Well, I didn’t expect to have a larger update for you guys today, but it turns out that I do. I’ve just rewatched the first five episodes again, in the order (and mindset) suggested by Imhotep, and I’m definitely going to adopt that approach. I’ve already got two pages of notes on how to make it work.

Essentially, Imhotep suggested ‘focus on the villains’ and to let them link the first few episodes. That ultimately emerges as making Grievous a more present and credible military threat, with Ventress as a competent specialist and fighter. Therefore, we now have:

Christophsis, (re)establishing Ventress as an assassin/enforcer for Dooku, and introducing Ahsoka
Malevolence, establishing Grievous as a strategic commander with no morality, and developing Ahsoka more. In this episode’s crawl, I’d use the wording of “emergency”, allowing Grievous’ attack to implicitly be the emergency that Ahsoka was sent to Christophsis to tell Anakin about in that episode, retroactively allowing him to overshadow that episode too, and filling in that gap.
Mandalore 1, pulling Obi-Wan (and later Anakin) into the Mandalore plotline. I’d rename this ‘The Duchess of Mandalore’ (instead of Death Watch) because that implies an interesting change to what we know of Mandalore, and encourage us to focus on the relationship angle. In this episode’s crawl, I’ll mention that Anakin and Ahsoka are pursuing the fleeing Grievous after the destruction of his flagship, emphasising his threat.
Cloak of Darkness, dealing with Ahsoka alone on the sidelines of the Grievous pursuit as Anakin and Obi-Wan get distracted by Mandalore. I’ll change the crawl to state that in pursuit of Grievous, the Republic have captured Nute Gunray, who they plan to interrogate specifically for the location of Grievous. This fits nicely with their behaviour. I’ll also make it clear that Luminara is covering for Anakin in his absence. Here Ventress is now being deployed specifically to protect Grievous (and his strategies) at the behest of Dooku, emphasising both of their strengths.
The 501st Legion, focusing on our core clones and culminating in both Grievous and Ventress attacking Kamino, for some big drama where all the threat is clear.

This way, these five episodes focus on the threat of Grievous as a droid general and Ventress as an assassin, with the less focused episodes still contributing to that arc. It’s not super tight, but it’s not much looser than this season of Bad Batch. The downside of this coherency is that it now puts my two worst episodes first, but I think I’m just going to make the disclaimer more prominent…

As I say, I have notes for the improvement of all of these episodes too.

I also watched the episode normally titled ‘Duchess of Mandalore’ (where the Death Watch attack Satine on Coruscant, which I might rename to ‘The Death Watch’ or ‘Revenge of the Death Watch’ [yes, I know I’m essentially flipping the two episode names]), which I have as 108 but Imhotep suggested as 106 “to have the main cast regroup”. This one only shows Obi-Wan and Padmé (and a little Anakin) though, so I might give the Kamino attack a bit more time to breathe by keeping it a little later.

That said though, as per my previous post, I’d like to show Ahsoka returning to her studies in one of these episodes, which could be that episode. It could also be the 501st, to explain why Ahsoka’s not in that one during all the big drama. We shall see.

In terms of thoughts beyond the restructuring, I feel like distance has given me some new perspective (and these are on top of all of the existing feedback, all of which is going to be processed):

I don’t think Bail in Christophsis adds anything, so I’ll take him out
I’ll streamline the start of Christophsis a little, to make the orbital/separatist/comms situation a bit more straightforward
I can streamline a little of Malevolence to make it a bit better paced and give it a bit of time to breathe
I have a few cuts to tighten and smooth both Malevolence and Cloak of Darkness
I’ve spotted a few bits of polish in audio and transitions I can give to 501st

Whee!