Review

Season 1

I'm a big fan of Last Airbender and Korra. I was never super broken up when it seemed like all the post-Korra Avatar projects lurched into that all-too common development hell. I love the original shows, for any faults they may have. But I didn't necessarily think we desperately needed more. We told cohesive stories among the two shows and I was content. I do think that it's a rather imaginative world. And the central premise of the Avatar's reincarnation gives it a Doctor Who-esque flexibility. If there's a will to tell more stories in that world, you've got a way. But again, I think the original series is fairly faultless. At most you could levy a bit of "is this necessary" to a couple episodes in season 1 that skew more episode than serial. There's a bit of fat that could be trimmed, if that is something you would like to do. Korra is more complicated. I quite like her as a character, I'm not one of those hysterical people that see someone who is not Aang and starts shaking from fury. But that show is certainly more uneven in its writing. Likely owing to the style of development where they did not know how many seasons they were getting from the outset. Korra spends a bit too much of its runtime playing whack-a-mole with its seasonal antagonists that the original series didn't have to. But even still I think it's generally pretty good with that caveat in mind.

That brings us to Seven Havens. I'm pretty mixed on it. A top-level disclaimer would be that if you are wild for the other Avatar shows and are desperate for more, this is more. But being a bit more critical, I think this series has problems that the others did not. My biggest issue is I think the writing is notably weaker. There's a lot of Netflix-esque minimal viable dialogue where a thing happens and then characters say {thing happened}. The sort of dialogue you'll find in a show made for people watching it over their phone screens. It's not horrendous, but it stuck out. Has been some years since I have seen Last Airbender or Korra, but I don't think either of those shows had this problem. I've become more critical of media in the last 5 or so years so at some point I'll need to do a rewatch. But my memory of the original shows is that they were pretty smart. They were kid's shows primarily yes, but I believe them to be an example of kid's shows that hold up for an adult watcher. Your Batmans or your Courages the Cowardly Dog, etc.

I have an example on the writing front. In a season of Seven Havens, we do not cover nearly enough ground. Not enough actually happens. Let's compare to the original series. In the two-parter pilot episodes, we establish both the short-term goal for Aang (find a waterbending teacher). As well as the long-term goal (master all 4 elements to defeat Firelord). By episode 8 of 20, we also establish a time-limit for defeating the Firelord (the imminent arrival of Sozin's comet later in the year). This is some efficient writing. A little over a third of the way through the first season of a three-season show, and we fully have the structure of the rest of the series in place. Seven Havens, by contrast, waffles around for its 13 episodes. And only in its finale do we actually establish (I think), what we're even trying to accomplish. It's just not being efficient. I can see an alternative cut of this first season that takes us, at most, 5 episodes to get through.

There's too many characters that aren't serving a purpose. Let's take Daemin as example. At first he appears to just be a background comic relief person. We then reveal he is actually a member of the White Lotus. More than meets the eye! Very good! He then does nothing for the rest of the series. And oddly, we have some rando waterbender save the day in the last couple finale episodes. Why not this other waterbender character whose name we actually know and the show is telling me has some actual importance? Just odd decisions like this. A lot of the people we are spending time on give me the feeling that these are not movers and shakers, but just background people who may have no real importance in the longterm. I think this is an issue, because although we definitely had a lot of non-important folk in the first series, this was okay because it was totally clear who our main cast was. And it also made sense in the context of the show. The Gaang was traveling the world, of course they are running into a lot of randos that they may never see again. Also made it satisfying when some of those randos do show up again later in the series and we realize oh shit, those people were actually important. Here in Seven Havens we spend the first season in one place. It feels weird and wrong to have a number of characters present and on the screen for so much time that I could not tell you a thing about their personality.

On the worldbuilding front, I am interested in what I'm seeing. But I don't think we're covering enough ground. We have several central mysteries. Why are there two avatars? Are we dealing with a light avatar and dark avatar situation? Is Vaatu in play? It really seems like it given the evil red diamond stuff, but we also seem to swerve about and haven't directly addressed it. And that we haven't addressed it makes me think this is a red herring? What caused the world to do a post-Apocalypse exactly? I would not expect the show to answer all of these questions. There are, so far as I know, 4 seasons planned. But I would expect some questions to be answered, and we don't really answer any by the end of the season. All we get is a confirmation of how the twins got separated and what happened to their parents. We fully had Aang's backstory down by like episode 3 or 4 in the original series... I really would have expected that sort of backstory question to be answered at least by the halfway point if not earlier. The twins multiple times in the season get back little bits of their lost memory. This should have been at most twice where at first we get a tantalizing glimpse that is cut short. And then the full reveal. But there's like 5 or 6 instances where we're seeing just a little bit more each time, with several of those not actually telling us anything.

As far as the central premise goes, I'm also mixed. I would laud the creators for being willing to do big shakeups (the post-Apocalypse) and not feel totally beholden to the past. But it does leave a bit of bad taste in mouth. I feel a little bit of Star Wars sequels feelings. Where a presupposed need to be bigger forced us to kind of invalidate a lot of what happened in the pre-existing shows. We have only seen a small portion of the world thus far. So I can't speak authoritatively. Maybe a good portion of their work has been preserved in the other havens? But I can't help but think about all the things Aang and Korra accomplished and how...kind of a lot of it doesn't seem to matter?

I'll say that the animation and the music are both gorgeous. I'll also say that despite not wanting to go backwards and have Avatars that are younger even than Aang was, the central twins are generally engaging. They're both enjoyable to watch. I don't feel like I've gone totally backwards and am watching kiddy time play-hour. Had that been the case, it would have been a total writeoff. Even though I would prefer to be watching an adult avatar or at least Korra-esque one. I liked that going from Aang to Korra, the show aged with its audience.

So overall I have concerns. None of the concerns that I have are something that can't be improved on in later seasons. Nothing here is total poison that can't be fixed. I do however think that we've lost time that can't be retrieved because of a lack of focus. My hope is that for future seasons we really tighten up the writing and cover more ground.