Aaron Kabay

Going into this series I had such high hopes, but tried to not have unrealistic expectations. However, with each episode I found myself more and more disappointed. There’s elements I did enjoy about the show, Sokka and Zuko’s characters I appreciated for example. But in so many other moments or character portrayals I was left either disappointed or confused. For me it felt like the producers were just putting things in the show as if to say “Hey! Remember this thing that happened in the original series? We put it in too! Isn’t that great?” but so much of the storyline makes very little sense. Things like many characters being weirdly mean to Aang (the other Avatars, Bumi, etc), the fire lord showing his love and appreciation for Zuko and but distain for Azula (literally the opposite to what happened in the show) and Aang for some reason being massively overpowered like being able to fly on his own in ep 4 or AIR BEND enormous rocks in ep4? Why even bother with earth bending if you can just pick up two rocks that weigh close to 100 tonnes each just with air bending? Even key character development moments that happen in the show happen WAY too quickly that they lose their weight in this series. Anyway, this is turning into a rant now. All this to say I think the producers have made a facsimile of the show at best. It LOOKS like Avatar, but it’s lost the soul along the way. Please note that I’m well aware the producers can’t make a 20+ episode series, but I believe they focused too much on hitting memorable story moments and in my opinion lost the emotional beats along the way which are what made the show so great to begin with. Personally I really hope they don’t make a season 2, and that in a few years someone else comes along and just does something closer to a 1-1 copy of the original story (maybe with a little extra flavour) but in live action. Nothing would make me happier than to give this show 4 or 5 stars, but sadly it’s not to be. Solid 2 stars, would not recommend :(