‘Avatar: Seven Havens’ Review: Paramount+’s Promising Addition to a Beloved Fantasy Franchise

Told that she is the Avatar, Pavi (Saheli Khan) reacts not with excitement or curiosity but unhappy disbelief. “I can’t be an avatar. I’m no warrior,” she protests. Pavi is a gentle soul who hates the idea of hitting even dummies in target practice; she can’t possibly be the chosen one destined to fight for her world.

It’s not until she’s reassured that she can be her own kind of Avatar — that she can carry on the tradition while making it her own — that Pavi begins to warm to the idea.

Avatar: Seven Havens

The Bottom Line Feels good to be back.

Airdate: Friday, Oct. 9 (Paramount+)
Cast: Saheli Khan, Aishu Devan, Akshay Khanna, Major Curda, Dee Bradley Baker, Sakina Jaffrey, Darren Barnet, Dianne Doan
Creators: Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko

Her show, Paramount+’s Avatar: Seven Havens, faces a similar predicament. The third animated series to come out of the universe that launched in 2005 with Nickelodeon’s exceptional Avatar: The Last Airbender, it’s got big shoes to fill. But like its heroine, it rises to the challenge with winning if imperfect grace, welcoming diehards and newcomers alike with wide-open arms and a big, sweet grin.

Like The Last Airbender and its follow-up The Legend of Korra (2012-2014), the new series is the creation of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and continues the same timeline established in those shows. But anyone who’s yet to see the earlier series need not fret; while Seven Havens makes reference especially to Korra, any crucial details are reestablished within a narrative that’s set nearly two centuries later and stands largely on its own.

Those include the basic premise of the Avatar universe — an Asian-inflected fantasy realm in which some people are born with the ability to control one of the four elements (water, earth, fire, air) and the Avatar, a mystical figure reincarnated again and again over millennia, has the power to “bend” all four.

Ostensibly, the gift allows the Avatar to bring harmony to the universe. But Seven Havens finds the world still scarred by a mysterious cataclysm blamed on Korra, the last Avatar. As what remained of civilization has organized themselves into seven “havens” (walled city-states, apparently), the Avatar has become vilified as the manifestation of monstrous evil.

Within one of those havens, Ellora, lives Pavi, a 10-year-old street kid with no memory of anything beyond the past three years. Her only home is a cave, her only meals scraps from the trash (or meals “discarded” by kindly restaurant owners), her only living companion a giant cat-monkey named Geet (Dee Bradley Baker). But when her Avatar powers are discovered, Pavi is set on a course that could save Ellora’s future and unlock her own murky past — with her long-lost twin sister, Nisha (Aishu Devan), by her side.

Critics were sent six 22-minute episodes of Seven Havens — out of a 13-episode season that DiMartino and Konietzko clearly hope will be the first of several — and there’s great promise within those early chapters, if not yet the satisfying payoff we might hope to get eventually.

Its characters make immediate and likable impressions. Pavi lets us know exactly who she is from her very first moments, when she carefully scoops up a lost beetle with the intention of reuniting it with its family later — and while ferocious Nisha is primarily a foil to peaceful Pavi at this point, the sisters share an endearing bond that makes them a pleasure to root for.

As brigade commander Karthik, who becomes a sort of father/mentor figure to the girls, and chancellor Kayoko, who struggles to keep Ellora calm in the wake of rumors about the Avatar, Akshay Khanna and Jennifer Sun Bell add some welcome gravitas and just a touch of romance. Of the young adults that comprise Ellora’s defense force, earnest airbender Jae (Major Curda) and himbo waterbender Daemin (Darren Barnet) make for a particularly amusing pairing.

The world around this charming ensemble is gorgeously rendered, with skies awash in pink and purple, desert landscapes that stretch into infinity, intricately designed cities. The action is kinetic and creative — it’s fun to watch benders throw around fireballs or impossibly heavy rocks, and more fun still when those energetic action sequences are occasionally accompanied by unexpected touches like a rolling stampede of terrified camel-dillos. The score, by Jeremy Zuckerman, is intriguingly otherworldly, albeit slightly too reminiscent here and there of Stranger Things, that other show about a mysterious lost girl with world-changing telekinetic powers.

The storytelling is a bit slow to start (it takes longer than you might expect for Pavi and Nisha to even begin to question whether it’s odd that they can’t remember their childhoods) and a few reveals hinge on clues so obvious you’re reminded that Avatar, for all its wisdom and ambition, is ultimately a children’s franchise. But the seeds are planted quickly for weightier themes to be explored later. While Ellora may look peaceful on the surface, fear — of the unforgiving climate, of greedy bandits, of the prophesied Avatar, of their own allies — simmers just beneath it, threatening to boil over into chaos at any moment.

If Seven Havens has yet to grow into its full power, well, so have Pavi and Nisha. Indeed, the gap between what the girls understand of the times they’re living in and the trouble we can see approaching from the horizon is the show’s driving tension. It’s not a question of if these kids will discover that grownups don’t always have the answers, that help isn’t always coming, that at some point they’ll have to trust their own guts and take matters into their own hands, but when.

What’s made this franchise so beloved has been its willingness to go on that journey with its young characters, maturing and deepening and changing without losing that initial childlike sense of hope and joy. Where it’ll take Pavi now remains to be seen. But should Seven Havens borrow a page from its predecessors, I think it’s safe to say she’ll do her Avatar ancestors proud.