Before the final episode airs on Tuesday I kind of want to solidify my thoughts on the show thus far. I don’t have any glaring issues or problems with the show as a whole in terms of writing quality. The plot and characterization have their issues but there’s nothing I feel that crosses the line into making the series bad. However despite overall liking it there’s something unsatisfying about the whole show, and the issue is that these little minor issues I have with the world-building and the characterization add up even in episodes that I mostly enjoy. Like episode 6 was good, but I still in hindsight feel like there was something missing that’s stopping me from loving it. The show has 2 main issues and the first one is the pacing, in that the episodes are way too long and that leads to the episodes being kind of dull. Episodes 1 and 5 are the episodes most guilty of this issue. Episode 1 is mostly set up, but the pacing is really slow, like there are either scenes that don’t feel necessary, or they’re necessary but they’re shot in a way that makes them drag just short of forever. Episode 5 is the most emblematic of this issue that I think the show has. The first half is really well-paced, but the second half is really dull and boring. It’s pretty clear that they spent a lot of time on the last half of the episode trying to make the Purgil look really good, but the issue is that nothing really happens when they’re on screen.
Either that or the pacing is fine, but it feels like not enough stuff actually happened in the episode episodes 3 and 7 are guilty of this. Episode 3 is mostly well-paced, but it has 1 sequence that just drags the rest of the episode down because we don’t really need it because we already had a dogfight and we’re about to get a second one. And with episode 7 it was never boring or dull, but not much really happened in the episode. The main thing that happens is that Balon Skull separates from Shin Hati, and Sabine and Ezra reunite with Ahsoka, so even though the episode is packed with action, nothing really happens. The only episode I had almost no problems with is episode 4 which is not only really well-paced, but it feels like enough happens in the episode to move the plot forward that I don’t feel dissatisfied. I think the issue is really the format of the show. Unlike Obi-Wan, I don’t think this is just a 2-hour movie that’s been stretched out to 6 hours, but I feel like 8 episodes were way too much for the series. I think if this show was only 5-6 episodes long it would be a lot better paced.