Season Six Premiere (Review) (SPOILERS) · 12:33am Mar 27th, 2016
Well this...honestly isn't going to make it into my Top 3 season premieres. It wasn't completely awful, but it also didn't impress me. It was an interesting concept for an episode, but they did quite a few things wrong. Overall I give it a modest 4/10. Probably wouldn't watch again, but that doesn't mean it was completely bottom tier.
Let's begin on a high note. What did I LIKE about this episode? Well, Shining Armor having his various breakdowns was hilarious. I guess stuff like this runs in the family. And Princess Flurry Heart is adorable, even though throughout the episode she was mainly a baby doing baby things. Her interactions with Pinkie Pie were cute (apparently the Cake twins haven't put Pinkie off of babysitting or babies). It was nice to see the Crystal Empire again, as well as some memorable new background ponies soon to be named by the fandom.
Now onto the bad stuff. First problem, right out of the gate: How Flurry Heart being an alicorn was completely brushed aside with a very bad excuse. That annoyed me, but I'm not going to hold it entirely against this episode. Maybe they'll properly explain it later, as they've done with quite a few other things in the show. However, it's less easy to ignore the stupidity of the Crystal Empire citizens. During King Sombra's attack, the citizens needed to be distracted from what was going on. In this episode, they somehow don't notice a thing. Sunburst has an excuse, but everypony else is just blind. Speaking of Sunburst...... First of all, does everypony of particular importance (Twilight, Sunset, etc.), have to be a former student of Celestia? Also, it was so blatantly obvious that Sunburst wasn't the powerful wizard Starlight thought he was. And I mean BLATANT. They couldn't have made it more obvious if they'd shouted it in my ear. That, along with Sunburst saving the Crystal Empire with his magical knowledge, felt really clumsy. The whole episode was far too predictable. This especially irks me because it's the same thing that made "Rarity Investigates!" less enjoyable for me: Introducing a new character and it being pretty damn obvious that that character is going to be really important later on. Also, the fact that Sunburst never became a powerful wizard makes Starlight's back story even worse. And now it's canon that she never tried to find him after he left and he didn't shun her afterward (a little personal head canon I had). And (tiny complaint), why does Starlight have a new manestyle? Was her old one too "evil"? That was one of the most confusing parts of the premiere. Sunset didn't change her hairstyle after she was reformed. So why Starlight? Did she decide that her old manestyle made her look too much like a dictator or something? I...don't get it at all.
So, not a bottom tier premiere. 4/10 (needed more Sombra).
To be honest, it kinda felt like they had two possible ideas for two episodes, then decided to mesh them together to make a season premiere. Baby Flurry Heart, and Starlight meeting up with Sunburst. Both episodes mesh well together, and feel legit, but it doesn't feel, at least to me, premiere worthy material. I liked the premiere as two episodes, not as a premiere, if you get what I'm saying. And to be honest, I literally thought of a way to make the episode cooler which included King Sombra (oh, speaking of the devil), and now I feel like I'm being egotistical so I'm going to shut up now!