My main problem with the companions showing up is that I dunno if it's simply an attempt at fan pandering or the staff finally realized that they were sitting on a goldmine of storytelling potential. If it's the former then I'm annoyed that they aren't letting all of them interact with Ash as much because, aside from the Alola gang, it's been a long time since they've traveled together. If it's the latter then 1. what took so long and 2. I'm still annoyed because I don't know if it'll last past this saga so this could be our last chance to see Ash with the other companions for a while.
I don't know if it's fan pandering because, while they certainly hype the appearances, it doesn't seem as though they're milking it. Heck, when this series began we didn't know if there would be any past companions, and I feel like the staff would have advertised this as a feature of the saga. And honestly, aside from the continuity, the old characters do seem to kinda act like COTDs which I don't think the staff would normally do if they were just there for the fans. I mean, look at Iris, you could take out the continuity nods and replace her with a generic powerful trainer and get the same result.
Yet, perhaps you could argue that this is technically fan pandering since, due to the fact that you could replace Dawn, Iris, Korina, and possibly Gary with COTDs, then there's no point to it other than to get the older viewers to watch but then... why not do this earlier?
I suppose we could ask the staff but they're not going to outright tell us that it's fan pandering.
