Shadow's Seasons: Saddle Row & Rec · 4:29pm May 21st, 2016
Hello, everyone! My name is Shadowmane PX-41, and welcome to the eight installment of my Season Six review series.
This time, we're looking at Saddle Row & Rec by Nick Confalone.
I for one would like to get off my chest that today's episode is a more interesting one than usual. Instead of it taking place in the present, like most other episodes, this one is utilizing a past-tense approach, with how the events of the past are the episode, while the scenes at the start and end of the episode are set in the present time. I had mixed feelings going into this, so let's see how it all turned out...
In this particular episode, Rarity opened a third boutique in Manehatten (Jesus H Christ the third, another one?), and needed her friends to make sure that everything went swimmingly. All the while, each of the Main Six speak to a pony who looks very similar to J Jonah Jameson from Spider-Man, who happens to write down everything that happens.
Now, interestingly enough, with this episode, there wasn't a grimdark scene in it, as I had stated earlier. Instead, there was an entirely different approach. As the story progressed, there was brief five-to-ten second interludes where the charaters were sitting in a diner, speaking to the review pony, much like popular shows in UK like Big Brother, or I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
These little snippets aren't distracting from the plot at all, and merely serve as a little stop for the watchers to catch their breath and see the perspective of one of the characters dealing with each little moment. However, I can see how they would use these to kind of flesh out the episode more, as the whole story as a whole seems to be much shorter than any other episode of MLP if you decided to cut them out.
However, I can see how they would need these to keep each episode at a stable ground of 22 minutes of airtime, cutting out commercials and excluding opening themes and outtro credits. It's because they don't want the show to become too unbalanced with the rest of the channel's timetable.
But do they work in this particular episode? Yes. Yes they do. While One Where Pinkie Knows cut out any sense of interesting and enjoyable story for humour that got repetitive, unfunny, and predictable, the short interview pauses in this episode were done in the complete opposite manner. They were funny, unique, showed each character's emotions perfectly, and were all quite memorable.
Anyway, the story is just what you'd expect from this kind of event. Opening a store in a big-name place is no easy challenge, and I can understand that problems will arise. Lack of staff, a pushy landlord with a daughter he would die for, a raccoon problem, and many, many more. I can't imagine that others have gone through all of these things before when opening their stores in their countries or whatnot, so it's a generic by-the-numbers opening-day-of-a-store situation.
Anyways, Applejack is given the landlord's daughter, Fluttershy handles the raccoons, Pinkie Pie deals with the apparent nightclub just upstairs, Twilight is left with organizing the clothes, and Rainbow Dash has to hire some more staff to help with the business.
At first, they all kept thinking about what Rarity would want in the situation, and it doesn't end well for them in the long run. Things start to fall out of control very quickly, and the realization suddenly dawns on them that what Rarity would actually want was for the girls to handle the situation in their own ways, instead of trying to cater to their friend's visions.
In the end, the store manages to be a success, with such things like an in-store fashion show, tidy raccoons who provide free drinks, spoon clothing of all things, a perfectly organized store, and multiple different ponies as assistants. All in all, I'm a sucker for when things all work out in the end, and this episode did that very well. It showed the conflict, it made it rise, and it ultimately fixed it in the best way possible.
While you could argue that there are different ways that they could have gone about fixing the mess they'd made, there is a right way and a wrong way. And the most prominent example for this is It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, A.K.A. my favourite show in the whole show, and the best for developing Fluttershy's character.
Back then, when Twilight used the spell to turn her friends into Breezies, it was because she was trying to solve the problem naturally, instead of play god and just magically zap them back home without any thought, or planning for where they'd end up. It was the right thing to do, and for a pony who uses magic to fix everything, it was also the most ethically positive way she could have done it.
Just like that episode, everyone fixes things naturally Fluttershy managed to keep the animals in the store, but get them cleaned up and have them contribute, as she would have done normally; Rainbow Dash couldn't decide on who to hire, so she just gave them all the job; Applejack gave spoon clothes a chance, and they turned out to be very beneficial; Twilight organized everything perfectly so that Rarity wouldn't misplace anything; and Pinkie Pie managed to combine the nightclub with the store so that there would always be a fashion-show esque theme to it.
Saddle Row & Rec is a simple story that does all of the steps of a grand-opening-disaster-drama really well, showing all of the different problems that could arise when trying to expand your business to a new part of the world.
While it isn't as good as the other episode in this season, it's not bad by any means. It's just very generic really. But that's not to say that it's bad by any means. After all, as an old saying says, "There is often beauty in simplicity."
The humour, as previously stated, is very well done, considering that it mostly comes from the short interlude scenes that take place in the diner with each different pony having their own take on the situation at hand. It's a good idea for this particular episode, and the way they made each moment different from the last, with their own unique jokes, is another nice touch.
Overall, this episode does have its' ups and downs, but when you get to the heart of it, you can understand that it's a simple episode that doesn't try to be too serious, doesn't have to resort to unfunny and displaced dark humour to invoke a reaction, or a problem that could easily be solved in seconds. It's a formula for a standard episode of Friendship is Magic, and it's a very good one at that.
Still, if you're looking for something exciting and fresh, then this episode might not be for you. It's the most simple of simple episodes. Good pacing, standard problem, and nothing too special. It's a low-key episode that's not trying it's hardest, but also not trying to be bad. It's decent, and that's all I have to say about it.
Everyone has their own preferences for ice cream, be it sweet strawberry, tangy chocolate, or fruity melon. But for this episode...
It's as plain as vanilla.
Thank you very much for reading, and join me next time, when I'll be covering Applejack's Day Off.
Until then, farewell...
It was a nice, simple episode.