I just finished the first episode and so far I’m liking it. It’s not as good as the first 2 seasons of The Mandalorian, but it’s much better than the Book of Bobba Fett. If I had an issue it’s that it felt a little bit too long. But it’s kind of like Black Panther Wakanda Forever in that there’s really not much that I’d cut from it. It’s strong right out of the gate with the first scene and the temple investigation but then it kind of goes downhill. The dialogue between Hera and Ahsoka, and the villains on the ruins is way too long. I think the issue is some of the dialogue scenes go too slowly and from what I’ve heard so far this is going to be a recurring issue. However, the second half of the episode is much stronger than the first and when it gets going it’s quite thrilling. Ahsoka and Sabine’s banter and character dynamic are good and it doesn’t suffer from any of the problems the other dialogue scenes do. I liked the Ceremony and chase scene, Ahsoka and Hera’s conversation about Sabine, Sabine opening the map, and the final action scene which was fantastic although the lightsaber stab kind of bothers me. If it can pick up in the next few episodes I feel this could be quite good.
Episode 2 was way better than the first episode. This one moves at a much faster pace and pretty much suffers from none of the dialogue problems the first episode had. Ahsoka and Hera’s dynamic is way better here and they feel more like they did in Rebels. I liked the factory subplot as while it was easy to guess what was gonna happen it was very entertaining. The factory supervisor was a fun character and the fight scene was well done. I also enjoyed Huang’s conversation with Sabine and her finally making the decision to restart her training. I don’t really have any complaints as of right now, and I can definitely understand why they released the first 2 episodes together as episode 1 wasn’t anywhere near as good. I kind of wished the first 2 episodes would’ve been combined into 1 episode, with most of the cuts coming from episode 1, as I feel like with snappier dialogue editing in the first episode and a good 15-20 minutes being cut this would’ve been a much better opener. All that being said if you were dissatisfied with The Mandalorian Season 3 you likely won’t like this much better because right now it’s on par with the plot focus episodes of that series. Also, I don’t think anyone who hasn’t watched Star Wars Rebels would really enjoy this series as it’s pretty much season 5 of that show.