Tales of the Jedi is a title with a lot of weight to fans of the broader Star Wars universe.

It’s hard to imagine, but Star Wars was essentially a dead franchise throughout most of the 1980s, back when such things were allowed to die. It stayed dormant until Lucasfilm started licensing new books, comics and games throughout the 1990s. On the forefront of the initiative was Dark Horse Comics, who held the license from the early 1990s until Disney took over in 2015 and handed it to Marvel, their in-house publisher.

The Dark Horse era started with the Dark Empire Trilogy, a sequel to Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi that saw Luke Skywalker briefly fall to the Dark Side under the sway of a resurrected Emperor Palpatine. Other post-Return of the Jedi stories saw the adventures of Rogue Squadron, the redemption of Imperial Guard Kir Kanos in Crimson Empire, and eventually an expansion of the saga into the far past and far future. It was a great run of stories, and the reprints of those 1990s and 2000s comics remain big sellers for Marvel.

One of the most iconic series, though, was Tales of the Jedi, which encompassed a sequence of titles published between 1993 and 1998. Set in the far past, writers Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson extrapolated on vague mentions of Sith and Jedi lore that, at the time, had very little concrete canonical presence. Before George Lucas returned from the prequels, a lot of these concepts were up for grabs, and the result was a blend of recognizable Star Wars ideas with an “ancient galaxy” setting far before the events of the Original Trilogy, at the dawn of hyperspace travel. Characters like Exar Kun, Ulic Qel-Droma and Nomi Sunrider remained important in the overall canon of the Star Wars Expanded Universe before Disney rebooted it, but elements of their stories are frequently referenced by cartoons and other new material.

The leak of a Tales of the Jedi series last year made many older fans excited at the potential. Could this be a modernization of these classic stories? Or at least something in the same conceptual vein?

The answer is, of course, no. But that’s not the reason why this sequence of six short animated episodes — now available on Disney+ — isn’t ultimately a little disappointing.

Rather than break new ground, galaxy godhead Dave Filoni has taken the classic title and used it to add what essentially amount to “missing pieces” in the ongoing film saga we know and love. These stories are additive but don’t stand particularly well on their own — even from one episode to the next. The six episodes encompass two arcs that interweave thematically, with two leads. One story is the corruption of prequel baddie Count Dooku, who never really shined in the movies but had some good episodes of The Clone Wars and a backstory elaborated upon only on the publishing side in barely read novels. The other story is another set of Ahsoka Tano tales, basically just bits and pieces relevant to her actions in The Clone Wars and Rebels.

Having seen all six episodes, I can say I enjoy them viscerally. The animated style used in The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch has come a long, long way from the nearly unwatchable aesthetics of the 2008-2010 seasons of The Clone Wars. Filoni in particular understands how these shows need to look and feel, and he makes the most of these episodes, giving us lovely looks at characters and settings old and new. Given the way he uses a Western duel as a motif in both this and his Ahsoka episode of The Mandalorian‘s second season, I can’t help but feel that’s the tone for which her series will ultimately strive. I would love for that to be the case.

And, hell, I really enjoyed the Dooku episodes in particular because that character has rarely gotten his due and deserved a lot more elaboration. His relationship with padawan Qui-Gon Jinn is central to his eventual corruption after the events of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, and I loved getting more of my favorite unconventional Jedi Master in these stories. My favorite era of the franchise are the years surrounding Episode I, and we rarely see anything from them. I’ll admit, like most things, that interest is largely an artifact of seeing the movie when I was 9 years old and devouring all the tie-in tales published around its release. It’s all nostalgia in the end.

Such as it is, the relationship with Qui-Gon Jinn speaks to my main problem with Tales of the Jedi, which is that the nature of this series inherently prevents a lot of depth to any of the stories. After he hears of Qui-Gon’s death at the hands of Darth Maul, Dooku makes a big betrayal in his final chapter that falls somewhat flat because we only get the implication of intimacy between himself and the Jedi he murders. I would’ve loved to see a whole series of episodes about Dooku that allowed more exploration of his life and motivations. What we get is engaging and cool, but it somehow doesn’t feel like enough.

With such a broad title as Tales of the Jedi, not being enough is kind of the core problem. Six episodes centered around two characters does not feel like a substantial enough anthology given the pedigree of the title and the potential of the idea. It’s impossible for me to believe that The Bad Batch would do better numbers than a 16-episode series of vignettes about Jedi past, present and maybe even future. I’d love to see Sequel-era material in this style that feels of a kind with already beloved series. I wouldn’t mind some adventures of Luke Skywalker while he builds his temple or even stories about him adventuring between THE Original Trilogy movies. Heck, the Prequels are full of interesting Jedi; why not stories about them? Give me that Plo Koon miniseries. The sky is the limit, and these episodes feel like a paltry offering, all things considered.

Tales of the Jedi is good. It just doesn’t feel like enough.