Mandalorian season 3: trailer, Star Wars release date, when is it set - and cast with The Last of Us’ Pedro Pascal

The latest Disney Plus Star Wars series - the brooding, sci-fi espionage of Andor - gave fans a refreshingly low-key take on the galaxy far, far away, shedding light on the undercover plots and Imperial politicking that gave rise to the Rebel Alliance.

It gave us a reason to hate the Empire all over again (because Darth Vader is really quite silly when you think about it), but perhaps lacked the expansive, space opera scale of most mainline Star Wars offerings.

But fans looking for that particular flavour of Star Wars, need look no further than The Mandalorian season three, which once again continues the adventures of Din Djarin, who was reunited with his adopted Baby Yoda/Grogu during The Book of Boba Fett.

Here is everything you need to know about it.

What will happen in Season 3?

The final episode of season two of the show came in December 2020, though The Mandalorian made an appearance in episodes of fellow Star Wars spin-off The Book Of Boba Fett, last year.

Season three will pick up immediately after The Book of Boba Fett, with Din Djarin and Grogu journeying to Djarin’s home planet of Mandalore so he can begin to atone for his sin of taking off his helmet (a customary no-no in Mandalorian culture).

Whether Fett himself will make an appearance remains to be seen, but since the two character’s have shared intertwined narratives in both previous seasons of The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett (Djarin even stole the show with a spin-off episode right in the middle of the latter), it’s likely he could pop up at some point.

A trailer released in January showed Grogu appearing to have a new found control over The Force: in the closing seconds of the clip he is seemingly cornered by a bounty hunter in a cave, only to blast the villain back. The trailer also saw the pair cross paths with old allies and make new enemies, amid high-octane starship battles.

And teaser footage shown off at last year’s Star Wars Celebration event revealed the return of Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), who seems to still be harbouring resentment over Djarin winning the Darksaber, an ancient and powerful lightsaber that technically makes him the ruler of Mandalore.

Kryze was featured heavily in the storylines of The Clone Wars animated series, as a character whose desire to rule Mandalore led to severe consequences. Fans lucky enough to have seen the teaser footage think she may even be being positioned as the third series’ main antagonist.

Aside from that though, there’s little information on what to expect from the third series, although being surprised each week as new wrinkles in the Star Wars story comes to light is half of the fun anyway. One thing we do know is that the diminutive Babu Frik, last seen in 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, will be making an appearance, along with other members of his Anzellan species.

Who’s in the cast?

Pedro Pascal returns as Din Djarin, the show’s titular Mandalorian. It’s been said that production on the third series did not need to wait for Pascal to complete filming the HBO series The Last of Us (another of 2023’s early television highlights), since the Mandalorian is primarily seen with his helmet on.

Also returning are Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon (who has previously said he expects to be featured more prominently in the third season than in previous ones), Carl Weathers as Greef Karga, Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze, Emily Swallow as The Armorer, Omid Abtahi as Dr. Pershing, and Amy Sedaris as Peli Motto.

In addition to the returning cast, it’s also been revealed that Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future’s Doc Brown) will be a guest star for season three, and

When can I watch it?

The series returned to screens on Wednesday 1 March 2023.

There will be eight episodes in total, all of which were written by creator and showrunner Jon Favreau. Bryce Dallas Howard - who has directed some of the standout instalments of previous seasons - will return behind the camera, as will Rick Famuyiwa and co-star Carl Weathers.