Finally finished the season this weekend. What a fantastic show! I definitely think that binge-watching was the way to go with this (well, "binge" in the sense of waiting til it's all released and then watching, like, one episode a night, or every couple of nights).
I especially appreciated that the episodes were....as long as they needed to be. Some were only 30 min, some were closer to an hour, but in each case, they felt exactly as long as they should've been to keep the story tight, well-paced, and telling you the info you needed as a viewer. No more, no less. Same story with an 8-episode season.
Could you have fleshed all of this out to a standard network 22-episode show? Yeah...probably, but it would've sagged a lot in the middle or been slowed down by "job of the week" episodes to the point where it ended up not really mattering a ton. My only regret in the length of the season is that some of the relationships depicted didn't...quite have the impact I thought they should have or that the show wanted. Like, I felt for Kuiil, but his death didn't really affect me much, and his connection with Din didn't have quite the impact it could've. Same story with that heist episode. Without more time spent with the ne'er-do-wells on the space station, there's a little less impact when they turn on him and when he, in turn, betrays them. And same story with Cara Dune. Her connection to Din, her willingness to help him and here desire to stick with him was...fine...but it hadn't been quite built up enough. Why would this tough-as-nails merc be so determined to save Din and bring him along? Obviously because of their personal connection, but that wasn't quite played up as much.
On a lesser note, the episode where Din and the Child are staying in the village (Cara's first episode), the pseudo-romantic connection with...whatshername in the village wasn't quite sold well enough. If they'd had some more time in the episode showing the more tranquil life and Din helping out or engaging in the more peaceful existence, you might've sensed his conflict in whether to stay. There's actually a Stargate SG-1 episode that does this, where Jack gets stranded on a more primitive world for almost a month and winds up connecting with a local widow, and almost becoming a surrogate father to her kid. When it's time to leave, you get the conflict that Jack feels, because you've seen how he started to take to the pastoral lifestyle. That said, it really would've slowed the episode down, so I kinda understand why they didn't do it.
Anyway, very much looking forward to Season 2.
