DreamWings Review-Sing of 'The Crystalling'

Hello, and welcome to my review of ‘The Crystalling’, the premiere of Season Six of MLP: FIM. Now, there are a few things I assume about the people reading this blog post: 1. You’ve an interest in the show, just as I do, and are diehard fans perhaps, which I am not; 2. You may have read some of my early fanfiction, in which case I apologise, I have tried to improve my writing since then; 3. You have seen my Review-Sing of the episode, in which case, frankly, I should apologise to your ears and congratulate you on your persistence in caring what I have to say after that catastrophe. But overall, what I assume about you, is that you care and cartoons, good stories and great characters as much as I do. If that is the case, then continue reading, and hopefully I’ll have something to say on the matter.
Now, I have seen the episode ‘The Crystalling’ a few times now, and as you may have gathered from my video on the subject, I am struggling to decide whether or not I found it enjoyable or not. The truth is, if this premiere were to come after the first, or perhaps even third premiere of the show, I would probably be far more ecstatic about all of its different dimensions and complexities. But that wasn’t the case. This premiere came after the fourth finale, the fifth premiere, and the fifth finale—all very strong, action-packed episodes that make you leave satisfied, and excited, about what may happen next. After these, this episode leaves you with a feeling of unexplored avenues and directions it could have gone; things we could have seen.
If I were to say that this premiere reminds me of anything, it would be the Season 3 Premiere: ‘The Return of the Crystal Empire’. It’s an episode that, although it has excitement, doesn’t stand out as a ‘best’ episode of the show—and, don’t worry, this is entirely my perspective on the subject. The themes of the two episodes are also similar, with a threat to the Crystal Empire, a newly-returned tradition (Crystal Fair, Crystalling), and the dark clouds yet again being beaten by powering the Crystal Heart with the power of love (or something like that, I never really did understand the whole thing).
Both the Season 3 and 6 premiere are strong in their own right, but they follow such surprising, strong episodes (‘A Canterlot Wedding’ and ‘Where’s Doctor Whooves When You Need Him?), that they fail on many levels to bring viewers back to watch them again. Add to that, that we are now in the Sixth Season, a miraculous run-time to keep the interest going for a show of this style, then it’s already fighting a battle it didn’t expect.
Now, let’s move onto my favourite part of any book, show or film: the characters. I fell in love with Starlight almost instantaneously after we saw her in ‘The Cutie Map’. I loved her design, her character, her depth (it may have also been helped by my love of Kelly Sheridan, who was my John-De-Lancie type reaction when I realised who it was). Starlight had so much potential, and from the moment I saw her and listened to her speak I realised just how much potential she had as a character. She wasn’t evil, that was plain to see. Clearly something had happened in her past that made her feel this was the only way forward.
That being said, I was disappointed when we discovered that it was all to do with one colt leaving her. I couldn’t help it—I’d built a headcanon by that point, and this idea felt so meagre that it was hard to believe that this is what had started this entire mess for her. But the truth is, now I’ve reflected on it, I can believe it. Everyone is affected by things in certain ways, and from the sound of it Sunburst was only the start of her feelings. She tore herself away from friendship, little by little, until she came upon an idea that she thought may work (and one day, we’ll hopefully discover where she got the idea from and how she learned to steal Cutie Marks).
So, when the time rolled around for us to meet Sunburst in the premiere I was both apprehensive and excited. She walked up to his house, which I thought had an amazing design, and I listened to her and Spike going through Twilight’s list (everything with Spike and Starlight in this episode was just the best for me), and then she knocked. She knocked on the door—flashbacks of Twilight meeting her old friends came back, only this time Starlight had been the abandoned, not the abandoner—and he walked onto the screen. Sunburst, the pony who was so clearly being shipped with Starlight it was almost ridiculous. And, what did I think?
His design? Great. I especially loved his little beard-thing. His VA? Sweet. He had both the voice of a man, but also the high-pitched adorableness of an innocent child. His story? Confusing. Very confusing. Trying to figure out Sunburst’s story is a very hard task. He’s a Wizard, but he’s clearly not. He persisted at Celestia’s school (at least that’s what I assume, considering how well Celestia seemed to remember him), but he also failed at magic. He’s not a bad guy, but he did abandon his friend who clearly had a temperament that demanded attention. It was just—confusing. The nearest I could tell is he may work at the Crystal Empire library? But that was only an assumption based on the many books he owned.
There are so many questions I had about Sunburst by the end, and so many contradictions. They were border-line three-dimensional, but were teetering on the edge of Starlight’s weak backstory territory. I’m not slamming the guy or anything, in fact I think he did pretty well for his first real episode, but I really need more character depth from him and some in-depth look into who he is as a character and what has got him where he is. He’s clearly not like Moondancer, he’s far too well socialised for that, but he also doesn’t seem to have any friends (although, given his propensity for ‘leaving them at the altar’, so to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t just ditch them).
Now… I’ll talk about one more thing before I go (unfortunately I can’t talk about everything—mostly because I can’t remember everything): Flurry Heart.
What is a Flurry? Can someone please tell me… Okay, yes, I know what it means as a word, but as a name I really don’t like it. Heart, I can accept, but not Flurry. Flurry just, kind of, sounds vulgar on the tongue for me for some reason. Her design, surprisingly, I can accept (though why her eyes are different to Pound and Pumpkin Cake’s, I’ll never know). I even accept the fact that she was born an alicorn, as I find their conversation on the subject of natural born alicorns an interesting one (I can already sense a lot of daggers being thrown my way for my alicorn OC, DreamWings, but there was reasoning behind it when I created her).
Flurry is going to be fun to watch, I can already tell. But, please, can the fandom give her a nickname or something, I don’t think I can handle the name as it is.
Oh, I almost forgot. Two interesting things that I noticed during the episode:

1. I know everyone’s talking about the changeling towards the end of the episode, flying towards the castle, but there was something else that I noticed changeling-wise. When Flurry shoots a beam up and puts a large hole in the roof, there’s a pony that looks down. Only, look at the pony’s eyes. To my friend and I, who I watched the episode with, they were very changeling-esque.
2. Before the episode started, as my friend and I were discussing what we wanted to see, I said that one day I really wanted Twilight’s parents to speak. Then low-and-behold, they do at the very end of the episode (albeit sounding like Twilight and Shining Armour with colds). It made my day, but unfortunately did not make my video.

Overall, if I had to score this episode I’d give it seven out of ten. It was a strong episode, but not strong enough to beat the ones before it. I hope you enjoyed this review, though I know it was very character based (that’s just how I roll), and I hope you have a great time doing whatever I distracted you from doing.

Your friendly, neighbourhood,

DreamWings

[Video to Follow]

Comments

[DreamWings]

3940150 Yep, that sounds about a decent summary of the episode... Perhaps better than my ramblings anyhow.

Oh, and hi, Sam .