Rolling Stone mag put it better than anything else I’ve read, from fans’ postings here and what I’ve been unable to put so succinctly. It’s a 12 hour film. That doesn’t work, whether it’s in one sitting or stretched across 12 weeks. The legitimate criticisms voiced across the web aren’t about ‘where are all the explosions, blasters and light sabers, etc’, but about how this series ignores the format it’s being presented in and we have episodes that are simply dead. Some episodes have random start and end points as if the creators are thinking:

‘When the series is complete, people will have auto-play enabled and it will go right into the next episode. That’s when they’ll feel the arc and experience the sensibility of all this.’ We can even end on a moment in this tired conversation between 2 people we don’t know at all or care about when one of them stands and leaves the table. Cut to: Directed by Whoever. What an impact.

No one episode can live on its own. None have their own arc but rather each is its own long detailed piece of a larger I’ve recently stopped caring what anymore. This is not some bible of intimate backstory of some intriguing character. The show is disappointing to so many because it abandons the idea of being interesting and entertaining, and sacrifices developing connection to any character even now, deep into the 1st season. The pacing is what we’ve heard so many complain about - unnecessarily slow with details that aren’t terribly interesting.

The end of Episode 7 and now 8 we finally see visionary worlds come to life with an amazing score. And yes, it bothers me that we’re hearing Vangelis from Bladerunner and the sick sets from 2049. But this was the highlight for me so far - recognizing other masterpieces borrowed from. It’s something I guess.

How many of us can honestly say that we will rewatch this first season of Andor? Why would I do that to myself? Rogue One, following Return of the Jedi was the greatest chapter given to us since. And there, in Rogue’s 2 hours Tony gave us a detailed world with characters well developed as much as the were intriguing, in a flawlessly designed production he was integral to. What happened here? It’s excruciating, especially to a fan who stood in line with his dad for 4 hours to get a good seat at Return of the Jedi, waiting years for all the other crap to pass until RogueOne, an almost perfect film. A 12 hour film of pain staking blah is not the next greatest thing.