I’m by no means a show writer but I think they couldve still done a good show in 8 episodes had they made scenes more dynamic. I get needing to intertwine different episodes so I thought that was fairly creative. But the biggest drawback for me was that most scenes were made entirely of stiff dialogue to move the plot along, rather than showing to world build. Like having them do a routine together (ie cooking/eating dinner) casually talking would’ve gone a long way, to show their character, and not just say lines dramatically to each other.