Alternate Character Interpretation: Why does Phil Miller number two forcibly exile the first Phil Miller from Tuscon in the season one finale? Is he a fundamentally good person who doesn't want the survivors to tear each other apart or a budding despot who conditions others to be dependent upon him for anything in return for their unwavering praise and loyalty?
Arc Fatigue: Phil pining after Melissa and wanting to break her and Todd up nears Plot Tumor level for viewers who tuned in to see people living in a world without people. As season one continues, however, it becomes clear that Phil's romantic frustrations are the point of the show's first season rather than a single arc.
Base-Breaking Character: Phil himself continues to tear the fanbase in two. While many view him as a Jerkass Woobie gradually evolving into a better man, just as many see him as a major offender of Aesop Amnesia who will never learn from his mistakes.
The masked bunker people from the last two episodes stand around ominously while even more ominous music plays, but the way they climb out of their bunker while wearing hazmat masks and their group has more survivors than everyone else from before then put together make their eeriness appealing and neat.
Seafaring Crazy Survivalist Pat, Gilded Cage bunker survivor Pamela, and imprisoned Reluctant Monster Karl all have their antagonistic moments and their combined number of episodes aren’t enough to fill a season, but all are seen as delightfully colorful and able to rival or surpass the main cast in entertainment value.
Both the cow the group find in season 1 and the calf it gives birth to in season 2 are popular for having some good comic relief moments and having some Hope Bringer moments as rare surviving animals. Many people hope that the calf somehow escaped the nuclear meltdown radius after being forgotten in season 3.
The Death by Cameo characters played by Jack Black, Jon Hamm, and Will Ferrell all made decent impressions on the fanbase (with many people wishing they'd had bigger roles) due to lasting just long enough to establish some interesting personality hints and having a bit of pathos to their fates.
Fan-Disliked Explanation: Word of God saying the main cast are carriers rather than immunes is not universally loved and accepted, given how it means they will infect the minor but interesting bunker survivors and raises questions about why they didn't infect people they met who did survive the pandemic by being isolated from anyone who got sick.
Growing the Beard: Starting with the second season (and continuing in the third), the show began to attract critical notice again for its better plots, the characters becoming more likeable (especially Phil) and a returned focus on the post-apocalyptic setting.
Harsher in Hindsight: The show's infamous MacGuffin (a virus that wipes out most of the world's population) became this with the COVID-19 Pandemic. The timeline even aligns, as the show specifically takes place in 2020 — the year the pandemic took hold. Will Forte eventually spoke about how disturbed he was by the coincidence, though he also noted even the characters in his silly little comedy knew masks would have been a good idea.
Heartwarming Moments: Phil number 1 singing the song he wrote for Carol in "Screw the Moon."
Phil: (singing) They say the moon's intuition makes you feel all romantic. They say it makes the waves that serenade our sadness. It's for hopers, the dreamers, poets who swoon. Well, screw the moon. What good's the moon if Care Bear's not here with me? It's also nice to see them acting more like a couple in season 2.
In the third episode of season 2, he tried to hide a note saying where the group went after they left Tuscon. When it seems that he's going back to his old ways, he decides to show her the note after she cries from missing the others.
Phil consoling a crying Todd over the fact that he killed another person, which is immediately followed by the rest of the group joining in for a hug. Notable for being perhaps the single most kindhearted thing Phil has done for anyone in the series so far, particularly the men, as well as being one of the only times the group is shown to genuinely care about each other.
Informed Wrongness: While he was a jerkass about it, it's pretty reasonable for Phil to be unhappy about the music in "She Drives Me Crazy." It's loud enough to wake him up in the middle of the night repeatedly, and he knows it's a "sex song." This does come mere days after he confessed his love for Melissa. Considering there's four people in the entire city, being unable to sleep because of a neighbor's music is a fairly reasonable complaint. Melissa later admits that it was insensitive.
Jerkass Woobie: Phil's a self-centered jerkass through and through, but it's hard not to feel bad for him considering things never go his way. Things that do go well usually only do so in a cruel fashion.
Nightmare Fuel: The final shot of "Screw The Moon", the first season finale. Right after the reveal that Phil has a brother, we zoom up into space, seeing the International Space Station. Inside, we see a wild-eyed Jason Sudeikis, playing his brother, trapped in space for years. How horrifying is that?
Many fans are sore at the creators for making Straight GayOnly Sane Man Lewis Ha a Mauve Shirtwith an avoidable death rather then a permanent party member.
While seeing big name guest stars suffer Death by Cameo is pretty funny, some fans wish that said guest stars had at least gotten a whole episode and some comedic moments instead of a single scene and line apiece. Admiral Roy can feel particularly wasted given how, in addition to being played by Jack Black, he is the first government survivor to appear in the show and has implied nautical skills in an episode with sailing.
The first two episodes set up an Adam and Eve Plot set After the End, where the two characters don't like each other. Once Melissa showed it up it became more of a rote sitcom.
When the two new girls mention they met at the White House, Phil doesn't mention he was there too and took the rug which featured so prominently in the first few episodes.
Some fans wish the scenes of Mike alone in space, as powerful as they are, had been Played for Laughs, given how good of a comic actor Jason Sudeikis is and how Phil was pretty funny during his scenes alone in the pilot.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The whole crew's hostile reaction to Phil's return xcan come across as a little overly callous.
The Un-Twist: The fate of Lewis' flight in "The Spirit Of St. Lewis" couldn't have been more telegraphed.
Todd has several sad back stories of woe, and it eventually becomes clear that Melissa is settling when it comes to choosing him as a romantic partner, rather than having any real attraction.
Mike has it even worse. While the other survivors at least have each other, he's stranded in space without any human contact and forced to watch helplessly as all life on earth is seemingly wiped out. To further this, his scenes rarely have any humor to them and are instead utterly soul crushing.
Gail, mostly when she was stuck in an elevator with no way to let the others know she's there.
of Star Talk, in which Kristen Schaal asks an astronaut named Mike about what space is like.