I'm not going to dissect the whole series or anything, but I'd like to mention a few high points for me.  Being such a hopeless romantic, I always gravitate towards the pretty female characters, so I figured Katara would naturally be my favorite, but I was incredibly surprised to find that, from pretty early on, Zuko was far and away my favorite.  By a wide margin, in fact.  I was absolutely enthralled by his character, and couldn't wait to see what he would do next.  I absolutely adore complex, troubled, sympathetic antagonists/anti-heroes.  Zuko was the kind of character where you couldn't decide from one episode to the next whether he was good or bad, whether you loved him or hated him, what he really believed, or where he actually stood.  I love characters like that.  He reminded me of...

Game of Thrones spoilers

My favorite episode, ironically, was the only one to not feature Team Avatar at all: Zuko Alone.  I loved seeing what a troubled and tortured soul he really was.  His almost-reform with Katara in Ba Sing Se, and his subsequent betrayal of her and succumbing to temptation made his true reform all the more meaningful and satisfying.  One of my favorite moments of the entire series is when he was trying to get lightning to strike him on the mountaintop to test out the redirection technique that Iroh taught him.  He stands there screaming at the sky, and we expect that the lighting will strike him, but instead, what happens?  Nothing.  He just collapses to his knees, screaming in frustration and agony, and the episode just ends.  Absolute chills.  Zuko's arc was easily one of my favorite fictional character arcs of all time.

That's not to say I didn't love the others.  I loved all of them.  I think my second favorite was Toph.  Holy crap was she great.  I mean, they were all great.  I was so happy for Sokka when he finally got together with Suki.  That was a really charming, endearing relationship.  I was also definitely rooting for Aang and Katara to get together, but I honestly didn't know if it was going to happen.  I really thought they were going to have Katara friend-zone him.  They had me going right up to that very last second, the last shot when she kissed him.  Sweet merciful Celestia did they make us wait, but it was worth it.  That kiss was one of the best, sweetest, and most beautiful ever put to screen.

As has been said many times, the series did such an amazing job of covering really dark topics while still keeping it kid-friendly.  One thing that I found very noteworthy and pretty awesome was the inclusion of the childbirth scene on Serpent's Pass.  That was pretty legit.  Didn't expect them to be able to get away with that on a show that's... uh, I think it's rated TV-Y7?  It made me want to come back and take one more swing at FIM for being so weak when it came to Cadance and Flurry Heart.  They weren't allowed to show a pregnant Cadance, they certainly weren't allowed to have a foaling scene, they weren't even allowed to say the word "pregnant".  They just said, "we're have a baby", then didn't show Cadance again until after Flurry was born.  Lame.  Compare that to Airbender, which had Katara help deliver a baby in a fairly explicit scene.  I mean, of course it wasn't graphic and traumatizing.  It was mild, but it was the real deal.  Why couldn't Pony get away with that?  Now, why is it important?  Why do I care?  Because that Serpent's Pass scene was powerful and meaningful and showed deep humanity, and perhaps if they'd done that with Flurry Heart, then I wouldn't have hated that little sh*tling so much. 

Well, I guess that's about it.  I could talk forever, but that's enough.  I now started Legend of Korra.  I'm only a few episodes in.  I'm enjoying it.  I have mixed feelings about the metropolis, 1920's era tech setting, but it's alright.  I don't think it's going to equal Last Airbender.  Nothing ever can.