Gundam AGE - 03

The show's getting a little better, moderately resolving some of the more egregious problems I've identified so far, but it's still far from great.

Battleship beamspam... with almost none of them pointed at the attacking unit

The new UE unit from last week charges the Nora, easily slipping through its defenses, points its gun at the bridge... then files off without attacking.  The other unit, a Gafran, engages the Gundam in close combat, keeping Flit off balance and dodging his attempts to use the DOTS Rifle.

The Diva, meanwhile, is finishing its preparations to tow the colony core, and the last of the civilians are being evacuated to the colony core.

Apple rules the future and the colony is a gigantic iPod.

Meanwhile, Yuirin calms Flit down after he starts blindly charging at the Gafran, then somehow uses her apparently psychic powers to allow Flit to see and predict the unit's movement and shoot it down.  He then receives a report from the Diva that the other UE unit has entered Nora, and goes after it.  He arrives too late, however, and it destroys the colony's command center, where Bruzar had stayed behind to unlock the core from the rest of the colony.  It then escapes from the colony, with the Gundam in pursuit, but is much more mobile than the Gafran, and Flit is unable to shoot it down.

Bruzar, badly injured, contacts the Diva, and informs them that he is going to the colony's original construction management room, where he can again disconnect the core.  As he staggers through the colony's halls, he has a flashback to when he first met Flit, and Flit's conviction that the Gundam will save humanity.  After running the release program, he collapses.  Back on the Diva, they note the release and activate the core's boosters to push it out, and begin to advance the ship.

Would have been nice to know it existed last episode

Flit and the UE unit both notice the core beginning to separate, Flit intercepts its attempt to reach the core, and it then inexplicably retreats as the colony begins to fall apart.  Within the colony, the collapse causes a structural element to fall on the core's outer shell, halting its release.  Bruzar, however, barely alive, packs a construction MS with bombs, and does a suicide run to destroy the blockage.  The Diva then manages to pull the core free moments before the entire colony goes under.

And of course, when a mass of metal undergoes torsional collapse, it violently explodes.

Some time later on the Diva, the crew makes contact with the EFF command center and arranges for a fleet to come and rescue the civilians.  All non-combat personnel are ordered off the ship to the core, while the Diva and Gundam undertake a different mission.  Yuirin also departs, after giving Flit her hair ribbon as a gift.

Yuirin flag triggered.

Somewhere else, someone wakes up, looks around and wonders if he smells a battle.

And so, there are still issues here, mostly centering around the insanity of internal consistency and anime physics.
I didn't mention it at the time (or here), but the only other named pilot, but Largan Drace was supposed to have been wounded back in episode 1, yet here, at most a few hours later, he's perfectly fine and wanting to go back into battle.

Second, the colony's boosters.  I'd have been a little less harsh last episode if they had said they existed.  However, the amount of thrust needed to push that thing free in under eight minutes is so insane that it's clear they're just invoking "travels at the speed of plot".
Third, anime physics.  It's something almost never considered, but there is this thing called "momentum", p=MV.  The debris landing on the core would not cause it to quickly screech to a halt, especially not with the four gigantic engines pushing from the back.  It'd either push through anyway, or end up looking like the Titanic, with massive damage across the superstructure.
Fifth, going back to the plot, does anyone remember the original captain of the Diva?  The one that the EFF put in charge of the ship and Grodek stunned and tied up last episode?  EFF HQ is contacted from their new ship, with someone else in charge, and just shrug their shoulders at their ship being taken over?  Sure he says several times that they approved, but there's no on-screen evidence that he's not just BSing everyone.

Whatever, it's a little better than the last episode.