I watched the episode with my daughter last night (second watching for me) and she thought the season was way too short and/or not enough happened.  An unsophisticated viewer that I couldn't agree with more.

Ultimately I mostly enjoyed the show.  Some thoughts:
- I like that it had a general plot that you could follow without giant plant holes or total randomness.  Some plot points (Baylan/Shin) still don't make any sense, but weren't critical to the story.  BoBF and Mando season 3 were pretty messy from a plot perspective, so I was glad to see the execution on this was better.  It was no Andor, but it was solid.
- I agree with my daughter that the pace was a bit slow at times and not a lot happened.  I don't need non-stop action sequences, but it would have been nice to have the story move at a faster clip and/or have more episodes to tell a bigger story.
- The show was called "Ahsoka", but at times it really felt like the show didn't have much to do with her character development and spent more time on Sabine and other characters.  Or at the very least I'm not sure we had an "Ahsoka" struggle/character journey that played out very well.  At the beginning of the show it was Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.  Quickly we pulled in the training abandonment of Sabine as a main theme, but that theme wasn't well maintained throughout the show.  They kept coming back to Ahsoka stopped the training because Sabine might use her training for the revenge of Mandalore, but they didn't really show what has changed and if Sabine had the right motivations.  And at the end of the show it seemed to just be back to Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.

I'm not sure what to think about a season 2.  Do we want Ahsoka and Sabine to get back to the "real world" and Ahsoka to be a major player in this timeframe, or do we want her to be in limbo in the other galaxy?  Do we think she survives to the time of the sequel trilogy but remains off the table somehow?  Do we want Mando and the New Republic to take up the battle on their vs. Thrawn in the other series without Jedi help other than I guess Ezra and maybe Luke?  The stories they're trying to tell in this timeframe are tough when they keep major players off the table, which is why I think a show like Andor works so well. 

Quote from: tmanthegreat on October  4, 2023, 01:13 AM

Well that was an interesting episode tonight! Really wish this season wasn’t only 8 episodes though…

I agree with this sentiment.  I felt that there wasn't much fear for Thrawn to die since he essentially just showed up in the series and is a main baddie.  With the way the Star Wars live action shows have been doing cross-overs, I feel Thrawn's plot will be resolved in an Endgame kind of way (isn't there a movie to come out?).
Maybe there needed to be one more episode... at least to flesh out what Baylan and Shin were doing instead of a quick montage of all the key players in the series at the end.  I was disappointed in their brief screentime because I enjoyed Baylan's story so far (and I'm not sure if we'll ever know the end of it now that Ray's passed) and was curious to see where Shin's path lies (is it still with Thrawn as Baylan suggested, even though she was left behind?).  I'm looking forward to see more of Ezra.  I enjoyed his character (humor and all).

Totally agree.

The Baylan/Shin stories needed more meat to them.  Are we supposed to be worried about what Baylan is doing when we don't have the faintest idea what he is up to?  Why does Shin's character even exist if she is just going to be stuck in the other galaxy? She could have easily have been an Inquisitor if they needed another lightsaber wielding baddy.

I think the series has been decent - not great and not bad.  The Baylan part is probably the biggest head scratcher.

One other thing I was surprised that didn't transpire was getting Zeb involved.  I thought he might have come along with Carson's squad and then joined up with Hera, but even Hera didn't have much of a role.  Maybe it'll come in season 2 or in some other related series

The mystery remains about what is in those caskets that are being loaded on the Chimaera.  Dead Night Sisters?  Ysalamiri?  Or something more sinister?

At first I thought it was Ysalamiri, but why would they need hundreds of crates of them when there are only a handful of Jedi?

Ahsoka TVC figures would be sweet, but I still want a full set of main characters from Andor.  That has a second season coming (supposedly in August 2024) and I sure hope they put a lot more creative energy in to those figures before too long.

Speculation on what is in the cases that Thrawn's team was loading in to the Star Destroyer?  I'm not sure they'll do ysalamiri in this version of the story, but that is my only guess at this point.

Thrawn was really dismissive of Baylan and Shin, and any role they may play going forward, so I'm not sure what he thinks of Jedi.

I'm also unsure what to think of the fact that Ezra seemed to be living so close to all the action.  He didn't seem to be hiding all that well, and it doesn't seem like Thrawn to just let him be and not hunt him down.  I'll be also interested in how they might explain how Ezra survived on the Star Destroyer during their hyperspace flight and then managed to leave the Star Destroyer when they arrived.  Maybe Ezra and Thrawn reached some kind of agreement, or Thrawn didn't want to kill him as he might be their only way back with the Purrgil?

I've never bought from Stan Solo or any of the 3rd party companies, but with Stan Solo's pre-order for the Tonnika sisters happening, and the fact that Hasbro probably won't ever make these, I think I'm going to pull the trigger.

What are people's recommendation on the best way and time to get these?  Just pre-order them from the UK (42 pounds each) and pay shipping, or try and buy them elsewhere?

Let's hope the people at Disney making the decisions on closing the hotel didn't tell the product managers / factory in a timely manner and there is still a pile of them on a boat still working its way through the distribution system that will get dumped at ShopDisney or some other place.

Real artists and creative people cost money.  Why work hard when you can mail it in?  All you need is some unpaid interns and Google and you've saved yourself a bunch of money and effort. 

I'm sure Hasbro has fired all the artists they got when the bought Galoob, but I remember some of the MicroMachines playset boxes as being fantastic works of art.  I whish Hasbro spent 1/100th of the effort on packaging artwork that some of the people did back in the heyday.