The Legend of Korra Review

Every season here was ordered separately, and the show never recovers from it. Book One resolves completely because nobody knew there would be a Book Two, and the pattern then repeats. A new villain with a new ideology arrives, is defeated inside twelve episodes, and leaves almost nothing behind. That is a structural wound in a series following one of the great long form arcs in animation. What survives is craft. Studio Mir's fight animation is the best American television has commissioned, weighty and readable, and the pro bending matches are choreographed with a clarity most live action cannot manage.

The Republic City design work fuses 1920s industry with elemental technology into something genuinely new. Amon and Zaheer are strong antagonists precisely because their grievances are legitimate, and the show is brave enough to leave Korra physically and psychologically broken for an entire season. Janet Varney grows into the part, though the writing leans on speeches where its predecessor leaned on behavior. Gorgeous, ambitious, frequently rushed, and never once boring.