2005 was the year the Saga was complete. The epic journey came full circle. So, is that it then? All done, washed up, hang up the lightsabers and retire to some forgotten corner far from the bright centre of popular culture? Where does Star Wars go from here?

The Expanded Universe will, of course, continue. But the novels are getting more distant in terms of time and characters from the film stories we all know and love. For the casual fan, the EU is a galaxy that is getting further and further away.

Dedicated fans will keep the Jedi spirit alive for themselves. We'll continue to buy the merchandise, play the games and go to conventions, just as we did in the long wilderness following the end of the classic trilogy in 1983. Fans of these films will continue to introduce the Saga to new generations.

But all this still makes Star Wars essentially a thing of the past for most people, a nostalgic memory. How can it stay in the here and now, where it belongs?

The answer seems to lie in Lucas's two mooted TV series. Scheduled for launch sometime around the end of 2007, there will be one 3-D animated Clone Wars series, and one live action show set during the 19-year gap between Episodes III and IV.

Assuming these don't go the way of Indy IV, and spend years stuck in the netherworld of development and conflicting schedules, what can we expect? Well, one thing's for sure, and that's that anybody expecting a mini Star Wars movie every week is going to be sorely disappointed.

Television shows and films are very different animals. Episodic TV unfolds slowly, and can't throw in galaxy-shattering events and kill off major characters every week. It wouldn't work from a story point of view. Neither is there going to be the budget to dazzle us with Battle of Coruscant-style fireworks all the time.

Where the great strength of TV lies is in the luxury of screen time. A typical series nowadays has 22 hours (Well, 15 hours once you take out the ads! ) to tell its story. Contrast that with the two-and-a-bit hours of a typical film, and you have a lot more time to expand characters, give them backgrounds, and introduce sub-plots.

Several scenes in Episode III were cut back because, in its limited running time it had to focus almost solely on the character of Anakin. As a result, a lot of interesting stuff relating to Padmé and the formation of the Rebel Alliance was missed out. A TV series would not need to do that.

Yoda might tell us that impossible to see, these future series are. None of us can tell right now what they're going to be like, and whether they'll be any good. But it's going to be interesting and fun finding out!

And besides, if all else fails, I still haven't done that six-films-plus-Clone-Wars, 15-hour marathon yet!!!