My gosh, I thought Andor was just a horrific bore. I literally couldn't stay awake for it. It felt like about four episodes worth of story stretched out to 12 episodes. I feel like with all the glowing reviews, people are watching it through the lens of being Star Wars universe fans, and not judging it objectively against other content.
I did enjoy the Mandalorian series because at least it had the comic relief of Grogu, if the rest was a bit of a slog.
That's a surprising take considering how little it intersects with the rest of the SW universe. There's no Jedis, no lightsabers maybe one brief space battle and barely any direct overlap with the films. You could come in cold without having seen anything else and still enjoy it. I thought it was outstanding, especially the pacing and suspense of the early episodes. The second half is a lot more action-packed and squeezes in both an epic heist and an emotional jailbreak sequence.
I thought the heist was kind of silly though; the whole strategy was just go in and strong-arm the guards, which is kind of lazy. A more clever "Star Wars-y" approach might have been to create some kind of subterfuge such that they could simply walk in and take the credits without even a challenge.
As far as the jailbreak, I had trouble getting emotionally invested in the outcome, as I found Diego Luna's character to be one-dimensional. Again, the approach was simply shoot your way out.
I did enjoy the Mandalorian series because at least it had the comic relief of Grogu, if the rest was a bit of a slog.