Started watching pokemon back in 1999 when the TOS originaly aired, the stories seem to advance a lot quicker back then without there being too much of a gap between episodes for the next major plot point9gym battles pokemon captures, evolutions), quite liked the Orange Island saga to. Then came Johto and it started to go downhill from there on in with the repetitiveness of the stories,( i.e new trainer need's help,team rocket bust in and get blasted off again and repeat) with massive gaps between each gym battle, continued watching it up until master quest then i sort of faded off.
My most recent extensive viewing of the series was Advance battle and even that didn't last long after the change in voice actors(the master mind of mirage Pokemon special for instance was really off putting).
Might come back and get myself updated on the newer episodes now though.