Im still on a Star Wars kick, after re-watching the prequels for the first time in possibly a decade. And I came away positively suprised. The flaws where flaws, but it also had good stuff.
This got me to re-watch 'The Clone Wars' which I watched maybe 5 or so years ago. And my takeaways where not so positive. I have ALLOT of bugaboos with this show, but at the center is that its immensly boring. Maybe this is a George thing, (but certainly is a Filoni thing), but dear god can they not make their antagonists threatening. Its one thing to make your antagonists a bunch of moustache twirling villians with no pathos or twisted but interesting goals (heroes on both sides my ass - some token senators don't count), but do they have to be utterly incompitent as well?
Im left dully watching the screen waiting not if the heroes will win, but when. The only time I know the villians will score a victory is if its phyrric, against a bunch of jobbers, or would end the plot. And tense things Im scared to lose is still absolutely possible to accomplish even if the fate of the main protagonists and the overall story is already known.
But lack of stakes is my primary poblem, but it has much more. I find the characters pretty dull, I find what they attempt to recontextualize (IE retcon) to almost aways be for the worse, and I find its comedy annoying and often jarring.
And this has nothing to do with being a kids show. I like kids shows. Being mature isn't the same as being adult, and most adult media is not mature anyway. And I also know that War Drama is also possible in kids TV. Avatar the Last Airbender, or Exosquad, kept tension and stakes with murch harsher restrictions on violence then what TCN has. Its maddening because Filoni directed most of season 1 of ATLA, so Its insane that he didn't take away from some of its best writing.
This is ultimately my opinion, so whatever.