Battles aren't the pivot to being character driven. If anything SM had potential from deviating from battles non stop and having more unique ways for the twerps to be involved. The big problem however, is that it only seems to have thought up so many ideas out of this method, and the majority of them ironically still involve the battlers such as Ash and Kiawe.
Lillie and Sophocles have potential for example, since while their team isn't really battle experienced, they are established as the smart guys of the team, and their Pokemon have a number of more practical abilities to compensate for lack of brute force. The problem is that they never expanded on this much. There's only a few episodes their smarts have been made key and they've seldom expanded their Pokemon or their ability sets.
Granted even then we have those token efforts at least, those cases their personalities drive the plot, I struggle to remember previous series we even had those token efforts and things just reduced to COTD/TR plot lines where everything was just solved by beating up TR (who even the weakest battlers could defeat or be plot armoured against).
Even if it is mostly just the mainstays benefitting, I can at least credit it for that. There was nothing stopping this series being another travelling formula series with Ash going island to island with say Lillie and Hapu, and TR just doing their usual Pikachu nabbing schemes every episode. Instead however they're putting the two sides in very different situations where they are being made to change their approach dramatically.
Ash is being made to bulk up his experience by staying one place and being tutored by professionals. We also see him put in more situations he has to solve without just battling and be more improvisational and creative, along with dealing more directly with his team mates complexities (eg. getting told bluntly Lillie isn't just another perky sidekick, she's someone's little sister with a very delicate condition).
Team Rocket meanwhile is also stuck to one location, not just because Pikachu is there but Bewear is keeping them there. Thus they also need to improvise around being 'kidnapped' and also somehow keep up some flowing progress in front of their wary bosses. We see more cases of them making long term planning instead of just episodic Pokemon stealing plans, building a lair and for once trying to keep up with Ash's experience level by getting access to the Z Moves.
While neglecting the companions is disappointing, I can give the series credit just for showing these guys in a much more different light and direction than before.
(I hope it's not more filler).
