>>283470661 (OP)
Let's get back to fundamentals, here - the first season falls apart completely if you don't look at it as a lesbian love story with some mahou shoujo trappings. As an action/adventure story it doesn't work because it lacks a proper climax (the Big Bad just falls over dead on her own) and has multiple episodes with no action at all, and what else is there? School drama? Pfft, it's not drama when everybody is best friends with everybody.
Basically, it's all about Nanoha trying to hit on Fate, and finally succeeding when she was at her most aggressive (proving once again that rape is love).
Actually, Nanoha succeeded by finally getting Precia to go all uber-bitch and denounce Fate's existence as a worthless hunk of tube-grown flesh and then gave her the metaphorical hug of a life time.