Okay, so we finished the series, and I now feel obligated to say that yes, it did get better in the second season. A lot of that was due to the addition of Esai Morales to the cast, and you can’t help but make things better by tossing an Adama–any Adama–into the mix. The writing was still problematic, but that became less noticeable with a shift to more political action and intrigue, less “aw shucks, we’re just a small town fighting our way through a big disaster with a lot of persistence and pluck.” The production values also improved. I can’t think of one instance in season two where Matt paused the show to point out some visual gaffe (other than the fact that this small Kansas town appeared to be a mountain town, but I can get over that; mountains are pretty hard to hide).
With only seven episodes in the second season, it felt more like a mini-series follow-up than an actual season of the show, and it wrapped up enough of the major loose ends to provide a decent amount of closure. Even so, after going several days without, I’m actually starting to feel withdrawal pangs over this weirdly addictive apocalyptic family drama, and since finishing the series I can now understand where the fans who still pine for this show to make a comeback are coming from.