The remake of the 1980s series about alien visitors starts its second season tonight, with the invasion!

Last season we were introduced to the visitors, their mission, and mantra: "we are of peace, always." The season grew a few characters, killed a few off, and did a fair job of introducing us to the human-versus-visitor resistance, all without relying or copying too much of the original series.

The current series' first season started abruptly with the alien ships arriving in the first few minutes, with little character introduction. The characters were introduced as they observed the aliens arrival with us. Throughout the first season, little twists and turns took us along with FBI agent Erica Evans as she grew more wary of the visitors, and joined in with a group of resistance fighters. All the while she kept up her FBI appearances, and even got cozy with the visitors' leader, Anna, as her teen-aged son, Tyler, developed a romance with Lisa, Anna's daughter. There's a bit of disbelief-suspension required as the season moved pretty quickly, and the characters obviously had encounters and knowledge to which we weren't privy.

The first season was a short one, I think around 12 episodes (yep, Wikipedia confirms), split with a mid-season break that made us think the series had been cancelled. Just over the New Year weekend they replayed a select set of episodes, to help kick us into the new season, including the cliffhanger.

The cliff-hanger ending of the first season was of an irked Anna triggering a worldwide transformation of red cloud cover after she discovers that her brood of warrior visitors had been destroyed by the resistance. What she doesn't seem to know is that Lisa, Erica, and Joshua, her trusted physician, were all in on the ambush. At the end of the show, we believe Joshua to be dead as Erica shot and killed him to avert suspicion from her. Either in the last moments of the show or the early previews (I forget which) we see Joshua revived (they've got the power, apparently), and suspect risk to the resistance!

The second season appears to be starting with an invasion fleet (we all knew it was coming, right?). Very exciting teaser commercials (although probably a few less than I would have thought for what seems to be a kind of high-budget, effects-driven show) show a swarm of visitor ships on their way past the moon. The previews also show what looks like an all-out attack on the Earth, so it should be pretty exciting!