give you, what would it be?'"

His announcement at the panel discussion about the show's 10th anniversary was met by standing applause.

The beloved animation series that won several Emmy Awards came to an abrupt end after 5 seasons on Turner's Cartoon Network after it started in 2008.

It will now seamlessly resume where the unresolved storylines left off with the same characters like Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the same voice actors and at the same time period in that galaxy far, far away, set between the period of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

"I honestly didn't think we would ever have the opportunity to return to The Clone Wars," said Dave Filoni.

"Thanks to the relentless fan support and the team behind Disney's direct-to-consumer streaming service, we will now get to tell more of those stories. We feel a tremendous responsibility to make something that lives up to the legacy that George Lucas created with the original series, and I think our team, many of whom worked on the show from the beginning, has risen to the challenge."

A new Star Wars: The Clone Wars teaser trailer was released at Comic-Con.

The teaser trailer starts with various members of the Clone army talking and then text saying: "A war left unfinished ... until now." At the end of the trailer Ahsoka Tano, the then-padawan learner of Jedi Anakin Skywalker appears. She says to him through a hologram: "Hello master, it's been awhile."

Chewie or an Ewok for dinner? The Force is strong with M-Net Movies' Star Wars pop-up channel on MultiChoice's DStv - as well as with its website.

Chewie or an Ewok for dinner? The Force is not just strong with M-Net and DStv's temporary Star Wars pop-up channel which launched today on channel 109 - the specially created website mnet.tv/starwars has the droids (and a game and the prizes) you were looking for.

The temporary Star Wars pop-up channel (DStv 109) has launched on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform today showing all of the Star Wars movies, but viewers can also watch fascinating documentaries and featurettes about the sprawling science fiction saga, as well as episodes of the final season of animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

M-Net Movies' Star Wars pop-up channel will run until 13 September - basically for half a month.

"We wanted to create a schedule which broadcast a title every night as well as a binge-viewing session," says Lani Lombard, M-Net's head of publicity.

"This plays out perfectly over one week and those who miss the movies during the first week have the opportunity to watch it in the second week".

"Star Wars is one of the biggest movie franchises ever and as a special treat to DStv Premium customers it made sense to create a special channel prior to the launch of the new movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, later this year".

With the Star Wars pop-up channel on DStv comes a strong tie-in web presence, where people can not just read and learn more, but also play, win prizes like tickets to the movie at the end of the year, and have to choose things like who'd make a better dinner guest - Chewbacca or an Ewok.

"Star Wars features 7th on 'Most popular topics on Facebook' and is popular throughout the world wide web," says Lani Lombard as to why M-Net and DStv decided to create a strong, concurrent online experience for fans at mnet.tv/starwars

"M-Net also has a strong digital presence with all its biggest properties and the Star Wars online experience is enhancing the content in a fresh way - what you would expect from M-Net Movies".

The Star Wars pop-up channel which is available across Africa in high definition (HD) to DStv Premium subscribers is showing all 6 Star Wars movies in chronological order, based on the year of release.

A new film is shown daily at 06:00 and repeated at 19:30 on the same day. On Sundays all the movies screened during the week are shown, and the films are also available on DStv's Catch Up service.

BREAKING. Star Wars on TV 'heading in a new direction'; Star Wars: The Clone Wars 'winding down' after 5 seasons.

George Lucas billion dollar Star Wars empire on television is "heading in a new direction" Lucasfilm announced online today and which has been creating Star Wars The Clone Wars animation show for The Cartoon Network.

South African viewers will start to see the 5th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 1 April at 19:55 on The Cartoon Network (DStv 304) which is suddenly burning through the 5th season's 20 episodes as fast as possible with brand-new episodes which will be shown every weekday from April.

The 5th season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars is cataclysmically amazing and shocking and shockingly great television.

"As we enter into an exciting new era focused on the next Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programming. We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come," says Lucasfilm on its website.

"As part of this shift, we have also made some key decisions affecting Star Wars: The Clone Wars. After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series."

"While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for The Cartoon Network, we're continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen."

Lucafilm says this "bonus content" of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released elsewhere but does not yet specify details (it definitely won't be on Turner Broadcasting System's The Cartoon Network).

The planned new animation Star Wars show, Star Wars Detours is now also being shelved and postponed, because the decision to launch that new show was made before George Lucas decided to go ahead with a new film trilogy.

"Detours was conceived and produced before we decided to move forward with the new Star Wars trilogy, and in the wake of that decision, Lucasfilm has reconsidered whether launching an animated comedy prior to the launch of Episode VII makes sense. As a result, we've decided to postpone the release of Detours until a later date."

In an online video on the site, Dave Filoni, the supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars teases with an amazing as-yet-unseen clip from the show.

"It's not over yet.  In fact, the best is yet to come," says Dave Filoni in the clip. "We have some of the most exciting, some of the most important story arcs still coming your way. Now what could there be left to tell? Well, as die-hard fans of the series, you know there is still some gaps in there - things that are really crucial to the overall story arc of the Star Wars universe that we need to finish off and tell you."

"They are the best episodes that my crew has ever committed to screen," says Dave Filoni.and then fans can start to see a sneak peek of new (and thrilling!) Star Wars: The Clone Wars material.

BREAKING. Star Wars: The Clone Wars starting its 5th season on The Cartoon Network on DStv in South Africa on 1 April at 19:55.

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Attention, padawans: there's a disturbance in the force and I can exclusively reveal and break the news that it is because the 5th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be starting on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) on Monday 1 April at 19:55 (South African time) - and there's another massive surprise!

The Cartoon Network tells me that not only will Star Wars: The Clone Wars start on Monday 1 April, the phenomenally great 5th season will unspool with brand-new episodes daily on weekdays!

That means that Star Wars: The Clone Wars will run with new episodes Mondays to Fridays for 5 weeks - probably to quickly burn through the season before Turner Broadcasting System International and The Cartoon Network loses the rights to the LucasFilm animation series which is very likely moving to Disney XD (DStv 304) from next year for its 6th season.

The 5th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended in America this past Saturday. Unbelievably, must-watch, absolutely awesome television masquerading as a "kids" animation show.

The 5th season of the fantastic story has several linked episode story arcs and quite a lot of wonderful exposition ranging from how Jedi's get their light sabres to what eventually happens to the woman Obi-Wan Kenobi loved (yeah. not kids' stuff).

STAR WARS SHOCKER! Massive character development in absolutely shocking Star Wars The Clone Wars season 5 finale!

Jaw-dropping does not describe or do justice to the absolutely shocking turn of events in the 5th season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars which broadcast the final episode of the fifth season today on The Cartoon Network in America.

Simply terrific television Star Wars The Clone Wars is, and after five years the biggest, eye-popping change the 5th season finale brings.

The 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars which will start soon on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) on MultiChoice's DStv in South Africa might seem like a "cartoon" or a "kids show" but it's absolutely not - and the latest season further expanding on that galaxy far, far away and which just concluded in America, was phenomenally good.

I cannot underscore what riveting and great television Star Wars The Clone Wars is and has been - one of the very few TV shows I diligently watch and follow as a TV critic not because I have too, but because I am amazed by its intricacy and extremely complex and adult storylines and its heartwrenching and deeply emotional plots - wonderful television I really enjoy.

The last few episodes of the 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars packed a massive punch - the penultimate episode caused me hours upon hours upon hours of research looking for arcane facts and character histories and clues to a massive mystery which South African viewers will see unfolding and which will have any Star Wars fan's rapt attention when the 5th season's 20 episodes start here soon.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker look sullen in the final moments of the 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars - but there's actually also a painful sense of self-awareness visible on their faces.

They're not just sad about something shocking, they're also suddenly, painfully, keenly self-aware about something terrible about the Jedi and the Jedi order. That they've made a mistake. That they're flawed. That something huge has changed. Dark times for the Republic, indeed.

If you want television storytelling at its best and complain about the overabundance of repeats and the lack of really intelligent television; and if you want good and intricate stories and fascinating character development, watch the 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars when it starts on The Cartoon Network soon.

Just like the Star Wars movies, Star Wars The Clone Wars is a complex but richly textured narrative with interesting characters set against a bigger backdrop of sweeping, epic change and socio-political powers which they are actually powerless to change - they're only actually reacting to it, and that is changing them.

It's wonderful that what is disguised as a kids show, a cartoon, is actually a powerful grown-up story. Like The Simpsons kids can watch it and enjoy a one dimensional aspect to it.

It's however as an adult (and if you've ever watched Star Wars) that Star Wars The Clone Wars come alive with introspection and relevations. The 5th season more than ever before fills in missing puzzle pieces for the viewer and Star Wars fan about the overall existing story which you never knew you needed to (and wanted to) know.

Similar to that iconic Star Wars zinger of "Luke ... I am your father" (and Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Best of Both Worlds Part I), the 5th season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars contains a plot twist so extreme, so magnificently yet tragically huge, that it will take your breath away.

Invest in this show, watch the amazing 5th season, and I can promise you that you won't be disappointed.

Entire 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars will remain and be seen on The Cartoon Network on DStv in South Africa in 2013.

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I can reveal and confirm that the entire 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars will be shown on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) for South African and African viewers on MultiChoice's DStv sometime in 2013.

Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) which runs and operate The Cartoon Network, tells me that South African viewers will definitely see the entire 5th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars next year which is currently halfway through this season on the channel in America.

This is important because last week Disney and LucasFilm Ltd announced that Disney is buying the entire Star Wars franchise from George Lucas for $4,05 billion.

Disney then said that it wants Star Wars properties - meaning more than one show - on TV - especially on the Disney XD channel. TBS currently has the rights to the great animation show Star Wars The Clone Wars for The Cartoon Network until the end of 2013.

However, it's now uncertain whether Star Wars The Clone Wars (which is doing well in the ratings and viewership) might simply end after the current 5th season (George Lucas said he'd like at least 100 episodes of it), or might move to Disney XD or to another TV channel, and what the future of this show is.

At least there's some new hope and further clarity for South African viewers in as far as the current 5th season is concerned.

"Star Wars The Clone Wars will remain on The Cartoon Network for the entire run of its 5th season," Turner tells me. "There has been no decision about the 6th season yet."

BREAKING. Star Wars The Clone Wars returns for its exciting 4th season on The Cartoon Network on Saturday 5 May at 20:00.

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I can exclusively break the news that Star Wars The Clone Wars is back and that the fourth season will (finally!) start in South Africa on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) on Saturday 5 May at 20:00 with a repeat another brand new episode on Sundays, also at 20:00 (all South African times).

The 4th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars, subtitled ''Battle Lines'' is strong and great television. Yes. I've managed to already see all 22 episodes and it's riveting.

If you think Star Wars The Clone Wars is meant for kids - guess again. The much later timeslot of 20:00 (remember the early timeslot the first season started out in) should give you a clue. Obi-Wan Kenobi as a slave and actually helpless (and again later in the season finale helpless against an ever stronger evil adversary), an increasingly dark and vengeful Anakin Skywalker, a galaxy very clearly swept up in the true terribleness of war ... this aint kids stuff people.

The new planets, the intricate plots, the subtle humour, the intangible depressive desperation of it all makes Star Wars The Clone Wars really an unappreciated TV series. It's filling in so many blanks and backstories only alluded to in George Lucas' films.

And I love the humour - weary adults like the Jedi who've seen and done it all, and yet endeavour to try and ''save'' the galaxy. The humour adds a wonderful touch to the show like Obi-Wan Kenobi (I won't spoil it all) suddenly fighting side by side with his enemy Asajj Ventress when she throws him her one red light sabre during very stressful circumstances. She says she wants it back. He snaps back, ''That's fine. Red isn't really my colour''.

My friends often ask me: What television do you actually watch for your own real enjoyment? And its true. I watch a massive amount of television. The bulk of it is work. But Star Wars The Clone Wars is really something artistic, something very enjoyable, with great conceptualisation and a vast and intricate narrative that keeps me wanting to watch it to find out what is going to happen next.

BREAKING. Tower Prep coming to Vuzu from 24 October at 20:30, suddenly replacing The Nine Lives of Chloe King.

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I can exclusively break the news that Tower Prep is coming to Vuzu and will start on Monday 24 October at 20:30.

The teen drama will be replacing The Nine Lives of Chloe King which I was first to spill in August RIGHT HERE was supposed to start in that timeslot, but has now been replaced. ''The title has been dropped from the schedule,'' a source tells TV with Thinus. In its place is Tower Prep - actually a Cartoon Network show - but one of the new hour long live-action shows the Cartoon Network started trying.

The Cartoon Network has another live-action show Unnatural History which immediately made me wonder: If the Cartoon Network is not going to show Tower Prep (their own show) first, if at all, and rather sold it to other channels (Cartoon Network doesn't want to show it themselves in this territory), is there still a chance it will be showing Unnatural History? The answer is no. The Cartoon Network in London tells me Unnatural History won't be on the channel.

(By the way, I also asked about the 4th season of Star Wars The Clone Wars which just started on Cartoon Network in America and I'm told is will start in the 2nd quarter of 2012 on the Cartoon Network in South Africa).

Tower Prep is a very enjoyable science fiction type show and revolves around Ian Archer (Drew van Acker) who goes to sleep and then wakes up at Tower Prep - a private boarding school nobody can escape from. There's a wall around it, strange and dangerous creatures in the woods at night, teachers and a coach, and an enigmatic computer controlling everything.

With some new friends (there's bullies too) Ian and his friends try to figure out how to escape from Tower Prep and what (and where) the school actually is. As students at the school they're all actually special, each with a unique ability, and later on are mysteriously warned that they have to be prepared because ''a war is coming''.

You might start out watching Tower Prep and think ''Harry Potter'', but my only clue will be that this is not magic, its a science fiction show - remember that.

The Jedi secrets we never knew. 10 things that the new season of Star Wars The Clone Wars reveals which brings context to the Force.

Who knew. Half the awesomeness of the exciting new 3rd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars (besides the adventure and the visual spectacle like this half-destroyed, yet habitable planet with a Jedi prison for instance in that galaxy far, far away) is the additional context and perspective that colours in everything that Star Wars fans never knew they needed to know.

As new episodes of Star Wars The Clone Wars are rolling out until 9 September on Thursdays at 17:55 on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) a fascinating observational and character study is actually the unspoken revelations inside this finely-crafted animation series. The show continues to fill in hordes of little-known details only hinted at in the movies.

The 3rd season - through a myriad of side adventures by the characters which is taking them across Lucas' (in)famous galaxy - are giving fans more insight into the underlying motivations, places and the galaxy-wide socio-economic and socio-political machinations that is Star Wars. And its vast, and wonderful. Just take the Jedi - that mysterious warrior religious order - who wields the Force. Star Wars The Clone Wars offers tantalising new details, background and revelations about the Jedi that we never knew.

Did you know for instance that ''bad'' Jedi who've ''lost their way'' got locked up in an inescapable prison tower on a faraway world (the one above)? Didn't? Well, watch and learn my young Padawan. Here's 10 things the 3rd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars reveals about the Jedi - that we never knew.

Click on READ MORE below.

BREAKING. Back, it will be! The 3rd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars set to start on The Cartoon Network on 14 April.

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The 3rd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars will start on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) on Thursday, 14 April at 17:55 the channel just told me.

There will be 22 new episodes that is set to unspool in the 3rd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars, as well as a marathon showing of the 1st and the 2nd seasons on Saturdays, 9 and 10 April at 07:55. Star Wars fans will enjoy the season entitled ''Secrets Revealed'' as more secrets are definitely revealed, filling in hiherto-unknown arcana and backstory regarding some of the characters and events only alluded to within the set of films.

ALSO READ: Whoopee! Star Wars The Clone Wars welcomes a Whookiee. Chewbacca to appear in the 3rd season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars.

WHOOPEE! Star Wars The Clone Wars welcomes a Wookiee: Chewbacca to appear in the last two episodes of the third season finale.

''Great, Chewie... Great.'' A Wookiee is a rare sight but a resident from Kashyyyk - one you might happen to know - will appear in the third season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars. Yep, get growling for Chewbacca.

With no word yet from The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) on when the 3rd season of Stars Wars The Clone Wars will be starting in South Africa (and I just asked them directly again), comes the news that one more of the iconic Star Wars characters will be showing up for the first time in the Star Wars The Clone Wars animation series. The third season of 22 episodes will end in America on 1 April and Chewbacca will show up in the season finale's last two episodes.

The New York Times is first to report Chewbacca's appearance, adding that actor Peter Mayhew who starred as Chewbacca in the live action films not only did the voicework for the upcoming episodes but also recently helped the animators with drawing the digital Chewie. He explained and showed them Chewbacca's peculiar walk, mannerisms and body language like head movements as well as vocabulary.

Star Wars TV show may be too vast and expensive for even George Lucas to bring to television.

The already highly anticipated live-action Star Wars TV show from Star Wars creator George Lucas starring real actors and set in that galaxy far, far away, might actually not happen.

According to an update by Rebelscum, George Lucas says ''the live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don't know how to do 'em. Because, they literally are Star Wars, only we're going to have to try to do them [at] a tenth the cost. And, it's a huge challenge . . . lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.''

In 2005 George Lucas announced that the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be followed by a real live-action TV series of possibly 100 episodes set in the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

INTERVIEW. 90210's Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars The Clone Wars: ''I'm proud to say I'm a Star Wars geek!''

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Cool guy Matt Lanter is Liam Court in the brand-new second season of 90210 that has just started heer in South Africa Thursdays on M-Net at 19:30). But listen closely . . . Matt is also the voice of Anakin Skywalker in the brand-new second season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) Fridays at 18:00 (which means a new episode today by the way!)

I asked Matt Lanter how he fits in playing one part of 90210's super couple at West Beverly, as well as battling droids on far flung planets in, you know . . . that galaxy far, far away! And whether it's Naomi or Princess Amidala, girls are never far away. I wanted to know whether he has any advice for guys on girls, to tell me more on voicing an ever darker Anakin Skywalker in the second season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and what his friends think of him doing the voice of the character who will eventually become Darth Vader!

For my questions and what Matt answered, get your light saber out and click on READ MORE below!

BREAKING. Star Wars The Clone Wars back for a 2nd season in April in South Africa.

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Time to restore balance to the Force in 2010. I'm at episode 13 already and I can reveal first that the 2nd season of Star Wars The Clone Wars in South Africa is set to start on The Cartoon Network (DStv 301) in April. I asked the TV channel who told me that the highly anticipated 2nd season debut is tentatively set for Friday, 9 April.