Skipping over the lack of logic in the McGuffin necessary to get the plot going where it was supposed to (Seriously, it was a better idea to send the two apprentices off alone to complete a mission than one apprentice and one Jedi? Or, for that matter, two Jedi, and leave the apprentices leading the clone troops, as we've seen many times before?), the moral of last night's episode seemed to be "Sometimes that Jedi training is a drag." Without the mad improvisational skillz taught to her by Anakin, Ahsoka and Barris would've failed in their mission, after all, and if Anakin hadn't let his emotions overwhelm him and keep looking for the missing Padawans, then... well, they still probably would've been discovered eventually, but still.

I'm all for morals being "Sometimes you have to do what you know is right, irregardless of peer pressure/authority/whatever," but everytime we see Anakin save the day by listening to his inner voice instead of other, more experienced Jedi, I keep thinking "Wait, so he's just taking another small step towards killing all those kids in Revenge of The Sith, right?" I mean, I get that we're not really supposed to think about the fact that the hero of the show turns into a child-murdering galactic dictator too much - It kind of makes you think of that whole "What if you could travel back in time and kill Hitler" thing, and makes you wish that Ahsoka would accidentally slip and chop Anakin's head off, or maybe that's just me - but by repeating the schtick so often, it draws attention to it so much that it's impossible to avoid: The thing that saves the day so often now will end up being the biggest problem of all soon enough. Suddenly, the show becomes more ambiguous and subversive than it probably meant to be.

Of course, it all makes sense in the larger context (Luke combines Jedi training with emotion to bring "balance to the Force," like Anakin was supposed to before he was manipulated by Palpatine and became too emotional), but nonetheless, it makes episodes like "Weapons Factory" feel curiously off-balance. Shouldn't we get some more episodes about the value of calming down and thinking things through, every now and again, just to even everything out? Before The Clone Wars ends, whenever that may be, it'd be nice to see that addressed - and if it takes the death of Ahsoka to do that, then that wouldn't be too much of a problem for me.

The two-episode premiere started with "Ambush," which seemed like an odd choice for a debut episode, considering that it lacked main characters like Anakin, Ahsoka or Obi Wan... but it did give us a particularly bouncy Yoda, some introduction and insight into the series' status quo (that the Clone Wars are as much about diplomatic disputes than just outright fighting, although that's here as well; that the good guys use brains more than brawn - well, it is a cartoon aimed at kids, what did you expect? - and that the clones may share the same DNA but are as individual as you or I) and most importantly, lots of action scenes. When paired with the following episode, the more space-centric "Rising Malevolence" (which did feature Anakin, Ahsoka, R2-D2 and Obi Wan - and a prototype Death Star, to boot), the premiere hour pretty much set out what the show was going to be as well as could be expected, and it's definitely enough to get me to tune in over the next few weeks.

The problems with the show are pretty much the problems with this summer's preview movie - The writing is still overly simplistic and tends to substitute cliche for character, and the animation still has problems with making characters move believably - but the strengths make up for it, for now. The shorter format helps a lot, paring the writing down to a more plot-driven, speedier model that cuts dialogue in favor of action set-pieces, and the animation for that continues to impress... as do the little visual details the animators have built into the show (Ventress in particular looks amazing in every scene she appears in; I'm kind of waiting for her to kill Ahsoka so that I can love her even more).

In the end, the show works if you're willing to let it be what it is; as a CGI show that brings Star Wars back to its start as an action serial for kids, it's pretty enjoyable - but if you were hoping for something that would live up to your adult fantasy of what you remembered the series when you were younger... Well, maybe you should read the Timothy Zahn novels or something.