Korra Season 1 Thoughts (spoilers)
• I don't understand the complete lack of cliffhangers. Mike and Bryan have flat-out stated that they WILL do a book 2 of Korra for a while now, so why not leave at least some plot points open ended? It would have been way more interesting to see Korra having to deal with the fact that she's just an airbender now, and that the equalists aren't through just because Amon has been exposed.
• Speaking of equalists - THEY DID NOT ADDRESS THE VERY REAL PROBLEM OF NON-BENDERS BEING OPPRESSED. Especially since Korra and friends go in there threatening Amon's mooks with bending on a regular basis, even when they are not a truly significant threat. Mako choke-holds people against the wall and threatens to burn them. Korra freezes defenseless people alive during raids. That kind of behavior is exactly what drove non-benders into becoming equalists in the first place. They see benders as overpowered, arrogant thugs, and a lot of the time it's true. But the narrative sees bending as inherently good and losing it is the ultimate tragedy (goodness, you wouldn't want to be a NON BENDER and lose everything that's valuable in life!!!), thus equalists have it coming. Basically, the show's narrative sympathizes with bender supremacy.
• No explanation for how blood bending can screw with your chi flow semi-permanently. Not even Katara, master waterbender of legendary skill, can come up with at least a THEORY. Even if it's not curable by anyone but the Avatar, at least tell us how this is supposed to fit into the show's internal logic. Seriously, water bending is getting ridiculously overpowered by this point.
• I like that Amon was an abused, self-hating bender and the depth it gave to Tarlokk. I do not like that he was taken down with such laughable ease. They killed off possibly the best Avatar villain since Azula. So much wasted potential, it hurts.
• When Aang showed up, I said out loud "once a deus ex machina came through for me, now it is your turn!"
• I am disappointed that the dark side of energy bending was not explored. It should have been the main underpinning of the conflict as opposed to bloodbending. There was some (probably unintentional) subtext in that we saw clearly that losing one's bending can do INTENSE psychological harm. But apparently that's okay if Aang is the one doing it - despite the fact that his actions led to the creation of an even MORE dangerous villain. They completely dropped the ball here.
• Korra's character is sometimes inconsistent, but the thing that truly angered me was that she defines her self-worth entirely through her bending/status as the Avatar. Losing her bending was enough to make her give up on life and her mission. Same with other characters like Lin, who were discarded by the plot right after they lost their bending. AND THE NARRATIVE DOESN'T CHALLENGE THIS AS WRONG.
• Similar to how Aang did in the first finale, Korra unlocks airbending by getting smacked in the right chakra. Not by hard work, dedication, or spiritual discipline like everyone else has to. It must be nice being the Avatar, you have a literal fail-safe button.
• Mako's character and his relationship with Korra is six different types of screwed over. Did he ever even actually break up with Asami at any point?!
• Asami was great, I wanted to know more about her family and her father's past. Bolin was also too awesome to be reduced to comic relief. I'm very surprised Bryke didn't make them the "pair the spares" ship.
While I don't condone petty personal jabs at the creators, and I think they are both quite talented at the things they do well (ideas, character design, world-building, etc.) Mike and Bryan are not very good writers. And now that the narrative is 100% unadulterated Bryke, the Avatar fandom at large has had to face facts and agree. See, we weren't just complaining about nothing. :P