1. A formidable, genuinely scary antagonist - Cad Bane, what a name! - gets a truly fantastic introduction only to get immediately killed off in the next episode.
2. Temuera Morrison is 61 years old. Maybe that age works out within the timeline of the Star Wars universe and the whole crazy complicated history of the Boba Fett character, but he just seemed old and slow. And it's not like the show played up an Unforgiven sort of "I'm too old for this" angle, which might have helped. Then again, the old guy did spend much of the first half of the series sleeping in an antibiotic tank.
3. It's enough of Tatooine already. Between "The Mandalorian" and now this series, we've spent hours and hours in the desert. Coming up next on Disney+, a spinoff with Obi-Wan Kenobi presumably set mostly on... wait for it... Tatooine. And this is supposedly the armpit planet of the galaxy, remember. Let's mix it up, Disney. A conspiracy thriller on Hoth, an action comedy on the Death Star, a political drama in Cloud City.
4. All of this work was supposedly about fighting the Pike (by contrast to Cad Bane, the Pike as an alien species is most definitely not formidable nor scary) keeping the spice trade off Tatooine, but the series spends zero time explaining just what the big deal is. What are the stakes exactly? Why does Boba Fett care? How is the spice trade hurting residents of Tatooine?
5. The series seemed at first to want to spin a Godfather-style web of underworld gangster intrigue with black markets and protection rackets and warring families, but it only half-heartedly committed to that plot. Then the last couple of episodes sort of leaned into a spaghetti Western-slash-Magnificent Seven vibe with a motley band of misfits outnumbered and outgunned. But it didn't really develop that thread either.
6. Obviously, it was deeply weird to take that big narrative detour into what was essentially a third season of "The Mandalorian." That those episodes provided some welcome zing and zip - aside from our ongoing "huh?" when it comes to the Mandalorian religion - just underscored how "The Book of Boba Fett" paled in comparison.
7. Why cast Jennifer Beals if she's only going to get about three or four lines? Ditto the incomparable Stephen Root.
8. What seemed like ten minutes of screen time in the finale was spent with the characters futilely blasting away at giant attack droids even though the droid shields were clearly impossible to breach. It was more tedious than exciting, a statement also works as an overall criticism of the entire series.
9. The show tried to milk a big twist out of Boba Fett learning the Pike were behind the Tusken massacre, but shouldn't a battle-hardened bounty hunter have already figured that out? Boba Fett too often seemed like your confused old uncle trying to keep up with the kids, when the whole reason his character is so popular is that he's this shrewd bad-ass who managed to capture Han Solo.
10. Another big selling point for Boba Fett: his armor and his helmet, yet he spent almost the entire series walking around with his helmet stuck under his arm.
We stipulate that some of these issues may have been caused by production problems related to COVID protocols. That may explain, for example, the strangely empty streets of the big finale or the way the Beals and Root characters vanished from the action after a big introduction. But all we can do is watch the show that gets made, not the show the producers wanted to make.
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