I won’t write the show off based on one episode but there’s definitely room for improvement. The pacing was really plodding. This has been a recurring problem with recent live action SW but it’s also streaming in general. No set time slots have lead some to slacken their narrative discipline. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been 45 minutes.
Also I’m not convinced this had to be live action. I spent a lot of time this episode mentally adjusting to thinking of these as the same characters from the same story. Sabine was perfectly cast, but I’m not sold on the others. Rosario as Ahsoka looked good on paper but feels wooden on screen. Hopefully Feloni didn’t inherit George’s facility with actors.
Andor also proved to me that they need to stop leaning so heavily on the Volume. The sets on Andor had that classic Star Wars lived in futurism, the sets here felt mostly sterile and empty. But then Andor spoiled us on a lot of things.
I’m rooting for Filoni and want this to succeed so I hope it gets better.