I will never, ever understand this sentiment. Good writing and entertainment are not antithetical. Turn off my brain? Bad writing takes me right out of the story, and my entertainment value plummets. Unless it gets so ridiculous that I start having fun at a meta level, like the last episode of Mandalorian. But at that point, I'm basically watching pro wrestling.
Take the opening scene of Ahsoka. The opening of an entire series is super important, and this one took me instantly out of the story:
1. A text crawl. Okay, I know, Star Wars, and you could make a case for it with the original movie because there was a lot of narrative heavy lifting needed to plunk the audience in media res like that, but at this point it's just a lazy trope, IMO, so right away instead of being in the story I am kind of rolling my eyes. And, quite frankly, the backstory presented in the text crawl sounded way more interesting than what was in this episode - they should have started by showing us that story! Still, Star Wars gotta Star Wars, so I can let it slide.
2. Smart person does something indescribably stupid to set plot in motion. The Republic spaceship commander declaring that he will let the obvious bad guys onboard to "call their bluff" is exactly like the teenager going down alone into the basement in the middle of the slasher movie. Every single person watching knows exactly what is going to happen and is screaming at him to not be such a moron. Consider that: A) he is transporting a high value prisoner that these obviously bad guys somehow know about, so something has to be up; B) they are using old Jedi codes and he knows that Jedi are real and very powerful since he just received a prisoner from Ahsoka; C) what if they just want to get a ship onboard so they can, I dunno, blow it up or something?
There is no world in which his decision makes any kind of sense. But no, he goes to confront the very Jedi-looking bad guys (with clearly visible lightsabers) with just six guards, making sure to stand as close as possible for the inevitable impalement. Because putting themselves needlessly in harms way is what a captain does, I guess? Then, after effortlessly disposing of him and the six guards, Bad Jedi Apprentice magically appears on the bridge within literal seconds, because apparently Jedi can now teleport as well (recall that the opening shot established how massive this ship is). And then she does it again because we cut to her with Bad Jedi Master down in the prisoner block, since apparently they now have complete run of the ship. Bad Jedi Master demonstrates a convenient new Jedi power that allows him to magically unlock prisoner cells (this magical unlocking power also conveniently goes away in the next scene when Ahsoka could have used it). Then we get some classic expositing where the villains lay out their plan for the audience and set up the next scene.
It's just all so lazy. As an audience member, my takeaway was that the New Republic are led by idiots who deserve to lose (this will be doubled and tripled down on throughout the episode) and that the writers lack even one original idea (seriously, someone tell me one original idea that happened in this entire episode. Just one).
Why not have the Bad Jedi stealth their way onto the ship through a good plan and their powerful Jedi abilities, to demonstrate that they are both clever and capable. Then have things go south after they use stolen codes or brute force to bust out the prisoner, so they cut their way to freedom despite facing some truly formidable foes - a competent captain and tough, persistent Republic soldiers. That would tell me that I should take these bad guys seriously, because they went right through some pretty tough opposition, demonstrating both smarts and strength - Ahsoka better look out! And leave me with some mystery - hint about what is happening next, but don't just lay it all out like Dr. Evil giving a powerpoint presentation.
