I have a bit of a prequel cringe every other episode or so, but nothing that has diminished how interesting and engaging this is. As I said earlier, I made the decision to make peace with that and just watch & enjoy. This is much deeper than what I vaguely remember from Phantom. The voice acting is considerably better than the Lucas films. Hats off to all who voiced the characters.
I will say at the outset: It was primarily the animation that drew me in, but I’m finding myself quite interested in the characters and storylines. I did skip episode 8 because I saw in the info paragraph that is was a Jar Jar episode. Sorry, I’m just not there yet.
That would be a few episodes later when he’s a peripheral comic relief character. To be clear, he’s still childish relief, but he was somehow less offensive than the idiotic portrayal in Phantom. I think it was the voice actor or the writing. Probably both. Plus he was used sparingly.
Jar-Jar can be every bit as annoying in this show as in EP I. However, season 1, episode 12 shows the character at his least annoying and most competent, so I’d say that one is probably worth watching.