To this day, I maintain that the best thing that can happen to a series is a definitive conclusion; otherwise, it becomes stale and drags on forever in a vain attempt to recapture what made it special.

Having said that, when I heard that the sequel to one of my favorite television series of all time, “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” was taking place 70 years in the future, I was hopeful that the series would go in a new direction-and boy, was I right.

I’ll admit when I first heard about the sequel, called “The Legend of Korra,” I was pretty excited; the fact that it took place in a steam-punk future was icing on the cake. But what I initially liked most was the fact that there would be only one recurring character.

Fans of the series will swiftly realize how much this series contrasts with the previous one. Some of the changes are good, while others are less than satisfying.

Almost everything, from setting, protagonist and antagonist to the overall plot is now its own polar opposite: Instead of traveling around from rural town to rural town, the main characters stay put in one big city; instead of trying to master all the elements, Korra masters one element; instead of an evil empire asserting its dominance over the entire world, there’s an underground resistance movement against benders. And the list goes on and on. I can’t shake the feeling that the series might’ve taken a step back in that regard.

I like how it’s different, but there are two aspects of the show that are particularly well done: the overall plot and the main antagonist.

What I liked about the plot of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was how it was simple and straightforward but still interesting: The bad guy wants to take over the world, and our hero must realize his destiny and master all the elements in order to stop him.

In “The Legend of Korra,” the antagonist is an anonymous underground leader who wants to liberate his fellow non-bending brothers and sisters from the “tyrannical” heel of the bending masses in power because according to him they are too dangerous (which is something he says without irony as he has waves of goons at his disposal with high-tech weapons and deadly combat skills and a power of his own).

Also, for now, there don’t seem to be any more surprises or major wow factors to be had in “The Legend of Korra.” Seeing new bending abilities being shown from episode to episode to spiesode as the show slowly presented us with the workings of its universe is one of the joys of watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

However, in this new series we’ve seen it all already; it’s just an everyday thing now. Audiences won’t have the same shock and awe from seeing someone using metal bending, throwing lightning or using chi blocking because now it’s more commonplace, which doesn’t seem like a step in the right direction.

Even the world-breaking ability to take away someone’s ability to bend from the finale of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” gets recycled as the main antagonist’s secret weapon. However, in this example, I’ll admit I’m very interested to see where it goes from there because it did scare the hell out of me when I first saw it.

I’ve come to expect indulgence in some pretty deep topics from “The Legend of Korra.” I mean this is the sequel to the series that literally opened up with the genocide of an entire race of people, so I’m glad to see them continue that aspect.

“The Legend of Korra” tackles issues such as rampant capitalism, segregation, racism, industrial revolution, and older traditions versus newer traditions.

And while these themes aren’t as heart-poundingly exciting as, say, genocide, I do feel it’s handled interestingly, especially when you consider that it’s all being done within a cartoon about people with supernatural abilities. I just can’t help but feel that these themes will be lost on some of the younger audiences.

Overall, the best I can say for the series at this point is, “So far, so good.” At the moment I can’t really see how it can be better than its predecessor, but I can definitely see how it could be worse. It’s still too early to see which way the series will swing from here, but for now I’m somewhat optimistic.