Season 1 Episode 5

“The best confidence builder is experience.”

Alone on a distant outpost, clone officers Rex and Cody must inspire their rookie unit to believe in themselves to stave off a droid commando invasion.

Rookies Commentary, Preview and starwars.com Episode Guide.

Concept art and trivia

The fauna of Rishi includes another re-use of the neebray manta model — the fourth so far for the series. It can be seen as a tiny creature on the moon of Rugosa in “Ambush,” deep space leviathans in “Shadow of Malevolence”, and fluttering over Tatooine in the feature film.

Drop-pods used to deliver droids is an idea that echoes the deployment of probots in The Empire Strikes Back. The model of the commando pod is a re-use of the pod-hunters seen in “Rising Malevolence” and the boarding craft that will appear in “Cloak of Darkness,” suggesting a modular, versatile design.

CT 327’s identifying number uses the very common digits 327 — numbers that conspicuously appear throughout the Star Wars saga. Among other things, 327 is a docking bay number aboard the Death Star in Episode IV, a landing platform in Cloud City in Episode V, and a Naboo ship type in Episode I. Though George Lucas has remained coy on the subject of explaining the number’s origins, many have noted that it is a popular car engine type, invoked by name in his feature, American Graffiti.

Rex and Cody briefly mention a previous dire situation on Tibrin. Tibrin is the Ishi Tib home world.

The holographic VJ hosting the music broadcast is a BD-3000 droid, nicknamed a “Bettie Bot”

The text on Hevy’s detonator screen says, in Aurebesh, “ATTE RUL3Z SOME TEXT.”