Hmmmm... the FS is not as bad as Medvedeva's first FS from last year(I hope it was
my relentless trolling that sparked that
change while most everyone else was like"owe it's fine... give it time") before Medvedeva switch to Anna Karenina. But it's not good nor is it going to get good. And it doesn't look like Alina has a backup plan like Medvedeva last year who repurposed an exhibition. The only thing this program communicates is that her team is too lazy to come up with anything interesting(Zagitova said in an interview that she wanted to do it last year... but still, she should be given better guidance). The POTO short program has a little charm of being kind of like a fast-action movie trailer of other POTO programs.... but this has nothing.
The waiting 5 seconds before moving from Eteri skaters is getting annoying. It ceases to be artistic when everyone in a camp does it.
Some of the transitions and positions are lame at best and comical at worst. There's a lot of low hanging fruit here where the program could be improved but I don't think enough for the program to ever really be good. It's kind of worrying that the program is in this state.
The skating is very labored and too often there's no intentionality in the skating. There's way too much skating through the music.
There are people here saying they like the music cut... but it sounds exactly like any other Carmen. The music cuts seem far more random than the POTO program where there's at least a purpose to the cuts.
They put the step sequence at the very end... which is something you often see in Canadian skaters. I actually wanted to see Russians try this and even wrote that in one of my troll posts against Medvedeva's FS last year. But it does not work well here. She needs the step sequence earlier to rev up the energy a bit.
On the positive front, she did two rotated 3Lz+3Lo in her
warmup... which was something I was worried about since they're going to be stricter on rotation this year and the one she did in the SP looked a little UR.
And before 2018 signup contingency call me a hater... I've been
watching Zagitova since January 2015 right before she went to Eteri... when she posted her broken arm on vk right after she went to Eteri... when she was doing 2A+3Lo combos in fall of 2015 to finally landing a legit, rotated 3Lz+3Lo at a competition not even listed at fskate.ru in may 2016... to her first JGP to the JGPF to Junior Worlds. etc. I also went through post-2014 Lipnitskaya fandom which was super depressing.... and while I believe Yulia is equally to blame for what happened, Eteri could have been a better coach then and I'm unsure she's learned any lessons from that period. I get a really bad sense of deja vu when I hear that they
haven't even thought about their costume yet. I'm both an Eteri fan and and who is extremely skeptical her(and her team's) creative process after they've achieved success with a skater. They need to call in some help sometimes or they're going to keep ruining or come close to ruining careers right after they make them. It's easier to choreograph short programs... so please start on the FS first and experiment with it and get feedback on it earlier.
I also have a love hate relationship with POTO SP. I love POTO it is my favorite Musical and the movie has the best songs imo but the music cuts are too extreme and rushed to give Alina time to get into the mood and character I think they should have choosen The Point of No return as her SP song for POTO and leave out the music cuts, however it is just september she just learned these programs and has time to get adjusted to them. But I loved both of her skatings. She has a lot of transistions which I on one hand love because I do not get bored watching the programs because there is so much happening 
I also think they should let her hold some positions longer alla Sasha Cohen, would look amazing if she would hold her raised leg longer. 
