It is a massive swing on the part of this series to reset the world with an apocalypse instead of advancing the time period and tech level like the last series did. Massive to villainise the previous hero so immediately and fully. The whole artistic vibe is different – painted-looking backgrounds are gone, synth soundtracks are in. We are breaking two generations’ worth of established rules by having two simultaneous Avatars and a 200 year gap between Avatars. Even the way Seven Havens uses the franchise’s signature Asian influences is disorienting: Ellora’s architecture, motifs, names and demographics do not let us place ourselves near (the former locations of) any of the traditional four nations or established smaller citystates from the two old series.

In short, everything looks different and sounds different, we don’t know where we are, and important things have stopped following their own rules. Also a bunch of stuff you liked is either gone forever or being treated as evil.

That is a high risk way to setup the sequel to two such beloved and well-established series. If the answers to how and why things are like this aren’t extremely compelling, the whole thing is going to feel like it spits in the face of the Avatar legacy. If the ways they tie the timeline together and bridge the differences aren’t spectacular, it is going to make people wonder if this was a pitch for an Avatar-inspired original series awkwardly transformed into a sequel to capitalise on the brand power of an existing franchise. Forget being bad, a sequel this bold will be divisive even if it’s just okay. It needs to justify the hell out of itself.

Which is why it’s so worrying to me that the first batch of episodes give such a middling first impression. Interesting ideas let down by choppy, cheap-feeling animation that can’t sell them to their full potential. Characters that I could see myself being endeared to being held back by clunky, announce-how-you’re-feeling dialogue. No early narrative hook with the gut-punch quality of Gyatso’s skeleton in the original. This broadly average feeling has the flow-on effect of making a viewer not sure what is worldbuilding and what is cost-cutting. Example: the elemental effects of the bending look weaker and the movements behind them less martial art-y than before. You could make a case that this is the result of the knowledge of proper techniques being lost in the cataclysm. I could also see it being because of time or budget crunch, same as the general lack of fluidity in how everything moves.

A standalone show can get away with its mysteries being more compelling than the answers, a legacy sequel changing what is familiar and nostalgic cannot. Conversely, a safe franchise entry can get away with being mediocre. I would say the Avatar Aang movie’s script is a bit of a mess despite some stellar animation, but that’s fine because it’s made to fit quietly into timeline. Its new characters are from such an unfathomably ancient past you don’t even have to try to line them up with the established history. Its ending had to be impermanent enough that it wouldn’t feel out of place that it was never mentioned in Korra. No future series or movie is going to be beholden to any continuity from Avatar Aang unless they specifically choose to being something from it up. Seven Havens cannot hide. Whether it is good or bad, every forward-facing Avatar series from this point is going to have to reckon with and reference the changes it made to the world. It is choosing to be the elephant mandrill in the room.

And that is going to be a bitter position to hold if it doesn’t absolutely wow the fanbase.