Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not to be confused with either Avatar movie.

Why do you watch television?  If you’re like most people it’s because you enjoy it when oddly orange tinted people poke you in the eyes with their abject terribleness.  Or possibly because you like the commercials.  For myself, I like something a bit more nuanced than the entertainment equivalent of eating Valtrex.  And from experience, we all know how well any show with depth does on the networks.  Anything that presents shaded viewpoints, poses challenging moral and ethical questions, or just tries to tell a long term story not filled with bullshit “What’s the smoke monster?” unanswered mysteries just gets dropped on the floor.  I’m not even going to name the show you’re thinking of right now – we both know what you’re thinking.

This is one of the many reasons that Avatar: The Last Airbender (TLA) is one of the best television shows I’ve ever seen.  It’s a show that doesn’t coddle it’s viewers in any way.  It deals with themes of religious and cultural intolerance, loss of home, growth and maturity, and even genocide.  It allows its main characters to triumph and fail in equal measure, and even their ultimate victory rings partially hollow in the scope of what has occurred to their world.  Sometimes the bad guys are the good guys, and the good guys are the bad guys, and both sides question the value and ramifications of their actions.  The show drags rusty razors inside your tickle place and makes you like it.

And for me the best part is that the characters are smart, and the plot is moved forward through their intelligence, rather than their stupidity.  Remember Heroes, where the gene for superpowers was closely linked with the gene for making decisions like a cast member of Jersey Shore?  Avatar never once suffers from poor decision making as a plot device.

Ultimately it is the story of all of the difficult situations we are presented with every day in a complicated global society where every atrocity is available to us if we know the right url.  And it does all of this in the guise of a truly hilarious children’s cartoon.  The major barrier many people find it impossible to cross when someone recommends TLA to them is the fact that it’s a Nickelodeon kid’s show.  I can comfortably tell you that the GAang (Aang Gang for the uninitiated) would spongebend Bob into a pretzel in a very special episode of Blossom.  This show is NOT for kids.  Kids can watch it, and learn from it, but it is very definitely aimed at adults.  So don’t worry that you’re going to be taught at the end of every episode exactly how much of the battle Knowing really is.

So, why do you watch television?  If it’s entertainment, TLA has that in spades.  If its for drama, Avatar has that as well.  Comedy, tragedy, romance, and even some bits of history make their way  into the best epic story told in 22 minute blocks.  If you watch in order to numb that small part of your soul that still has enough hopes and dreams that it causes you agony as you grind out your normal daily nine-to-five shitslog, seek help.  Dorkadia cannot solve your problems.  However, if like me, you watch television hoping that shows like Avatar will make their way onto the airwaves, probably by accident, you will burn through this show like a methhead in an Alabama trailer park.  And now that I’ve discovered Aang and his friends, and been hooked, it’s my personal mission to spread it to as many people as possible.  A lot like Bobby Kotick and herpes.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be reviewing the entire series DVD by DVD here at Dorkadia, and I sincerely hope you’ll come along for the ride.