Last week I posted about expectations and Masters of the Air. I skirted around something similar in my previous live action Avatar: The Last Airbender post but, having now finished the first season of live action A:TLA, I’m going to say it directly.

This show suffers greatly from my expectations. If I’d never seen the animated show, I’d be more excited about this live action version. I also just rewatched some of the animated A:TLA because I feared that my memories of it might have been too fond, and…

Nope! The animated version is still great!

It’s not uniformly great. Some of the character choices still feel weird; Aang and Katara feel like a strange pairing from the get-go, and I think animated Katara might suffer from a greater lack of season one character development (besides becoming “surrogate group mom”) than live action Katara—though oddly she feels like she starts with more depth than live action Katara. Also, the animated A:TLA feels even more like a padded out kids’ show than I’d remembered.

Despite all that, or perhaps alongside that, the show remains excellent.

I did notice myself thinking about which scenes and which details I would cut from the animated version. The live action version of season one makes a lot of cuts, some of them the same ones I identified, and strips out much of the original show’s padding and filler. It condenses everything, trimming and trimming and trimming. It even makes a show that I think is, on balance, good.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the first season of the live action version has the zest and dynamism that hooked people on the first animated season. I doubt the live action version would find the same audience, without people already excited by their love for the show it reimagines.

That’s because, when I compare the live action to the animated version, I can’t help but think that the live action show cut too deeply. Perhaps worse, it rewrote (either via the script or via performances) some pieces that felt so critical to our characters’ arcs of growth and development. It hurts to see these missteps.

Yes, the live action version still has some heart and creative spark. If I were introduced to Avatar for the first time through the live action version, I might be excited to see that spark grow. But as someone who watched the animated version first, I feel that the live action version has dimmed from its original. I can’t avoid my feelings of disappointment, and of dashed expectations.

If you’ve waited this long and you’re still on the fence about watching the live action version, I suggest taking a page out of (animated) Uncle Iroh’s book. Meditate. Drink some tea. Acknowledge and feel your attachments to the original version, and reassure yourself that it’s okay to feel those attachments. Then, remind yourself that you can come back to that fondness at any time, and set the attachments aside while you watch the live action version.

Just remember: Netflix currently has distribution rights for both versions. You can fall back on the old cartoon if your distress overwhelms you. Good luck.