This is an episode that amplifies why the school orientation theme that some anime have been leaning on (like My Hero Acadamia, and other anime) just doesn't work for Pokemon. Now, to be clear its completely the executive producers at fault and their usual meddling, probably some animator who was complaining again, with the giant cast of characters that have to be animated because of the format.
But this episode was not good for multiple reasons:
1. There was absolutely no reason to spend a large chunk of the episode only on Dewpider, it reeks of sheer laziness from the screenwriter who didn't want to write a better episode......or perhaps the writer was forced to write this episode as it was for the overall problem of this episode.
2. The absolute random battle of the episode, which I would've thought would've had more meaning but it was just to showcase off Dewpider I guess.
3. Lana not catching Dewpider. And sure maybe this comes off superficially as to why I'm not liking parts of the series, but let's look at it from the executive position.
You an executive producer or otherwise the person who agreed/forced a school like theme for the Pokemon anime, with the main cast being incredibly larger than other series, and one of the issues has always been in every series one or more of Ash's traveling companions do absolutely nothing to contribute most of the time, I can't think of a series where both or all of Ash's companions during the series contributed equally. I mean of course there's the negative equal balance of Cilan and Iris, who didn't do absolutely nothing together, but then of course Cilan had the advantage over Iris for his quirks and personality (Sommelier of everything).
So you decide to make a school related theme for Pokemon where Ash and Pikachu the faces of the anime go to school likely to get on the school anime popularity train (yes because any anime that romanticizes going to school is going to be obviously popular.....somehow)
But then you decide that Ash will be the only human character to receive the most development while agreeing that the rest of the characters are basically stand ins just to fit the whole Pokemon is now at school thing.
I don't know about you but if you were going to do a Pokemon school theme anime, I'm pretty sure it would have succeeded more if you bothered to give any of the other characters at least far more developing roles. I mean Mallow I don't think she's going to have anything other than Steenee evolving from Bounsweet since only giving her irrelevant episodes gives her nothing except completely meaningless character building moments (some in which make no sense outside for plot reasons). Lana gets a Z-ring, masters the Z-move in a later episode, and is not doing anything else. And Lillie the one who received the most personal relevant development has now been used up and is now regulated to being appearance fodder.
Which leaves Kiawe and Sophocles, which for the exception of Lana and her Z-ring has been developed the most of Ash's classmates at least with the comparison to Mallow (unless evolution trumps capture for whatever reason). Hell even Kiawe got nice recent development and used a Z-move with his Alolan Marowak, and Sophocles has been getting a lot of focus with the whole Molayne, Chargabug and fake moving, and the Celesteela episodes, at least shows the writers are at least trying to make them relevant.
And that's just the classmates, I just don't know if I care too much about Team Rocket, Kukui to explain how they're doing.
It just shows that instead of actually bothering to properly develop a series and its characters, something that the Pokemon anime has always struggled with (for a good chunk of the characters), they decided to amplify this with a much bigger cast and they're intentionally hindering themselves by forcing these fillers.
I'm not actually suggesting any anime or television show out there be filler free, but I do think there's a difference between a meaningful filler and a meaningless filler. A meaningless filler in Pokemon refers to episodes that focus on a species of Pokemon and has little to do with none of the other characters (so basically any past generation episode where Ash's Pikachu was the only important Pokemon), or to a lesser extent and episode that barely has anything to do with the cast and simply exists to exist and to pad out a series.
While a meaningful filler would be the equivalent of the episode in Diamond and Pearl, when Brock went to restock supplies, and Ash and Dawn were taking care of all the Pokemon, and Pachirisu got sick. It was meaningful because it largely focused on the cast.
And hold on, I'm not saying meaningful filler episodes are good and meaningless filler episodes are bad but in series that amplifies the issues of why a school format was not ideal for obvious reasons for Pokemon is definitely why Sun and Moon should've had meaningful filler episodes (meaning the Pokemon of the day receiving minimal attention in comparison to actual important Pokemon).
So for example: An episode where Ash meets a character, a random nobody and the episode revolves on him having a meaningless three on three battle with Ash using Rowlet, Torracat, and Poipole, would do wonders for this show. Or how about Mallow, Lana, Lillie, Sophocles, Kiawe actually get some more battling in just to use their Pokemon. So basically the recent Kiawe episode could be considered meaningful filler if we ignore the whole Marowak using a z move for the first time because it dealt with the character.
The only problem however in regards to meaningful filler is that they tried to shove it onto Mallow, but the episode just weren't good enough to warrant them, perhaps if Mallow actually got development, perhaps the meaningful filler episodes she does get would be better, instead it seems that's the only thing they do.
So sure, perhaps we can call this episode half meaningful and half meaningless filler since it really didn't do any real favors for Lana, and it was just about Dewpider and how incredibly irrelevant it was. Dewpider could be relevant later but that also adds to a serious problem the anime faces sometimes, kind of with the whole Litten, Poipole thing.
Forcing a meaningful filler that later becomes non-filler because of the future events creates more issues than it solves for an already shaky format. You're going to deprive actual development for a character because you want to stretch out the story in a way that's completely meaningless in the long run and actually hurts the format of the show even more by not commiting any actual development until "later" this is most definitely not a series where should ever be shelving actual development for a later episode, because it makes it perfectly obvious that all you're doing is trying to stretch the series to make it more interesting than it is, because you obviously can't think of anything else to do. And even that depends on whether you actually follow through or it was just a meaningless/meaningful filler episode.
And it doesn't help that a large chunk of episode was just about Dewpider's day out in Alola, and just had a little bit to do with Lana and Dewpider. Like what the hell was even the point?