I'm the weird one and I'm of the opinion that if someone loves the genre and is prepared that they're going to binge three movie budget TV episodes in cinema, they're going to have a good time, because this is quality filmmaking.
But its structure is definitely weird and it certainly poses problems even if you approach it like that, so I can absolutely understand why many people had a hard time with this. Personally I didn't take issue with it for the most part and I have to say even though it was incredibly slow with very few plot developments, I wasn't bored at all and it felt shorter to me than it actually was. The lack of focus and way too many characters introduced I can live with, my biggest issue was that most of the main ones were still underdeveloped because of that.
But again, I liked the set up a lot and I'm surely invested for whatever is to come. Hopefully the next one(s) will be juicier and will refrain from Chapter 1's issues.