Now, this might be a bit of a strange topic for me to write about, seeing as most Winx bloggers write about season five-related things, and season two was ages ago (or it at least seems that way). However, I’ve begun to notice something strange about Winx fans: when they say their favorite seasons, they mostly pick seasons one or three. Since I started watching about halfway through S1, I didn’t really connect with that one until later. And don’t get me wrong, Valtor is one of my favorite villains in this show. But…it seems that Season Two gets nowhere near enough credit. You see, while S1 started the show, S2 really seemed to expand on it and made Winx, well, Winx! Here are some reasons why I think S2 might’ve been our most influential season to date:
1) The new characters introduced in this season.
One of the major complaints about S2 is that Darkar is a very, very stereotypical villain. And I agree: he just isn’t that compelling. But the great thing is that the other new characters from this season balanced out his lack of sufficient development. S2 has produced tons of fan favorite characters, including Aisha, Helia, and the pixies. One of the many things people complain most about S5 is the lack of pixies, and without this season, we wouldn’t have had any! Yes, we have selkies, but raise your hand if you think they actually fill the void. Nobody? Precisely.
2) It expanded the Magical Dimension.
Before S2, just about the only places we knew about were the girls’ home planets and Magix itself. Compared to the other seasons, the Winx spent a lot of time in S1 just staying at Alfea. But S2 brought us all sorts of other places, like Shadowhaunt, the Resort Realm, and the Pixie Village. And this just laid the foundation for S3, which just kept introducing us to new realms (…yes, for about five minutes when Valtor was stealing their natural resources…but it still counts). So it started the “realm adventure” format that makes Winx so unique today.
3) It started the fairy transformations.
Now, there are a lot of people out there who complain about all the transformations in Winx Club. But actually…I really like them! They make the show unique among magical girl shows because you never quite know what the new transformation will be. The only show that really comes close to this pattern is Cardcaptor Sakura. So without the transformations, Winx would be far less unique. That being said, Enchantix is still my favorite…but Sirenix comes close.
4) It developed the existing characters.
This was the season where Bloom truly started searching for her birth parents, for one thing, but if there’s one thing Winx fans hate, it’s singling Bloom out, and I’m not about to do that. Take Flora, for instance. Her crush on Helia really brought out the girl we know today and how she can sometimes get her head in the clouds…and inadvertently make cats pile up on Professor Palladium. Tecna seemed to gain a lot more emotion in this season, too. Musa grew to become friends with Aisha and began to confide in people about her mother’s death. All in all, this season had plenty of character development to make up for the somewhat cliched plot.
rainbowdustwinx 
This is my favorite season for a lot of the above reasons! I think it also was the one with the least emphasis on Bloom – it really gave all the other girls a chance to work together against Darkar (while you-know-who was giggling evilly and doing pretty much nothing) and, like you said, it also had lots of room for character development, especially during the Charmix vacation subplot.
I also think another reason it’s underrated is because Nick overlooked it and crammed everything into one hour. S2 would have done better as at least two specials.
When I heard about the specials, I got mad too. I thought that it would separate S1 into two specials, and S2 into two specials. That makes more sense. But really, did we need all that detail about S1? Sure, it’s an origin story, but they cut out an awful lot from S2. What about the Red Fountain concert with Musa, or the first appearance of Dark Bloom (probably my favorite Winx episode), or even the homesickness spell?
I was most angry about Professor Avalon simply being Darkar in disguise. Couldn’t they have at least tried to explain the “two Avalons” situation? The way they handled that plotline made absolutely no sense! How could Darkar have been Avalon if Avalon was at Alfea while Darkar was in Shadowhaunt?!
Yes, anything is possible in the Winx world, but…that’s still a messy plot hole.
Darkar might have been stereotypical and not really compelling (especially when compared to Valtor -my personal favourite ) but at least ,unlike Tritannus he has redeeming qualities:
Awesome lair -Shadow Haunt/Shadowlands
I mean I really like the design for Shadow haunt it just radiates pure evil…
I know that Tritannus is mostly on the move and stuff, but the ocean scenes in general are not very compelling, so I guess you can add Scenery for something that is really under appreciated in S2.
Awesome character design
The skeletal armour and glowing eyes are quite fitting …Tritannus’ character design on the other hand …ugh
`
Strategy/Smarts
I mean Darkar wasn’t always a straightforward destroy everything kind of guy.
List of Darkar’s trickeries:
He let the pixies go as he reasoned that they would eventually have to go back home
He planned for/ordered the Avalon double to get close to Bloom ,restraining the real Avalon
He distracted the boys at Red Fountain so the Trix could sneak in
He very cleverly managed to get to pixie village with the help of the Avalon double
He strung along the Trix with promises of power
Tritannus never did anything remotely deceptive or sneaky..he never had any good tricks up his sleeve …
D
NB. Darkar has the whole mysterious puppet master who pulls the strings kind of air ….he was successful because he managed to gain control of the right people to do his bidding and was somewhat of a strategist .Though people complain that he didn;’t really do missions himself this is still an accomplishment . He should have been developed more ,,,I agree with that.
Also ,another reason that season two was awesome-We saw the Winx interact with the Specialists on more than a basic boyfriend level …they actually had missions together-it was a combination of magic and combat ..
In S5…The Specialists are just there to play the love interests:(
And we got Layla/Aisha who had great development with her fear and whatnot as well as the fact that the writers managed to cleverly develop the characters through their earning their Charmix forms .
Besides Darkar posed an actual threat and is was established early …The only time Tritannus actually posed a threat was episode 16 onwards .
I can’t believe they summoned the war council for him but not for Valtor or Darkar .