First Thoughts About "Magical Mystery Cure" · 8:36am Feb 17th, 2013
By now, everyone's heard the news and the debates about Twilight Sparkle officially becoming an alicorn princess in the show. And having just watched the Season 3 finale, I'm going to weigh in on the issue.
I'm okay with the change. On the one hand, it stems from a decision by Hasbro to introduce a new line of My Little Pony toys and merchandise with Alicorn Twilight. But on the other hand, it does tie in with a lot of the character development that Twilight has undergone throughout the show. When she started, she was an eager student of magic with no friends. But because Equestria is a land where friendship itself is magic, Twilight has had to make friends and help them with their problems on a daily basis--as well as accept their help in fighting her own battles. Twilight's final lesson was to learn responsibility in magic, helping her friends help themselves in rediscovering their destinies--a valuable lesson for a newly-crowned princess.
What I hope Season 4 will address is how Twilight adapts to being a princess. I don't expect it'll be just fancy tea parties and diplomacy. Twilight has been on plenty of adventures before and she's got plenty more to go on before this series is done. She's always been a natural leader, so it'll be interesting to see her balancing her new duties with her friends (I imagine that Cadance is going to be great role model in this regard). While I was concerned that this transformation would put Twilight too far above her best friends, it might well be a chance to see her bond with her friends in new ways. Essentially, she'll still be learning how to be a princess from them as well as from Celestia.
That said, I did have some problems with the actual finale. I thought there were one too many songs (which have never been my favorite thing about the show, even if the vocal talent is good). The pacing was also a little too fast; it might have worked better as a two-part episode. Overall, it just feels like one giant buildup to introducing Alicorn Twilight. Not the worst thing ever, but not the best way to get there in my humble opinion.
Things have to change in a series that wants to stay fresh and entertaining. It can't just be the same jokes, the same character traits, and the same plots forever. This episode felt like a meta-moment for the MLP crew: a look at changing destiny, and how we couldn't have gotten there if not for our six delightful friends.
Personally I like the change, it bring out so many new ideas, even for the fic writers! But it also makes twists so what lies up ahead is even in more mystery then ever! But of course I can tell this was suppose to be a 2 parter but ended up not, sadly but it's better to have a shitty way, short, in some ways not a very good season compared to season 2 (mostly because season 2 had more eps so it had also more better eps but people don't relize this also means it has less bad eps!) but then have a fantastic season 4 right? Look at season 1 compared to season 2!
838122 I was almost shocked at how short this season was compared to Season 2, but it seems like they at least tried to get more done with what time they had. Here's to hoping for more and better things in Season 4!
842283 I agree. Season 2's bad episodes were bad for a reason but Season 3 to me only had one truly bad episode, two so-so ones, and ten great ones. I'm not really sure if I want Season 4 to go back to 26 episodes if it means the writers get less time to work them but perhaps they'll be able to make Season 4 even better than Season 3 and that's a tall order.