Team Avatar returns in Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2, but the latest outing has a shorter episode count than Netflix’s first season. Despite having more ground to cover as the stakes get higher, the second outing is only seven episodes long. That’s one installment down from Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1, and it’s significantly fewer chapters than Book 2 of the original series, which ended with 20 episodes in total. Even with Netflix dedicating around an hour to each installment — the Nickelodeon show’s were only about 30 minutes — it’s not much time to work in all the details of Aang’s story.
Perhaps that’s why Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 makes significant changes to the original telling, even beyond the Netflix series’ necessary time jump. Given the popularity of the original show and the first season’s length, it’s somewhat surprising it’s such a short outing. And apparently, the creators initially planned for an eight episode run. An EP recently explained why it didn’t happen.
The Reason Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 Is Only 7 Episodes Long (When the Writers Wrote 8)
While Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 could easily have spanned more episodes, seven installments isn’t unheard of for streaming shows. Many of their outings range from six to 10 installments, something that’s become a point of contention for audiences missing the days of 20-episode seasons. And it seems it was Netflix’s choice to make Season 2 this length. Executive producer Christine Boylan told SFX (via GamesRadar+) that they’d originally planned for eight episodes, but they ended up having to condense things further:
“Netflix gives very little real estate when it comes to episodes. We have seven episodes this time round, and while we wrote eight, cutting that down forced us to focus in on key themes. So while we knew we couldn’t include everything, fans can certainly expect to see elements of the fan-favorite episode ‘The Tales Of Ba Sing Se’ throughout the series.”
Of course, one episode won’t make or break Season 2 — even if an extra hour would allow the writers to expand certain storylines and character arcs further. But given how long Season 2’s episodes are, it shouldn’t make too much of a difference. (In fact, with all of them running over an hour, the season’s length is still comparable to Season 1’s.)
Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 Continues a Divisive Trend for Streaming
Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 may not suffer from being one episode shorter than planned, but it continues a controversial streaming trend. Many shows go years between seasons, only to return with fewer than 10 episodes. It’s something fans have taken to complaining about online, though it doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. To be fair, a show like this one requires a hefty budget, which is likely why there aren’t more installments.
With Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 3 concluding the Netflix series, it deserves to return to Season 1’s episode count — though it’s unclear if that will happen. Final seasons are often divisive, and this one will be charged with wrapping a number of major storylines and arcs. If it hopes to compare to Book 3, a longer outing will go a long way to achieving that. Only time will tell if we get it, however. And with Season 3 already filmed, it’s not like the response to Season 2’s shorter count will impact it. Hopefully, Netflix sees the value of going all out for the ending.
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