The Mandalorian started out OK, but ended up as some half-baked, lazily written show that exist merely to lure parents to justify a Disney+ subscription. Kids get the usual Disney contents, moms get Baby Yoda, dads get Star Wars nerdy reference. The show almost feels like being made by a bunch of fanfiction writers with familiarity of the setting but zero sense of screen writing.
Nothing wrong with liking it, it's just the show appears to be all style and no substance.
Storyline shows no complexity at all. In fact, most of them are fillers. You can skip 4 of 8 episodes and you'll still understand the story just fine. Characters are completely uninteresting. None of them are developed. None of them had nuances: protagonists are morally good heroes; antagonists are one dimensional evils. The show relies only on a cute muppet and flashy action, but has zero substance. Had a potential great world-building with some details, but they chose to abandon it for rule of cool (and cute).
The "it's Star Wars, so it'll be simple" excuse commonly said by the series' defenders doesn't hold up if you actually consider other Star Wars titles such as Knights of the Old Republic, Republic Commando, Jedi Academy, Thrawn trilogy, the original and Tartakovsky's Clone Wars, and so on. Those titles are known for having remarkable storytelling; something that The Mandalorian doesn't have for its poverty of creative vision.
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@xaliber I'd say the "filler" is kind of the point. I'm actually almost annoyed when the main story arc pops in. Then again I love stuff like X-Files, Lone Wolf and Cub and Star Trek, so I'm used to episodic TV and very happy when I find a show that caters to this. This need for an overarching story that's constantly in the center was created by binge/streaming culture and I really appreciated having a show where I wouldn't be completely lost when the second season hit. That's why I dropped The Expanse (great show in general); I didn't remember who all those god damn people were.
