Season One seems to be where the creators were trying to find their footing. As much as I enjoy this show, the first season has a lot of filler and more than enough missed opportunities. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, there are a few things from which I think this season could have benefitted.

More time at the Northern Water Tribe would have given the audience more time to soak it in. The goal from the first episode has been to get to the North Pole so that Aang and Katara could learn waterbending. When the team arrives, there isn’t much time to get to know the new characters. This is a shame for a few reasons; Aang and company seem to have been there for a significant period of time. I say this because both Aang and Katara become better at waterbending. If my assumptions are correct, it takes time to learn a martial art.

You’re just moving the water around…

It also shortchanges the romance between Sokka and Yue since the audience needs to care about it. It would have been more impactful if the story of how Yue was given life by the moon spirit was sprinkled in over the course of an episode or two. It was just thrown in toward the end of the second part of the finale.

Kiss her, you fool!

This season suffers heavily from too much filler and not a lot of development or training. For example, I mentioned The Great Divide as being one of my least favorite episodes due to the fact that it offered nothing to further the main story. It also provided nothing in regards to character development since the main characters aren’t changed by the end of the episode. Aang doesn’t even take some time to learn some earthbending moves from the canyon guide. I find this episode to be the most annoying, and I skip it when I can.

It wasn’t until The Waterbending Scroll that we got a glimpse of Aang and Katara practicing waterbending. The next time we see one of the characters actually training is in The Deserter in which Aang burns Katara. The majority of the episode is spent between Aang and Jeong Jeong learning the basics. Naturally, Aang is impatient, and ends up biting off more than he can chew. With that, I thought the show would take a more serious turn in regards to Aang taking his training more seriously. However, his hesitance to firebend doesn’t manifest itself to the audience until the end of Season 2.

Wider!

Aang is raised to be loyal to discipline and to be respectful to the art of bending, but it’s good to see him slip up. It’s good to see the main character get hurt and go through change. This is why I enjoy The Walking Dead so much. Rick is such a different person in Season 5 than he was in Season 1, and I enjoyed seeing his rise, fall, and rise over the course of the show. This is what I wanted to see more of with Aang.

I think the one piece of filler that came out of this season that I saw a lot of potential for is the introduction of Jet. He was a very damaged character that proved to be a great foil for Aang and the team. Like Basco from Kaizuko Sentai Gokaiger, Jet was after the same thing as the main characters, but he had a more extreme way of getting it. Whereas Aang evaded and tried to find alternatives to outright violence, Jet was willing to murder a village full of people to attain his goals. It also helps that Jet comes from such a violent past, but sadly, it’s  underused in the series as a whole, and only visited once in the first season.

Spirits and the Spirit World seem to get very little screen time until Legend of Korra. In the first season, it seems as though spirits are plot devices and deus ex machinas. It’s one thing to introduce a cool concept and explore that concept. However, I can least it slide since the show is about the Avatar ending the 100-Year War. I still would have liked to see more in the way of spirit interaction. They mention a lot during the show that the Avatar is the bridge between the real world and the Spirit World. It’s be good if Aang visited the Spirit World more often, or if spirits were causing trouble and he needed to calm them down. Maybe if more spirits like Heibai  and the ocean/moon spirits appeared, I wouldn’t have a problem. But again, I can let it slide since the show is geared more toward fighting/ending the war.

Throw up your rock fist if you’re feeling it when I drop this!

Alas, this season is build-up and filler. The payoff comes later, but it’s good to see the things that the show sets up. I still enjoy the show and I can’t wait to review the second season moving forward. There are many more gripes and praises for the show as a whole, but those will come in time as the story unfolds in Season 2. Merry Christmas to all!

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