Magic Knight Rayearth is a pretty underrated series, in my opinion. This episode managed to introduce the plot and the main characters in a pretty solid, entertaining manner, even if the premise might seem a bit typical at first glance. (Then again, the familiar elements of said premise are a key part of the dramatic revelation at the end of the first season).
Nowadays, the whole "isekai" genre seems to be associated with cheesy power fantasies, and apparently this has made viewers biased towards stories where premise deals with ordinary people being taken to magical worlds. The thing is, said kind of stories largely predate the creation of all those generic anime shows by a long time (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, A Princess of Mars, Narnia, etc.) so I think it's a bit unfair to entirely dismiss a genre just by its association with a lot of weak titles. And back then in the 90s, there were pretty good anime shows featuring this type of premise, like this series.
Nowadays, the whole "isekai" genre seems to be associated with cheesy power fantasies, and apparently this has made viewers biased towards stories where premise deals with ordinary people being taken to magical worlds. The thing is, said kind of stories largely predate the creation of all those generic anime shows by a long time (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, A Princess of Mars, Narnia, etc.) so I think it's a bit unfair to entirely dismiss a genre just by its association with a lot of weak titles. And back then in the 90s, there were pretty good anime shows featuring this type of premise, like this series.