Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Yesterday was a big day in our house. The third DVD in the Earth season of the Avatar series was released.

Both Eli 5.9 and I are totally hooked on Avatar. It's a wonderful show, and I don't think I've ever seen an animated series do such a thoughtful job of exploring the thoughts and feelings of each of the central characters. The relationships between characters are also highly nuanced in unexpected ways.

When I went to buy the DVD, the clerk (who was a little younger than I am) asked me if I was a fan of the series. That started a twenty-minute conversation about how we both watch the show with our sons (his sons are four and six) and all the good things the show teaches. Then we started talking about the characters and speculating about what might happen in the third season.

That's what the show does--there are so many possibilities that it's interesting to talk about as well as watch. Eli asks me these infinitely complex hypotheticals all the time (and I'll start writing them down, because if you watch the show, they're pretty funny).

So here's what we did yesterday. We haven't watched the series on Nickelodeon, so when a new DVD gets released (with five more episodes), it's a huge event. I picked Eli up from karate class in the late afternoon, and instead of going out to dinner like we usually do, we went straight home. I ordered a pizza, put in the DVD, and we ate pizza and watched the entire DVD in one sitting. Then we talked about it for another half hour, at least. And we both enjoy the show so much that our mutual enthusiasm was off the charts.

It's one of the best times I've had in years. And I don't mean best times with Eli 5.9--it was one of the best times, period.

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