yeah we need this

Having stuck a grand total of 3 spears through Mick's chest, witnessing him lose consciousness and burning the house down with him inside, who would then rationally assume that there was any chance in hell that he had survived?

Would you really want to go and take a look at a charred corpse of the man who murdered your family and who you had fought with and 'believe' brutally killed the night before? I don't know about you, but I'd be repulsed by that. I'd assume that most people would be. It's disgusting. Her response is perfectly realistic.

Perhaps she didn't want to put the knife through his head because she A: thought he was dead and B: had had enough of the brutality. This is a 19 year old girl. She's just a bloody kid. When she shot those two men, she immediately felt regret and remorse on both occasions despite knowing that they each had earned it. She's not a psychopath who enjoys brutality. Far from it. She's only in it to get even and bring some balance back to her world.

This country isn't full of scum...? News to me. Walk down any city backstreet alley and you'll spot bikies and meth-heads roaming around. They're real and they're everywhere. Why should the outback be any different? If anything, it'd probably be worse due to lower socio-economic standards and the lack of infrastructure, opportunities and education. This country is full of drunkard, inbred scum and a hell of a lot more of it than the series portrayed. That was just a tiny sample of the scum Australia contains.

What exactly is wrong with portraying most people who she meets as scum? Where is the drama value if everyone she meets is friendly, polite and courteous? How many serious TV dramas do that? Name one!

Did we at any point see the news in this show? How do we know that the deaths of her family weren't reported on heavily in the media?

When Eve escaped from the jail cell she didn't go to 'the cops', just Sullivan - a cop who she assumed she could potentially trust. Again - she's a kid and can still trust people. Not only that, but her parents were both cops. She knew cops. Where the hell would anybody go if their entire family was slaughtered other than to the cops?

Mick was a rare sight in WC1. That was one of the contributing factors to its appeal and suspense. In WC2, he was there all the time, reducing the suspense and turning it into a one-sided action film. The show tried to channel WC1 in this regard, showing him less often.

What you call 'junk/filler' is what I call fleshing out the stage. That is a hallmark of realism in TV shows. They don't just show you the interesting flashpoints, they show the mundane backdrop too to allow more accurate juxtaposition.

I think the reason why you believe that this series lacked the "nail-biting tension" of WC1 is that the protagonist was transcending her role as a victim. She was strong enough to resist Mick and his world, even to thrive in it. She wasn't just trying to escape like Liz/Kristy/Ben/Paul were. She was as much a hunter as Mick. It was less of a cat and mouse and more of a cat and cat.