Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 2)

Season Two (Book 2: Earth) of Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American animated television series on Nickelodeon, first showed its 20 episodes from 17 March 2006 to 1 December 2006. The season was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and starred Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, Jack DeSena, Jessie Flower, Mako, Grey DeLisle, and Dante Basco as the main character voices.
In the season's beginning, the protagonist Aang and his friends Katara and Sokka started a search to find an Earthbending teacher, which finishes when they recruit Toph. Sokka finds important information concerning the war with the Fire Nation. Aang quickly becomes single-minded in looking for his kidnapped flying bison Appa. His search leads him to Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, where he uncovers the great internal government corruption of Ba Sing Se. At the season's end, Ba Sing Se falls to the Fire Nation and Aang escapes with his friends on a recovered Appa.
During the season's airing, the show received much critical acclaim, with praises such as, "As a flat concept, Avatar the Last Airbender is nothing special, but in execution, it is head and shoulders above other children's entertainment", and that "as a whole, the look of Avatar is consistently excellent." Season 2 has won multiple awards, including the "Best Character Animation in a Television Production" award from the 34th Annie Awards and the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" award from the 2007 Emmy Awards.
Between 23 January 2007 and 11 September 2007, Nickelodeon released five DVD sets for the season: four sets had five episodes each, and a fifth DVD collection of all twenty episodes. All DVDs were encoded in Region 1. In the UK, only the season boxset was released without being released in four volumes first. The boxset was released on July 20, 2009.
Production
The season was produced by and shown on Nickelodeon, which is owned by Viacom. The season's creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, worked with Aaron Ehasz. Most of the individual episodes were directed by Ethan Spaulding, Lauren MacMullan and Giancarlo Volpe. Episodes were written by a team of writers, in which worked Aaron Ehasz, Elizabeth Welch Ehasz, Tim Hedrick, John O'Bryan; with creators DiMartino and Konietzko.
The season's music was written by "The Track Team", which consists of Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn, who were known to the show's creators because Zuckerman was Konietzko's roommate.
Cast
From the first season
New characters
Mako's death
Mako Iwamatsu, the actor who voiced Iroh at first season, died during the production and was replaced by Greg Baldwin.
Episodes
Critic
In a review of the Volume 2 DVD Release for Book 2, Gabriel Powers from DVDActive.com described the series as one of the best children's series in recent times, making comparisons with Samurai Jack and Justice League, and complimented it for its depth and humour. Powers also comments: For the video and audio quality, Powers says "Season two generally looks better than the bulk of season one, but still has some issues" concerning image sharpness. Jamie S. Rich from DVD Talk says that "As a flat concept, Avatar the Last Airbender is nothing special, but in execution, it is head and shoulders above other children's entertainment", and that "as a whole, the look of Avatar is consistently excellent".
The show also received acclaim for its visual appeal. In the 34th Annie Awards, the show was nominated for and won the "Best Character Animation in a Television Production" award, for Jae-Myung Yu's animation in "The Blind Bandit", and the "Best Directing in an Animated Television Production" award, for the episode "The Drill". In 2007, the show was nominated for "Outstanding Animated Program" in the 2007 Emmy Awards for the "City of Walls and Secrets" episode, though it did not win. However, the show did win the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation" award for Sang-Jin Kim's animation in the "Lake Laogai" episode.
DVD releases
Between 23 January 2007 and 11 September 2007, Nickelodeon released five DVD sets for the season: four sets had five episodes each, and a fifth DVD collection of all 20 episodes. All DVDs were encoded in Region 1 (USA). In the UK, only the season box set was released without being released in four volumes first. The box set was released on 20 July 2009.
Film adaptation
A sequel to The Last Airbender, a film adaptation of Book One, is expected to be based on Book Two with all the main cast and M. Night Shyamalan to return as director, writer and producer. Production will possibly start in 2011 and the film will be released in 2012 at the earliest. It will be the second part of a planned trilogy.