ABSOLUTELY thank you for asking, this post is barely going to answer your question, sorry in advance
so my problems are mostly nitpicking narrative decisions and how characters act. i have my complaints about things on the organizational and aesthetic levels (fives and echo becoming ARCs but not actually ARCs, ahsoka being a 14 year old in a tube top) but i'm going to try and limit myself to writing decisions because i think that's a way bigger issue than if they're using the term 'ARC trooper' correctly
and instead of just running my mouth about a show i haven't watched in years, i'm going to watch S1E5: Rookies (aka the rishi outpost episode) and talk about stuff as it comes up. this is one of my favorite episodes so surely i can't find that much to complain about, right? (haha. sorry in advance)
the intro is good. it's established that the rishi outpost is manned largely by clones who were deployed early. character introductions, the sergeant tells everybody to get ready for some officers who are coming to inspect the base. anakin is disregarding his personal well-being because he's obsessed with finding grievous.
we make it a full 4:30 in before i have a significant complaint. there's a meteor shower, and under cover of the meteor shower, a huge droid infiltration ship lands and begins to take over the outpost. the single sentry outside is overpowered by the droids who apparently fuckin teleport there from where they landed? the droids get into the base with basically no resistance. did you guys have, idk, proximity alarms? external cameras beyond the doorbell? y'all have some kind of radar, has this droid ship been camping out in the vicinity waiting for a meteor shower to use as cover? I HAVE LOGISTICAL QUESTIONS AND I KNOW I'M NOT GONNA GET ANSWERS
the droids are in the base. one of the clones attempts to 'sound the alarm' and finds 'they've disabled the beacon.' what? the droids clearly haven't totally cut power to the station, we have lights and atmosphere and stuff. how did they specifically turn off JUST the alarm system without actually having taken over the base yet?
ok fine whatever. on we go
the sergeant is killed, telling the boys to get a message to the fleet and warn them. the droids begin to cut through the door, and now we have grown ass men in the conveniently-grown-ass-men-sized vents. by the way at NO point in this entire episode are long range communications even mentioned. 'lets radio the fleet' is not a possibility that is touched on even once, not even in a 'dammit the droids are jamming our signal' kind of way
the droids immediately know four clones escaped, and the droid commander says they dont matter. why. why. were their orders not to kill everyone on the base? is there a number of clones droids consider trivial? why have THAT dialogue instead of having the droids believe they've killed everyone if you want them to not pursue our boys? OKAY WHATEVER
hard cut to general grievous' ship where general grievous tells the droids to keep rishi outpost sending an 'all clear' signal so nobody will notice the enemy fleet approaching the kamino system. and ventress is already on kamino as a spy.
PULLS OUT SOME MAPS. OKAY. SO.
here's the kamino system, here's the rishi system, right. the rishi outpost is on a moon in the rishi system but is SUPPOSED to be capable of detecting any threat coming towards kamino? with the radar system that DIDNT NOTICE A HUGE ASS DROID SHIP LANDING BECAUSE OF A METEOR SHOWER? that outpost is supposed to pick up on a fleet of ships OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM heading for A DIFFERENT SYSTEM? OKAY WHATEVER
at this point i'm beginning to think up a different version of this episode where the rishi outpost is a highly specialized astronomical observation station with like scientists and shit, owned by the rishii government (who are an avian species so that's cool), and they have a contract with the republic involving a clone detachment protecting the system in exchange for the outpost's monitoring capabilities. or something.
BACK TO VENTRESS BEING ON KAMINO AS A SPY- i have so many questions, such as, how the fuck did she get in unnoticed, how the fuck has she REMAINED unnoticed, and WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING THERE. 'all the preparations for your invasion are in order' SABOTAGE? WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? general grievous like 'we are almost at the rendezvous point' WHO ARE YOU RENDEZVOUSING WITH. GIVE ME SOME CONCRETE INFORMATION INSTEAD OF THROWING AROUND OMINOUS MILITARY WORDS
k fine. back to the clones. cody and rex (who are running around doing inspections instead of leading their respective units? huh?) are coming into rishi station and a droid puts on a clone helmet and does a voice and tries to convince them to go away. when they control the station and could very easily just like, let them land and then go kill them with the huge number of droids that has already wiped out everybody on the station except for four troopers. whatever it's a setup for later fine. the droid signs off with 'roger roger' and rex's response is 'something's not right here' no shit man, perhaps the GIANT DROID INFILTRATION SHIP PARKED ON THE LAWN WILL FURTHER CLUE YOU IN
anyways cutup gets eaten by an eel and the general reaction is 'well damn. that's why we don't go outside i guess. lets slowly meander thisaways- oh hey look commander cody (were never told who the officers that would be arriving were)'
the droids allow cody and rex to land and approach the door, a droid comes out and tries to convince them to just leave. these droids have the programming to imitate a clone voice and wear armor but have no higher social programming than 'everything is fine, you can leave now!' okay. okay fine. the boys shoot a flare, rex shoots the commando droid, cody is surprised by this, finally the droids attack the two clones after easily overpowering roughly a dozen clones earlier
the droids do something that actually makes sense- blow up cody and rex's ship so they can't retreat and alert the rest of the GAR. good move droids. the droids then don't pursue cody and rex, assuming they got 'pulverized' in the explosion?? you fucking morons??
now we find out the rishi moon has a totally breathable atmosphere as cody and rex meet echo, fives, and hevy, and demand they take their helmets off. whatever its star wars everything has a breathable atmosphere. uhg. (the troopers hesitate over a direct order given to them by an officer they know of and respect who is pointing a blaster at them. okay.)
rex single-shots an eel right in the eye and introduces himself as 'the name's rex, but you'll call me captain, or sir' FINALLY SOME GOOD ASS MILITARY DECORUM AROUND HERE. now pUT YOUR FUCKING HELMET BACK ON. WHY ARE WE ALL TAKING OUR HELMETS OFF. STOP IT. echo gets a rishi eel blood handprint from rex, that's neat
we're just gonna go ahead and establish in episode 5 that anakin can't follow orders, that this tendency tends to rub off on others around him, and that he's derisive about SOPs and protocol. okay. great. i cannot stand this fuckin dude.
then rex impersonates a droid impersonating a clone which i won't complain about because it's funny
hey do you remember how minutes ago rex and cody couldn't beat the commando droids because their armor is too strong and their blasters weren't doing anything? no? neither do the writers i guess. they proceed to totally overpower yet more droids, one-shot-kills, twisting their heads off, generally blowing them to pieces with minimal trouble despite being unable to kill a single one earlier. ALSO PUT YOUR FUCKING HELMETS BACK ON I SWEAR TO GOD
'it looks like a separatist fleet!' echo says, conveniently spotting grievous' fleet right outside the window of this moon with his helmet binocs as they pass directly by this one moon on their way to a totally separate system
'we cant protect the outpost long against that army of clankers' the 2 dozen B-1s and 8 SBDs? after you guys totally demolished like 6 brand new commando droids? while you're defending and they're attacking? this outpost is shit if you have an easier time fighting your way in than defending it
'then we'll destroy the outpost instead' the entire thing? not just the console sending the all clear signal that you need to disrupt? the entire outpost? IF YOU. INSIST. I GUESS. 'EVERY THERMAL DETONATOR IN THE INVENTORY'?? CANISTERS OF HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE FUEL? WHAT ABOUT A HAMMER? YOU JUST NEED TO STOP THE ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL, NOT MAKE A NEW CRATER
(inhales) okay fine we're destroying the outpost
inspirational speech from rex where kamino is referred to as 'home' and not The Torment Nexus but 'kamino sucks and i dont understand why the clones in tcw and tbb are downright patriotic about it' is a topic for another time
they open the doors and immediately hose a huge amount of droids (why did you guys open the door? of your questionably-defendable outpost? you could have just not opened the door???? you could have used the huge amount of explosive you're packing into your own outpost on the ship- okay fine it looks cool i guess)
back with obiwan, who has still not received a transmission from cody, but states that this is fine because the base is still transmitting an all-clear signal and 'if something were wrong, cody would contact us' YOU ARE AN IDIOT SANDWICH
the droids begin to move into the outpost (how'd they open the front door again? don't ask me, or the writers, but the clones probably opened it again to chuck more grenades at them)
and then oh no, technical difficulties with the bomb. everybody else leaves through those conveniently-man-sized-tunnels, letting hevy stay behind solo to try and troubleshoot the bluetooth bomb's connection issues
meanwhile the droids (that they could have just left standing on the landing pad) are advancing through the base, and arrive at the supposedly abandoned operations center, and fully ignore the huge bomb on the floor
hevy ends up in a firefight, takes down an admirable amount of droids, and admittedly the line 'do we take prisoners?' 'i don't.' (detonates the bomb) goes really hard but how we got here is unfathomably stupid
now that the all-clear signal has stopped transmitting, the republic fleet teleports directly there within seconds, like before grievous has time to say 'oh shit lets get out of here,' seriously were they in orbit, how the fuck did they get here so fast
yaaayy the day is saved, fives and echo are heroes, personally recognized by generals kenobi and skywalker, with a medal ceremony and everything, rex recruits them both to the 501st, roll credits. i'm exhausted
long story short, even in one of my favorite episodes, everyone is a huge dumbass, nothing actually makes sense, power scales of the good guys vs the bad guys are fully at the whim of the plot, if you question anything you're going to have a bad time
the rishi outpost episode could make a REALLY good book, i just want it written like Hard Contact, where logistics are a focus and not just hand-waved as fits the plot
BUT AGAIN I KNOW THIS IS A SHOW FOR CHILDREN. I KNOW. I PROMISE I KNOW THAT. it's not really SUPPOSED to be military fiction
so what would i change about tcw? scrap the writer team, hire some people who know about military fiction, change the entire genre, age up the intended audience to like, young adult at least