Just finished watching the first (or second?) episode.
Thqnks for checking it out, Hal. Its original source has 18% on Rotten Tomatoes so this episode was never going to be amazing, so I’ll settle for “good”!
Glad you (and others) feel like the Maul cold open works. As you say, I think it’s sensible to just tell the audience “this is happening, get used to it” early.
And yeah, it’s odd to have Ventress imply she knows Obi-Wan, but that’s in the original episode. The show does a fair amount of this, for example when Ahsoka and Padmé first meet they’re already close friends.