2 ways Avatar: The Last Airbender improved on the original show (and 3 ways it was worse)

The remake is better because...the new scenes in the Fire Nation are good

The characters on Avatar: The Last Airbender are deep across the board, although they were more simply drawn in the first season of the original show, which makes sense; the writers were exploring uncharted territory.

The remake has the benefit of knowing where all the characters will end up right at the beginning, so it can start painting a more complete picture from the start. That means spending more time in the Fire Nation with characters like Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae-Kim) and his daughter Azula (Elizabeth Yu), both of whom only came into focus in later seasons of the original series. It was fun spending time with both of them and seeing what they were up to towards the start of Aang's journey.

We also got some great flashbacks that showed us how Ozai's son Zuko (Dallas Liu) first got close with his uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee). Episode 6 spends a lot of time fleshing out Zuko's past in the Fire Nation and may be the best episode of the season. The scene where Zuko comforts Iroh after Iroh's son dies in the war is moving, the revelation that Zuko went to bat for a group of doomed Fire Nation troops touching. Everything works, and it works in a way that wasn't possible on the original series.

The remake is worse because...Katara's personality is missing

So there's a good argument that the remake version of Zuko is an improvement on the original version. However, not all the characters fare this well. After watching the whole season, the one I felt was most lacking compared to her animated counterpart was Katara (Kiawentiio Tarbell), the southern waterbender who befriends Aang right at the start of the show.

Watching the original animated series back, it's almost surreal to see how...well, animated Katara is. Yes, she is the mother hen of the group, and yes, she sometimes wags a finger at the other characters for misbehaving, but she's also fiercely protective of the people she loves and willing to stand up for what she believes in, even if it means calling out those close to her.

The remake version of Katara doesn't get as angry as often as the original, or righteously indignant, or mischievously playful. More than any of the other characters, it feels like Katara's edges have been sanded down, which is a shame, since those edges were a big part of the reason she was so likable.