benlehman

The gap between second and third season was when the creators seemed to realize that their audience was mostly adults.

I was responding to this comment of yours, below.

I think the creators set the bar very high with seasons one and two and fell short of it in season three. The first two seasons established an unrealistic expectation that the show's ending failed to attain. They took the easy way out, several times.

Your link to Vincent's essay is well-taken; I'm filing that away for my current design, because it's damned useful. But I'm willing to live with the Avatar ending I've got, rather than choosing an arbitrary point in the show to stop watching. Yes, it dilutes the whole somewhat, but I'm willing to trade that for a "complete" story. I freely admit I'm a lot more forgiving than many people when it comes to animation.