I was a huge fan of Avatar: the Last Airbender. They got almost everything right when they made it. Solid, interesting characters, a strange but understandable world, adventure, fun and a story worth telling. The only places they really fell down were in matters of pacing (they had too many ‘filler’ episodes considering there were a number of things in the main plot that really needed more time) and of course the less than loved ending. Though even that was really more a pacing problem than anything else.
So now they’ve come out with the sequel “Avatar: the Legend of Korra”. The season is pretty short so I decided to withhold judgement until it was finished. Now it has and here is my opinion on it. Limited Spoilers Follow.
Korra is pretty good all in all. At the same time it fails to bring me the same kind of giddy joy I felt the first time I watched Airbender (If you haven’t seen it you can watch the whole thing on Netflix. The big fight at the end of the first season alone is worth the price of admission.) Now they took some really big risks in the creation of Korra. It’s 70 years later. Most of the original cast are dead (including Aang, obviously, since we have a new Avatar) and it is their Legacy which is on display. All that stuff that happens over the course of the original that you might have thought “How can the world stay the same once you introduce this as an idea?” is there and it has changed the world. I can’t say I disagree with any of the choices they made but at the same time something about the show feels off. There are a lot of too familiar characters and somehow the big reveal at the end comes across a little flat. I hear they are planning a second season and I will eagerly await it. At the same time a part of me wishes that maybe the writers had been a little less brave in their decisions.
On the under used d20 scale I give the first season of Legend of Korra a 14.
It’s better than most things you see on TV but doesn’t quite measure up to the promise that is clearly visible in every episode.
