Are there any contemporary actresses with the same ability to convey simultaneous innocence and hawtness as Lea Thompson? She and Powers Boothe were really the only positives from the original movie (other than the original premise) IMO. I'm not sure we have anything Russia would want at this stage.

Now, lose the "Red Dawn" title (so you don't have to pay licensing fees or stir up the typical Hollywood anti-right crowd) and make the season 1 build-up sound like a fascist-takeover of the American power structure with the freedom fighters retreating to foothills and valleys ... then at the start of season 2 you spring the trap that the "right wing" takeover was really a false-flag operation by Huey Long-style Marxists (you could call the episode "Blue is Red, Red is Blue"). Call it "American Nightmare" or some such.