The Legend of Korra S01E11 & E12

By: Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko

The Story: It may come as a shock to you that Amon is not a family man.

The Review: I’m a regular reader of Wired, the ostensible boutique magazine for geeks, and I find it, just like whatever that’s “boutique” anything, is a little prone to making broad, definitive judgment calls with no support.  Take Scott Thrill’s take on The Legend of Korra, in his eyes the “Smartest Cartoon on TV.”  Now, I didn’t quite do a spit-take on reading that headline, but I must say, with no offense to Thrill, that I respectfully disagree.

The last couple episodes have been solid enough to make me eager for the season finale, but halfway through, right around the point where Tarrlok spills the beans on every revelation you ever needed, I found myself turned cold.  Be forewarned, this next chunk of review will contain quite a few spoilers, so shut your eyes and move on if you’re not into that kind of thing.

The Legend of Korra S01E07 – Review

By: Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko (story)

The Story: Even in the Avatar world, you can’t trust big corporations.

The Review: It gets increasingly difficult to talk about this series, not only because its strengths and problems are consistent across every episode, but also because there really isn’t all that much to talk about.  I mentioned last week how thin the plot seems to be, and for the sake of contrast, you should look to this week’s episode of Young Justice for an example of a packed episode.  I think it’s pretty clear that this show hasn’t delivered nearly that kind of substance so far.

To be fair, Legend of Korra has a much smaller cast than Young Justice’s bursting population of characters.  But it certainly doesn’t help that the show focuses so intensely on Korra, maligning her supporting cast to strictly that: support.  When you look at Mako, Bolin, Tenzin, or Lin, none of them have major plotlines of their own to help break up the episode; their stories invariably tie into Korra’s in some way, and that makes for rather stagnant storytelling.  Compare to The Last Airbender, where you can go a whole episode without seeing Aang.

The Legend of Korra S01E06 – Review

By: Michael DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko (story)

The Story: Ringside seats grow less amazing once terrorists take over the ring.

The Review: I don’t mean to sound like a downer, but I’ve found another point of dissatisfaction with this series.  It just feels like we don’t have much going on in each episode, making you feel as if DiMartino-Konietzko are trying to scrape a fairly limited plot across a whole season, filling in the gaps with as much bending tricks as they can dream up.  And while that’s entertaining enough in itself, it doesn’t make for a very driven or memorable show.

The show has a consistent problem of predictability.  At first, you think it throws you a curve ball when Tarrlok, of all people, is in total agreement with Tenzin on protecting innocent lives rather than confront Amon.  You start thinking he might have some good in his body after all, which would make him a more multifaceted character than your run-of-the-mill obsequious schemer.  And then he ruins it by immediately stepping back once he’s sure that someone else will take the blame should things go south.