Just finished this. I think this show is the final nail in the coffin for the Mandoverse to me.
There's so much to dislike but the biggest issue I have is that the scenes don't really make sense together. It feels like they have the same problem with the last Mandalorian season where they create these coarse visual storyboards, and then hamfistedly build the story around them without much attention to the why or how. A good example is the last episode where they show Ahsoka's Shuttle gliding above the crab colony as they are making their way... somewhere? It feels like they built the art for that scene and HAD to fit in the show before the next art piece, which was probably them riding the wolf alligators. The scene was visually cool and an interesting mix of shit-tier tech with a weird alien species and top-tier Jedi tech, which is a Star Wars staple, but it made no sense for the heroes who urgently needed to infiltrate the enemy before they warped outta there and stranded them. It feels like 50% of the show is composed of these stilted scenes that make the characters feel like they have no agency and are hallucinating in a fever dream.
I'd encourage the writers to have another round of writing after the screenplay and ask themselves whether the characters are making choices consistent with their character.
Beyond that, they totally whiffed on Thrawn. I tried to withhold judgement on the casting until I saw the show and he just looked like a fat blue Elon Musk throughout. Having read some of the Thrawn books and watched some of the shows, his physical fitness is a key part of his character, so to watch a Thrawn that has been fucking around for a few decades come out looking like Fat Lee Adama is just distracting. How they ended up with Fat Elon is crazy, the needed act range is minimal, he just needs to look at some art and cooly make prescient decisions. There should have been no problem finding an actor that fits the part.
Following the casting, the writing made him look like a bumbling idiot that nearly failed to survive an easy situation. There are a lot of ways they could have had the heroes stay heroic while making him look like a calculating genius, but the writers did not really attempt it.
Thrawn is already kind of a dumb, contrived character to begin with, but the reason it's so important to build him up is because he has the impossible task of rebuilding the empire after its absolute destruction. Finishing Ahsoka Season 1 the viewer is not left with a sense of dread on how Thrawn is going to pull together disparate pieces to form a menacing faction, instead it feels like they could just send Mando and Skywalker in and just smoke him.
Their decision to not end Ahsoka's plot is confusing. Nobody wants an Ahsoka/Sabina Season 2, they are mid at best. I don't know how you can build a show around those two characters and still be completely outclassed by Ray Stevenson mysteriously into the distance.
Anyway, 6/10, won't watch the next Star Wars Mandoverse whatever. Will watch Andor season 2, which is excellent and should be the gold standard these stupid shows look to for guidance.