Episode Analysis - Season 4, Episode 6 - Power Ponies · 3:25am Dec 22nd, 2013
WARNING: The following blog post contains spoilers. If you have not yet watched this episode, you might want to do so before you read this post.
Power Ponies was an excuse for... another superhero episode, far sillier than The Mysterious Mare Do Well. Sadly, it failed at it pretty badly, and managed to make itself bland rather than memorable.
The first problem is with the premise itself - the idea of characters gaining superpowers is something with potential... except that the characters already have superpowers. Twilight is very powerful magically, Rainbow Dash already has weather control powers and extreme speed (not to mention the Sonic Rainboom), Pinkie Pie has her bizzare assortment of abilities, and Fluttershy can talk to animals and has the stare. Even Rarity has access to magic. Thus, we're not really seeing anything interesting there with several cast members (Twilight, Rainbow Dash), and while amping up Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy has potential comedy potential... meh.
So, right off the bat, we've already got a big problem - the central thematic element of the episode is already a pretty poor fit for the show.
Secondly, we have the issue of how to have this happen. They get sucked into a magical comic book. This is a pretty weak excuse for the plot of the week, and the explanation just makes no sense - it was supposed to be a joke (as real comic stores often have names like that) but it just fell flat. It was just blatantly one of the writers (or several, for that matter) wanting an excuse to write a superhero episode.
The third problem lies in length - this is a 22 minute long episode, and you really only have 21 minutes in which to tell your story. The net result is that, with six ponies with new superpowers, they had to spend a ton of time on exposition - far too much time. Gaining new superpowers is a great source of potential comedy, but by trying to cram six ponies into the episode plus Spike, it cut out how much time they could spend on any one of them, and thus cut down on the amount of time interesting or funny things could be done.
The episode starts with Spike reading his comic book and nerding out over it. The precredits scene is cute enough, and Spike and Twilight have some fine interaction, but it isn't really a golden scene - it is reasonable, but nothing really all that amusing.
We then cut to the mane six and Spike cleaning up the castle. Spike wants to help, but there isn't really anything for him to do specifically, as the others have things well-handled, so Twilight sends him off to finish reading his comic. Spike laments being like Humdrum in the comics - a sidekick who exists for comic relief. Clearly he hasn't looked at Pinkie Pie lately.
When Spike gets to the final page, it is blank save for some small writing, which, when read, sucks him into the comic book - the mane six, having just finished their work, see him getting sucked in and rush over to help pull him out. Naturally, this results in them all getting sucked in, in a direct repeat of the gag from A Dog And Pony Show, down to Pinkie Pie jumping in after them. Recycling gags like that is bad, kids!
They find themselves in the comic world and Spike goes over their names. It is at this point we already start to see the problem - there are too many ponies here! We get six names, but even after watching the sequence twice I can only remember two of them (Zap and the Matterhorn). The names don't matter, of course... which only further highlights the pointlessness of it, because they're never mentioned again, and don't matter one whit. The characters already have names, and the sequence introducing them just takes a bunch of time but is forgettable.
The Maneiac shows up - a Jokeresque villian with what amounts to Doc Oc's power set, moving around by using her mane basically as big arms, throwing things and walking around on them. Nothing original or super interesting, and nothing really unique, though the pun name is alright. Naturally the ponies spring into action... and it is very meh. The problem is that they don't seem to be able to control their powers... but Matterhorn's powers are pretty much "shoot beams from your horn" (something Twilight can already do), while Zap's weather control powers mirror Rainbow Dash's normal power set. Applejack even messes up throwing her lasso, one of the few things she CAN do normally. Why? So the Maneiac can laugh at them and escape, and also so Spike can give some exposition on what the various ponies' powers are. The problem is that this should have been a lot funnier than it actually was, and we didn't have enough time to really focus on any one pony to really have fun with their power incontinence. Twilight's power just doesn't work for no apparent reason, and Rainbow Dash loses control of a tornado, not only a gag we've seen at least three times in the show, but it is something she can do NORMALLY. Applejack tying herself up with her lasso also just doesn't make sense here.
We should have had fewer ponies here - it would have been better had it been a smaller number of ponies so we could focus more on their failures, and have their powers not work in more interesting ways. Secondly, it should have focused on ponies who ordinarily are more LACKING in the superpower department - Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity work a lot better there. Fluttershy's gag - of not being useful until something happens that sets her off - not only is worn extremely thin by this point (we've seen it in Dragonshy, Stare Master, and Keep Calm and Flutter On, not to mention somewhat related instances in Putting Your Hoof Down and Fluttershy overcoming her fear in Hurricane Fluttershy) but very lazy besides. DO SOMETHING NEW WITH HER. It would have been better if she had tried to use her powers, had them do something bad, and then refuse to do it again until things were desperate. Or do SOMETHING new at least. Or not use her at all, if they're just going to repeat the gag! Heck, they could have made her into Cyclops instead and had her stare blast things and scare her. Or anything else. Flutterhulk was just a very weak and terrible gag, and a repeat of what has come before. We all knew how this was going to go already because we'd SEEN it before, executed better, in seasons 1, 2, and 3.
So after this sequence of meh, we go on to have a second fight with Maneiac, where we see her PERFECTLY STYLED MINIONS (a nice little visual gag, which sadly was a bit underplayed) fight the group, and the group using their superpowers in mostly uninteresting ways - Rarity is the only one who does anything really good here, conjuring up very Rarity ways to fight, while Pinkie Pie's bit was alright. Fluttershy hiding was done for the upteenth time... yay?
We then have them all captured and drug inside. Naturally Spike the "useless sidekick with no superpowers" (which is kind of odd as he actually DOES have magic in the real world, but anyway) goes off to save the day - the plot was obvious a mile away, and while that isn't always a bad thing, here, there just isn't anything interesting to prop us up. Sure, Maneiac's gigantic hair dryer is an okay visual gag, but her perfectly styled minions are nowhere to be seen on the floor, with only a few of them reappearing.
Another action sequence comes as the characters use their powers against the bad guys and Maneiac predictably does something to anger Fluttershy (namely, smashing a bug), which causes her to hulk out. It... really isn't anything interesting or even funny, and we've seen this same gag waaay too many times before, and done better.
With Maneiac beaten, they all get zapped back into the real world, and Spike explains that the comic book came from Enchanted Comics, which he didn't realize were literally enchanted. Cue credits as everyone walks away from him.
The premise for the episode was not the best but, as with Daring Don't, it could have been saved with good execution. Unfortunately, it wasn't. We never get enough time to really focus on any of the characters, the characters never get to PLAY with their superpowers (which is the most enjoyable part of getting superpowers, really), only Rarity does anything all that interesting with her superpowers (summoning various fancy things like parasols, teacups, fancy bird cages, ect.), and there just isn't much in the way of humor, only visual gags and some weak, obvious jokes that mostly draw eyerolls at best. A great deal of time was spent on exposition rather than anything fun, because of the premise, and it wasn't interesting exposition either - as with Daring Don't, it was boring exposition delivered straight as an attempt to be a joke about nerds.
The episode also had a big problem with recycled gags - not only did Spike step in a bucket repeatedly, but a lot of the episode itself was a repeat of what happened before. MMDW had a superhero, the getting sucked into the comic book gag was lifted directly from A Dog and Pony Show, Fluttershy being shy and demure then getting angry and resolving a problem directly has been done a half dozen times at this point, Rainbow Dash losing control over a tornado has been done four times now, Applejack tied herself to something with her lasso for the second time (and this time far less interestingly than in The Secret of My Excess)... it just has been done before, and better, by the same show. Why are they repeating these gags again? Why did they directly lift the A Dog and Pony Show gag? Why do they think that the Fluttershy gag isn't tired? It was interesting the first time they did it, but doing it a half-dozen times makes it a lot less interesting and just tired and expected.
The lack of focus also hurt it - while Spike was fine, the rest of the characters just were kind of there, and cutting down on their numbers could have reduced the exposition and given more opportunity for them to shine and be funny. By having everyone there, it was like none of them were - really only Pinkie Pie and Rarity got anything interesting, and focusing more on them could have helped make the episode funnier. Plus having Rarity and Pinkie Pie get stuck in a comic book together with Spike is just a nice recipe for having three characters bounce off of each other. Adding in everyone else just diluted things to the point where we didn't have the time to linger over anything, and never really got to see anything all that interesting happen - the plot was very straightforward without any fun deviations or diversions, and we never got the chance to see anything other than a pretty straightforward superhero story that we've seen hundreds of times before - and done better to boot.
In the end, the episode was very weak - it didn't really make me laugh, and only got me to smile a couple times. Mostly it was bland - not awful, but just nothing interesting or exciting.
Hopefully, the next few episodes will be better; they seem a lot more character oriented.
Must… resist… temptation… to write crossovers where the Power Ponies VS the superheroes used to inspire their design!
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I actually wasn't quite sure who Matterhorn was supposed to be a parody of. Iceman?
1634516 Why must you resist? Let the fanfic flow through you...
As for the episode: such blah. very meh. (and this is about the third such episode this season...)
This episode: 0/10 would euthanize.
I think Rarity using her magic for more than simple telekinesis is a thing that should just happen more in the show. I can't even really say I enjoyed that aspect of this episode, because it was stuff that she normally [should have] had.
The story writers really need to break the m6 up into smaller pieces more often. It should be a somewhat special occasion when all six get together for something. They really need to execute things well on those special occasions.
Putting 2-3 ponies together for a story has resulted in some of the best episodes in the series, and they should stick with that plan.
Total agreement on Fluttershy, too. She's a one-trick pony, she never changes, never grows. This was probably hands-down the worst variation on Fluttershy being Fluttershy in every way. Visually it was apalling, you already pointed out how bad it was in execution, and it was possibly the worst way they could have used it for the episode's plot.
The worst of it all, is that this episode counts as canon, and all the terrible-ness of it will inveriably filter through the fanfics. I know we already have the obligatory clopfics trickling in.
Ugh.