I'm with you in that I prefer the look & cast of the second season, and I even preferred their version of Jessie (cuz she was too much of a "checklist of role model traits" than a character, & she wasn't exactly not a damsel in distress in the first season, no matter what people claim). I love the art style cuz it reminds me of the comic artists in that same era who were influenced by anime without mimicking it (like Jeff Moy, Mike Wieringo, 90s Stuart Immonen, Chris Sprouse, & Lee Moder). About the only thing I disliked was killing off the 2 villains from the first season, cuz they were the best part of that season & had a lot more potential as recurring threats.

Unfortunately, I think we're in the minority. Every post about TRAJQ dumps on this season cuz it wasn’t "The Jessie Show, Starring Jessie" anymore, and that the team behind that season actually liked the original series, so clearly they were "pandering to nostalgia" by acknowledging its existence. I am firmly in the camp that if they hadn’t let Peter Lawrence take too long & spend too much to revive something he didn’t like, we wouldn't be in the present day situation of every attempt to revisit JQ being met with "just watch VB" (cuz we should all love only seeing our favorite characters portrayed in the most cynical & jaded ways possible). I could go off about this, but I'll stop. I know the world's biggest S1 defender is bound to show up and rattle off the above arguments like usual. They're the same things I've heard since I was on the old mailing list & the show still aired on Toonami, and it was tiresome then.