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We live in an era where there are multiple live-action Star Wars television shows. In the past few years Lucasfilm has produced The Mandalorian, Skeleton Crew, Ahsoka, and more. If you want a live-action Star Wars television show, you aren’t starved for content.

However, there was a time when Star Wars only appeared on television in animated form. There were 1980s Saturday morning shows Droids and Ewoks, and, decades later, The Clone Wars. Before selling Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, George Lucas was toying with the idea of producing a live-action television series, and it would’ve focused on Emperor Palpatine’s political life.

“[George Lucas] was talking about, I think I can tell you now, a television series,” Ian McDiarmid told the audience during a panel at Spacecon 2026. “At the time we didn’t think about Star Wars in terms of television series. Very speculative. We had lunch one day, and he said I’ve got this idea, and I hope you might want to be involved. We could sort of follow the Emperor’s progress, like Hilter’s, some of that. There might be an assassination attempt, and of course it wouldn’t succeed. It sounded really exciting. And he also said that maybe you could direct one, and then I fainted. But sadly, that didn’t come to pass.”

It's unclear whether or not McDiarmid is referring to Star Wars: Underworld, a television series Lucas had been developing for years, but ultimately decided not to make due to budget reasons. That series would’ve taken place between Episode III and IV. At the time it was reported that the Emperor would be an unseen figure, but from what Ian McDiarmid is saying, it's possible that his role would’ve been larger than we originally thought - or, perhaps, Lucas was toying with more than one live action Star Wars show and nobody ever knew.

Imagine a West Wing style show about Palpatine’s reign as Emperor. Now that would’ve been good television.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.