Hate to say it, but this was just watching someone play Go/Let's Go for 20 minutes with the odd scuffle here and there. There was no conflict driving the episode; not even a token Team Rocket appearance to liven things up. I've never felt so apathetic about a character catching Pokemon, and that's not because I dislike Gou or anything. Rather, they reduced the Pokemon he caught into drones that he could easily catch, stick in his pocket and forget about the rest of the series and that doesn't sit well with me.
I guess I'm just used to the old way of doing things. Before this series, they would have dedicated most of this episode to that Scyther to make you care before Gou caught it. Instead, it gets about five minutes while we spend a needless amount of time watching Gou catch everything else. Meanwhile, Ash is doing... what, exactly? I'm all for characters fading into the background to give other characters a chance to breathe, but Ash was literally just there for the sake of it.
The only scene that got a rise out of me was Gou getting eaten by Pinsir and Ash being wrapped in thread hanging from the bunk bed. And that was just a five second sight gag at the end of the episode.
Honestly, this might just be the dullest start to a new Pokemon series yet.