Second year boring less fun and space battles

Is this true? Gil Gerard have influence in the change of the second year?

The second season was obviously very poorly planned:

They were probably like, "yeah, let's try to be more like Star Trek," and they just threw all these elements together without giving it much thought -- just throw Buck, Wilma, Twiki (with a new cute voice), the season one starfighters, and some new characters like a stuffy admiral, an eccentric old man scientist, an obnoxious robot and a bird man to simulate Mr. Spock, all on a ship called the Searcher, which was just the Lorian Queen model from the first season with Searcher decals on it.

As a result, they probably didn't know what to do with all these characters, like they never used Hawk again after the pilot, to any good effect -- most of the time they just got rid of him for the episode by having Hawk, "go off on Patrol." It got to the point where there was really no point in having him be a birdman, he could've been human and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Then I think they tried to save the show by bringing more first season elements back -- like Twiki going "bidee bidee bidee" again and the Mel Blanc voice, Wilma's skin-tight suits reappeared.

I liked the first few season 2 episodes, but then the episodes got more and more ludicrous.

Also, Wilma's role drastically changed. In S.1 she was a high ranking or even the commander of all fighter forces for New Chicago (if not the entire planet). Then in S.2, she's relegated to becoming Lt. Uhura .

And the Searcher's premise was supposed to be the search for the lost tribes of humanity, that took to the stars, and Hawk was to tag along to search for others of his race, but did the series ever continue that, or was that dropped ?

The show's creator Glenn A. Larson (Fall Guy, Knight Rider, BJ & the Bear) had an annoying habit of making changes to his shows once they were hits. Kind of what J.J. Abrams does today.

According to Wikipedia:

Production of the second season was delayed by several months due to an actors' strike. When production resumed in the fall of 1980, the series had a new set of producers (headed by John Mantley who had primarily worked on television westerns) and the format of the series was changed.

Instead of defending the Earth from external threats, Buck, Wilma and Twiki were now a part of a crew aboard the Earth spaceship Searcher. The Searcher, which displayed the Latin motto "Per ardua ad astra" ("through adversity to the stars") on its side, had a mission to seek out the lost "tribes" of humanity who had scattered in the centuries since Earth's 20th century nuclear war (which is a theme present in Glen A. Larson's previous science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica).

Another notable change in the second season was the disappearance of many of the regular characters of the first season, such as Dr. Huer, Dr. Theopolis, Princess Ardala, and Kane.

The character of Wilma Deering was "softened" in the second season as the producers attempted to tone down the militaristic "Colonel Deering" image, who often gave Buck orders, and tried to make her more "feminine". Another change in the second season was the sound of Twiki's voice. Mel Blanc left the series after the end of the first season and another actor, Bob Elyea, supplied Twiki's voice. Blanc returned for the final six episodes of the second season, though no explanation was given for the change in Twiki's voice.

The substance of the storylines also changed in the second season. Less emphasis was placed on militaristic ideals and, with a few exceptions, Gerard scaled back the humor in the second season in favor of more serious episodes. Buck and Wilma's relationship became slightly more romantic during the second year, though most romantic activity was implied and took place off-screen.

Moreover, the second season deals with more serious concepts such as evolution, ecology, racism, pollution, war, nuclear power, identity, the self, and religion. It also draws on mythology as exemplified by Hawk's people, which are a variant on the Bird people found in mythologies around the world and makes special reference to the moai of Easter Island. An episode also included a story about mythical satyr creatures.

As well as its parallels to Larson's previous television series Battlestar Galactica, the second season is similar in theme to Star Trek, with the Searcher roaming through space much like the Starship Enterprise, Buck being the maverick explorer true to the style of Captain James T. Kirk, and the serious, rather stoic Hawk being a revamped version of Mr. Spock. Even Wilma had, to some extent, been remodelled after Lt. Uhura from Star Trek, often dressed in a mini-skirt uniform and regularly sat at a communications console on the bridge of the Searcher.

Ratings dropped significantly after the season premiere. NBC, citing cost concerns, canceled the series at the end of an eleven-episode strike-abbreviated season. No finale storyline was produced, with the final episode broadcast being a normal standalone episode.

"Evil spelled backwards is live": Mok