yeah there's a larger conversation about the relationship between mass appeal and "quality" that Andor doesn't fit neatly into because of its parent franchise's identity as blockbuster

Andor is definitely more esoteric in form, a genre and style that has its audience and is associated with a level of sophistication - but when it's about real history or politics. Andor is in a space fantasy backdrop, so that muddles how it should be engaged with. I think you can perceive the dissonance in a few ways: as bold pastiche, or half baked emulation. I think Andor more than meets its ambitions in the former but it just has the entirely wrong audience to appreciate it, and it becomes easier to perceive the latter in that context.