Since I completed episode 40, I may as well write up my thoughts about the BSDB arc and the Baby arc (for convenience sake I'll treat them like they're both the same arc because in my opinion they're apart of the same saga - remember the gang technically finds all of the dragon balls long after the Baby "arc" starts.)
For starters I'll start with a controversial opinion; I think the decision to de age Goku was the best choice for the show as a whole with what they were going with. For two reasons in fact, the first one would be that Goku as an adult was just too powerful to be wandering the universe - I believe this is actually stated by a GT staff member in an interview - so turning Goku back into a kid was the best choice for keeping the escalation low. The second would be that GT aimed to go back to the roots of Dragon Ball with a hunt for the dragon balls, kid Goku lead on naturally from there.
Another controversial opinion; I like Pan. She's a great character and in my opinion the best post Z character in the entire franchise. She's fun, she's useful to the plot in many ways, she's a great foil to Goku and Trunks. She has layers to her character and really reminds me of a Toriyama esq character with how over the top she can be. I really don't get the hate for her in my opinion, especially when characters like Beerus get a pass in the fanbase.
Another controversial opinion; I like the BSDB arc. I think its an amazing change of pace from the rest of Z, Dragon Ball returning back to its roots with a nice and fun adventure was the right decision for the story especially after the non stop action of the Freeza, Cell and Buu arcs. Exploring each world also had the added effect of making the Dragon Ball universe much larger than it ever had been in the entire franchise - we got to see so many varied worlds and meet other people. I loved the decision. Though personally, I think the BSDB saga was at its best story wise with Imecka and it never really recovered after that. Though it was all good fun.
Another reason why I like the BSDB section of the story is that it allowed the story to do something unheard of for nearly four arcs now and that's building up to the action. In my opinion, BSDB arc and Baby arc earns the world ending stakes and massive fights because it built up to that from such humble beginnings.
This approach also leads into a realization, that the fandom seems to almost entirely ignore. The BSDB arc and the Baby arc are a microcosm of the progression from light hearted adventure to massive beatdown action that took place in the original manga. In its own way the story pays homage to the entire 10+ years of DBZ.
Obviously, I have to bring up the star of the arc - Baby himself. Baby is perhaps one of the best villains Dragon Ball has ever produced, better than a great deal of the original villains who showed up in Toriyama's manga. He's got a great design, he's got gravitas, he had an excellent entrance, he has an amazing backstory and he had a ton of build up. Personally I think it bares mentioning that I believe Baby to be a better attempt at the 'Cell' concept (Baby is outright referred to as the perfect lifeform in his entrance, so I think the resemblances were intentional). But unlike Cell, Baby isn't shoved into the story based on the complaints of an editor, the GT writers obviously spent time into making sure he fit into the story.
His progression from being a humble parasite to gaining the strongest body in the universe was well thought out, compared to Cell needing the entire Z gang to hold planet sized idiot balls to reach his perfect form.
But there is something that makes Baby stand out when compared to all other villains in the franchise. Baby is not a genocidal warlord, he's not a ruthless businessman who profits from destroying worlds, he's not a genetic monster made to destroy all life and he's not an evil force of nature.
Baby is a victim based on his backstory. There is no question about it. I think its an important point to make because this point is downplayed heavily by the story to a ridiculous degree. There are two short backstories on the Saiyan genocide of the Tuffles, once when Baby possesses Vegeta and the other time when Baby sees Ozaruu Goku. Besides this the reality that Baby is a victim is almost treated like window dressing by the plot and Baby himself is played up to be so incredibly villainous with no redeeming qualities. I think not focusing on Baby's past, or potential motivations and playing up his villainy was all made with the intent to keep him unsympathetic.
It is one thing to have Goku proudly beat up the scum of the universe, but to have Goku beat up a victim who was wronged by the Saiyans of the old? It would be too dark for Dragon Ball, too subtle and mature for the age group and completely out of place in a story where subtlety is an alien beast. So to mitigate this and make sure the audience never actually felt bad for Baby, he was turned into the ultimate villain and his backstory was quietly swept to the side. He's still a great Dragon Ball villain but he could have been the best by a mile if the series was just a little more different.
The two arcs get an 8/10 together - there's about 2 inconsistencies and that subtracts from my score. But overall I view them as far superior to even the Cell and Buu arcs.
confirmed when they faced each other in the 25th, but couldn't create any new DBs at all. Thus deficiency could be why he couldn't just deactivate the UDBs, although the more likely explanation would be that GT writers were just being fags like when they stated that #17 and #18 had sensible ki 
