I watched bits and pieces of The Clone Wars back when Cartoon Network was still running repeats, but It only tended to be the occasional standalone episode, or an action-packed finale.
It was fine, but I never got into it.
Years later, I keep on hearing that The Clone Wars is fantastic, with some great stories and characters, and it is definitely worth watching. So, I gave it a try, but something that I quickly realised about the show, is that it is a bit all over the place.
First of all, it being an anthology series can lead to some wonky pacing, but the good news is, Disney has outlined the chronological order - which is great - but even then, you quickly realise that some of these episodes are pretty terrible, so on my first couple of attempts to watch the show, I kept on quitting fairly quickly, due to being bogged down by boring plots.
The way to watch The Clone Wars is definitely to just read up on what episodes are worth watching, and then skip the rest. This is how I watched the show when I finally decided to sit through it, after Season 7 had wrapped up. I ended up watching about 80 of the 120 episodes, with even some of those being fairly lackluster, but pretty important for the series' plot.
But when this show gets good, it gets good.
So yeah, the final season: it was alright, then it was bad, and then it was amazing.
The Bad Batch arc was your pretty standard Clone Wars arc, with some shooting action, some jedi action, and the occaisional twist and turn. It was entirely serviceable, but skippable if you want.
The Martez Sisters arc was dull, annoying, and predictable. It was nice to see what Ahsoka was up to after Season 6, but other than that, just do yourself a favour and skip this over - or at least watch the last couple of minutes of the final episode, if you want to setup the final arc (but you dont need to).
The Siege of Mandalore was pretty much everything that I wanted it to be. It was well paced, absolutely dripping with dread and foreboding, and well worth the wait. This is The Clone Wars at its best, and was absolutely spectacular. With all of the reviews of the final season going around, this arc is the sole reason why.
I suppose the biggest issue with the finale, is completely down to the viewer's understanding of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. If you had watched Rebels, or at least are familiar with some of its plot points, you were probably aware of these character's fates - and I suppose that is really outside of the show's control, especially as it had been cancelled years back, with seemingly no hope of revival. But, watching the finale with my girlfriend, who was unaware of these character's fates, she was really wondering who, if anyone, was going to survive.
I wanna watch the finale again. God, it was so good.
