As Hal said the opening episode was over-stretched (I know the original pitch for Skeleton Crew was a movie, and in that form I’m sure this part of the story would have been much compressed). We didn’t need to see 45 minutes of Elliot’s mundane family life before he hooked up with E.T. - this genre of family movie relies on pep, zing, pace - call it what you will - but it was lacking in the first episode.
That said, the pacing improved massively in the second episode, and also the cinematography and set design really started to shine. The pirate spaceport was really, really well-visualised. Brimming with foreground and background density of detail and some really good practical aliens and costuming. It rather puts Ahsoka, Kenobi, and The Acolyte to shame how good this looked.
The child actors were also decent and based on the strength of the second episode I’m actually rather excited to see the third!