See, I’m of a completely different mind about it. I think the show could’ve just not had a story.
Grogu and Din traveling to different pockets of the galaxy doing random stuff and growing together along the way, would have been better than what we got IMO. The little adventures they did have ended up being so half baked and bare bones because of the obligation to get somewhere. It only got in the way of fleshing out how interesting the vignettes could be.
It’s not sidetracking if there is no track, and it leaves you with an entire galaxy as a canvas to explore. Din and Grogu just along for the ride. I genuinely think the show would have been better served focusing less on those two and more on the “guest world” or character of an episode. Make it the Cobb Vanth Show, Greef Carga Show, Egg Lady Show, or Mayfeld Show for the episode(s) they’re in. Flesh those characters and their dilemmas out - invest us in them more than the Mando and Baby Yoda. The duo then comes out of an episode having learned or changed by interacting with them.
As it was, it felt like we were just passing through sidequests to exchange favors. But I’d rather we took on the perspective of those being passed by. It’s not like Din and Grogu wouldn’t be in every episode for us to gather an identifiable thread.
The issue for me is that it ended up being very middle of the road, and not in a good way. They didn’t go all in into “big story split into parts”, but didn’t go all in in the “adventure of the week with Mando & the Child” either, so particularly for this Season 2, we ended up with a lot of story crammed into a few episodes.