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  • 304 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Molt Down

    This week is a Spike episode? What a re-”molt”-ing development this is!

    Let's look at “Molt Down,” the episode that will surely be perfectly normal and have no long-lasting repercussions on a character's appearance.

    Read More

    2 comments · 2,376 views
  • 305 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Break Up Break Down

    I dread going into this week's episode. For today, we discuss matters of the heart. Romance, love, heartbreak, and all that rot. Which means we run right into the most loathsome of all fandom constructs, the kind of thing that destroys friendships and leaves the most brilliant of minds curled up helplessly in a corner, foaming from the mouth:

    SHIPPING.

    Read More

    6 comments · 1,676 views
  • 306 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Non-Compete Clause

    We've had a string of good episodes the last few weeks. Whether it be shapeshifting seaponies, an actual Celestia episode, or discovering Starlight's dark phase, we've had lots of fun and plenty of laughs.

    Today's episode is about Applejack and Rainbow Dash competing.

    The good times are over.

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    7 comments · 1,588 views
  • 307 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: The Parent Map

    Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone who cares about that! What better way to spend the day than watching a cartoon about horses dealing with their mommy/daddy issues? Well, tough, because that's what we're doing. This is “The Parent Map.”

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    4 comments · 1,115 views
  • 308 weeks
    Season Eight Episode Reviews: Horse Play

    So hey, it's a new episode. Surely nothing to be excited about. Just another standard episode of a cartoon pony show.

    Only it's a CELESTIA EPISODE!

    Prepare for extra spicy biased scoring as we look at Best Princess' newest episode, “Horse Play!”

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    5 comments · 1,261 views
Jul
30th
2016

Season Six Episode Review: Stranger than Fan Fiction · 5:42pm Jul 30th, 2016

The pony drought is finally over. Hasbro and DHX have return with a treasure trove of new episodes, delivered weekly by the cruel overlords of Discovery Family, save for the occasional leak because Netflix is silly. And what is our first fantastic pony adventure?

Oh, it's a sequel to that episode that made Daring Do real.

I'll be in the car.


TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 6
Episode: 13
Written By: Josh Haber and Michael Vogel
First Aired: July 30, 2016


REVIEW:

“Stranger than Fan Fiction,” as mentioned above, is more-or-less a sequel episode to “Daring Don't,” which was in turn a sequel episode to “Read It and Weep,” which was a sequel to “The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000” because it was the next episode. Daring-Do has gone from a fiction-within-a-fiction to an actual pony in Equestria, much to the enjoyment of some and distaste of others. And I myself am very much in the latter category. Coupled with Season Six's heavy fanservice, I was dreading this episode.

Much like “Daring Don't,” the focus of the episode is split between an actual adventure and meta commentary on fan behavior. “Stranger,” however, focuses much more on the meta side of the equation, and as such comes out the stronger for it. The convention is pretty much any convention, Brony or otherwise, that you have ever been to or seen, complete with cosplayers, overpriced merchandise, fun and activities for fans of all ages, and workers that lament the poor life choices that led to them serving Daring Do-themed beverages to people in cardboard costumes. Heck, they even show body pillows for sale, which are one of the few things I find absolutely too cringe-worthy for my tastes. (But still fine as long as there isn't a hole in it.”

And that brings us to Quibble Pants, voiced by Patton Oswalt. I'm just going to post this up here to give a clue how wonderfully this works.

The early synopsis for the episode had Quibble Pants hating Daring Do, which made it weird that he would attend a convention dedicated to her. Turns out he doesn't hate Daring Do...he just hates everything past the “original trilogy,” and is just at the convention to ask A.K. Yearling why she dared to dumb down her books after that point. He pretty much personifies the type of fan that cherry picks what's canon and not, to the point that Rainbow Dash even mentioning the names of the later books causes him pain. Of course, this is opposed to Rainbow Dash, who practically breathes the entire series and enjoys the later books just fine. It also doesn't help that he finds the “bad” books too unrealistic, which pushes Rainbow Dash into almost breaking the masquerade by begging A.K. Yearling to show that she's Daring Do.

The adventure part of the episode is largely similar to last time. Caballeron (who is amusingly disgusted with his arch-nemesis getting her own convention) is out to recover a treasure from an ancient temple, and needs the key Daring Do has hidden on her person. He kidnaps Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants to serve as hostages, forcing the two to find the temple first. Daring Do saves the day, the three recover the treasure, and all is well. What makes it work is Quibble Pants' cynical breakdown of everything, from claiming Caballeron's accent is obviously fake to pointing out the ridiculousness of the entire scheme, which he compares to the post-original trilogy books he despises. And Rainbow Dash is along for the ride, suffering his endless fan rants while fighting back the urge to snap his neck and dump his body where the scavengers can feast on it.

About the only annoying thing is that they keep playing up Quibble's smarts. He figures out the lock tying them together in seconds, and is able to solve the final puzzle before Daring Do can. To be fair, they establish that the series appealed to him because of Daring Do's cleverness in the early titles, which was downplayed for the more action-oriented flavor that Rainbow Dash appreciates. The moral even plays on this, with both agreeing to disagree on the series as a whole while still appreciating and understanding why the books speak to them. I just wish Quibble wasn't so insufferable when he was casually solving everything, because the episode is a lot funnier when he's being shown up or confusing the villains with his ramblings.

Also, the end credits rant? Loved it. Apparently, it was improvised by Oswalt, and pokes fun at the highest hubris of fandom: when the fans claim that they can do it better than the creator. (At least Quibble's problem wasn't because A.K. Yearling contradicted his fanfiction or something stupid like that.)

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash is kind of shut out by the special guest star and the antics going around her. For the most part, she's just there to play off of Quibble, and while she does that well, it feels a bit underwhelming. The opening scene with Twilight, however, was a lovely bit of fluff that anyone who's really wanted to go to a con but couldn't could relate to. Plus, more Friendship Summits. How many of those do they need again? And can someone please make sure Twilight gets some sleep this time around? The last time this happened, we got a Spike episode, and we don't want that, now do we?

By far my favorite thing about the episode, though, is that it laughs at fandom nonsense without coming down as judgmental or shameful. The ponies at the convention are just having a good time celebrating a work they love, and as both Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants show, the Daring Do books have touched and spoken to them in different ways. About the only bit of shaming that happens is over the bondage-themed pillow, and even that's mostly met with a chuckle and eye roll. Much like the nerd fight from “Daring Don't,” there's a general acknowledgment that this is all kind of silly, but it's all in good fun.


CONCLUSION:

This isn't one of my favorite episodes, but it turned out far better than I could have hoped. It hasn't won me over to the idea of Daring Do being real (and given my stubbornness, nothing probably ever will), but it was still a fun little adventure with some mild poking at the goofiness of fandom. And as loathe as I am to say it, I'm not totally against having another Daring Do adventure in the future, if that's how the stars align.


Next time, another episode.

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Comments ( 7 )

There does seem to be a MLP tradition of guest stars sort of stealing the episode from the regular cast, isn't there? It happened in Pinkie Pride and The Mane Attraction too!

I really loved this episode. Maybe because having another one of my favorite comedians on the show is just too much for me but Patton was perfect.

The adventure stuff was fine and yeah its a little funnier when Quibble is being shown up, but I love it's meta attitude to fandoms, I loved the aesthetics, I loved the moral, I loved Patton Oswalt

It was everything it tried to be and did it wonderfully.

because it was the next episode.

I can also totally believe that Dash was on a cider buzz when she crashed.

By far my favorite thing about the episode, though, is that it laughs at fandom nonsense without coming down as judgmental or shameful. The ponies at the convention are just having a good time celebrating a work they love, and as both Rainbow Dash and Quibble Pants show, the Daring Do books have touched and spoken to them in different ways. About the only bit of shaming that happens is over the bondage-themed pillow, and even that's mostly met with a chuckle and eye roll. Much like the nerd fight from “Daring Don't,” there's a general acknowledgment that this is all kind of silly, but it's all in good fun.

So, at lot like Galaxy Quest, then - it can make fun of the source material without being spiteful about it, and in fact it does so because it loves what it's lampooning.

Quest is more-or-less officially a Trek movie now, by the way - at the 2013 Las Vegas Trek convention it was voted the 7th best Star Trek movie of all time by the fans, which is as official as I care for.

The body pillow of tied up Daring Do made me laugh so hard hahaha!

By far my favorite thing about the episode, though, is that it laughs at fandom nonsense without coming down as judgmental or shameful.

Far better than what Oswalt pulled about the AVGN and Ghostbusters then, hm?

The thing that really bothered me about this episode is shouldn't Rainbow Dash have her own fandom? Wonderbolt, Element of Harmony, saved the realm a few dozen times, and the only living Pegasus to do a Sonic Rainboom. And no one recognises her at all huh? Just odd.

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