The streaming era and binge watching has truly rotted people's brains and people, especially in cartoon/animation spaces, always use Amphibia season 1 as an example of that.
S1 Amphibia gets put in the hot seat when this type of conversation comes up and your opinion on it says a lot about how you watch media at this point. Fillers is a word that comes up a lot and it should have never entered our space because it wasn't meant for it.
This isn't saying you're not allowed to dislike any episodes or whatever but like this streaming era has people convinced that any episode that doesn't end on a cliffhanger or isn't drama or lore filled is a huge waste of time and a "filler". There's so much praise for shows like ATLA for having standalone episodes with an overarching plot yet shows nowadays don't get that same grace for doing the same exact thing.
It's exhausting to see the same tired cold takes from people who can't seem to appreciate shows like Amphibia for being a well constructed show. Having some down time, getting into shenanigans, and all that is a huge plus in my book and I'm always gonna prefer shows making me care for the characters rather than pure angst because that's fucking boring. Amphibia gets praised for episodes like Reunion and True Colors but people forget that what makes those episodes hit hard is the journey and the time we spent with the characters leading up to it. Sure you can skip a lot of episodes to get to the good parts but that feels so empty and less rewarding. Reunion, the episode hits hard especially the part where Sprig stands up for Anne because of the time we spent seeing how much they've grown together as best friends. And I could go on and on but y'all get the point.
My point is, if you can't appreciate Amphibia s1 then you don't deserve the rest of the show. It's incredibly boring to view media this way.