Time travel crap? Did we watch the same show?
It was extremely straight forward... Baltar wins the election, and orders the settlement of the planet. Adama, being usually civic minded, obeys the order.
They don't sling-shot around a star at warp 7 or crank up some tachyon generators or call in the Q. Life. simply. moved. on.
Here we are a year later. Half the fleet's military personnel are on the surface. Galactica and Pegasus are on a continuous orbital defense mission, and by now , having had zero enemy contact, even Adama believes the threat has subsided. Incompetent leadership from Baltar has assured that most of the population on the ground isn't getting along too well. Many of the major characters, very realistically, moved on in life in natural ways.
And then, in a somewhat unexpected fashion (but if you want boring, predictable, cliche and low-brow simplicity, watch Voyager or most of Enterprise), the Cylon's return -- not to sling about nukes and exterminate their 'parents', but to BE the parents, to BE the gods.
Meanwhile, Galactica and Pegasus, seeing them coming and barely being able to set a defense condition much less ward off multiple basestars, jumps away with what was left of the fleet (most of the ships apparently were grounded or scrapped for supplies planet-side). Even if Galactica/Pegasus convince the civilians to transfer to the battlestars to shore up manpower, they're under powered, and even still couldn't possibly dislodge a Cylon occupation.
So obviously... Adama is off to seek help from the 13th tribe.
And it leaves us hanging in typical BSG style with a totally unusual plot .. who saw that coming? And who can honestly say its an uninteresting setup with limited story potential? Everything HAS changed! We probably saw the nuke going to good use, but I didn't suspect it was to help the cylons locate New Caprica, though I kinda wondered.. seemed random. We've got all the major characters leading new lives, though partly back to the good old days before the one-year leap with Starbuck already going on the defensive, so it's in balance. We've got back story to cover, and totally new ground to cover as well. Moore has said it wont take as long in Season 3 to wrap up where the Season 2 finale left us off like Season 2 took to wrap up where the Season 1 finale left us, so that should provide SOME comfort if you really just dont like the current setup.
I don't know, I'm kinda surprised there was so much dislike for it in here. I've seen mostly just the highest praise for it all over the place, except for the whining about being another 7 months until it returns in October.. which kinda bugs me. NBC is interested in taking it off SciFi and on to NBC itself, which I think would kill it just how UPN meddled with Enterprise and Fox meddled (disasterously) with Babylon 5's Crusades and Firefly. I think it's right at home on SciFi..
Edit: The true test for BSG will be when they finally DO get to Earth.. pulling it off in a nice, unpredictable, fulfilling, sensible way.. in other words, the total opposite of how BSG 1984 managed it
I don't know how they can do it, but I didn't think Moore could do anything for a finale OTHER than use the nuke we all knew was going to come in to play either, and he suprised me there, he'll do it again.