Pony Out Of Place [episode spoilers!] · 5:58pm Oct 2nd, 2016
The greatest sin of Every Little Thing She Does is that it's forgettable. I'm talking Inspiration Manifestation forgettable, and really, it shouldn't be. An episode about Starlight Glimmer using mind control magic on her friends should not rate an "eh", but I just can't bring myself to care about what happens. It's no What About Discord, but at the same time shows me that, if I hadn't identified so much with Twilight back in season two, I might not have given a damn about Lesson Zero. I might have even liked it!
Also Starlight says "handful". Like, you're a good enough writer to come up with tons of bullshit Latin for Harry Potter spells, but could you at least try to write in-universe please and thank you fuck. :| I didn't even bother finishing it, I got things to do!
Meanwhile, I'd like to take a minute to be introspective. When's the last time you listened to the theme song? Do you catch it religiously each week? Or are you like me, hitting Mute as soon as the first scene fades to black so you don't have to listen to the commercials? I haven't heard it in its entirety in probably three, maybe even four years. And that's a shame. Because I was thinking the other day about the first time I heard it, that sense of, "Oh, they've done a nice rendition of the original th--HOLY SHIT CLOUDS FLYING ROCK MUSIC WHAT". It was really clever and totally set the tone for the show, even up to today. It's sad to think I don't really appreciate it anymore.
Anyway, this week, I kept my expectations low because the name "Fox Brothers" was spoken on EQD. And then they had to go and prove me wrong.
Okay, so this wasn't the most amazing episode, but it was solidly above average. Better than that, it's everything I wanted out of Saddle Row Review; I really hope my reaction to this one will explain my reaction to that one.
I can't get over Piratejack, and Rarity's outfits were amazing. The stories were the best part, just nonstop wackiness and what-the-fuckery. (I love happy whale guy!) To contrast, the bits in between were decidedly less than interesting, and the ending was very standard episode, bunyip aside.
Also, bunyip. What the fuck. As my friend put it, "I've seen some ass-pull endings in my day, but that was elbow-deep!"
Still, for a low-stakes, slice of life episode, I came away with good feelings. I don't think the Fox Brothers were entirely responsible for this one, so maybe that helped.
A Hearth's Warming Tail
Viva Las Pegasus
Gauntlet of Fire
Dungeons and Discords
No Second Prances
Spice Up Your Life
Stranger Than Fan Fiction
28 Pranks Later
The Fault in Our Cutie Marks
P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)
Buckball Season
The Times They Are a Changeling
Flutter Brutter
The Crystalling
Every Little Thing She Does
The Cart Before the Ponies
Applejack's "Day" Off
The Saddle Row Review
On Your Marks
The Gift of the Maud Pie
Newbie Dash
Luna's Future
Say Goodbye to the Holiday
Seeds of the Past
Hearth's Warming Eve Is Here Once Again
It's Gonna Work
Pinkie's Present
Derby Racers
A Changeling Can Change
Can I Do It on My Own
Find the Purpose in Your Life
Out on My Own
Although I liked the ending, I can see how other people didn't. But why does everyone think that the best alternative is twilight just smashing together different thirds of a story? At least this was interesting.
This felt like a season 1 episode, back when the girls were still feeling each other out. The varied perspectives were a treat - my favorite was Applejack's view of Pinkie, with skewed eyes and reckless insanity.
But come on, guys, you've known each other for years, and we get an episode where everyone seems shocked at each others' long-time quirks. I don't mind the bunyip, because last-minute, often-unheralded solutions are par for the MLP course. At least the stakes were low enough that a Deus Ex Machina won't raise too many eyebrows.
I guess... if this episode came in S1, it would have been held aloft as a fine case of character building and the bunyip would have gained 500 fics and a cult following. But its season 6, and we're a bit more cynical. Low-stakes slice-of-life is the heart of MLP's charm - this episode showcased it, and nothing else. With no particularly great wit, insights, or interactions, Pony Point of View went down like Townhouse Crackers: pleasant and bland.
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There seems to be an odd slide back into "would fit perfectly in S1" plots. And I mean, they don't show the characters living the lessons they've learned over the years, but at the same time, I don't mind them that much.
So, you're basically saying you dislike Saddle Row Review because it subverted your expectations, and told a single story with multiple interesting points and conflicts instead of looping a five-minute story through different perspectives with the infinitely predictable premise of 'all of them are wrong, but there are elements of truth in all of their stories'.
I mean, yeah I enjoyed this episode, but literally the only thing that was even remotely unexpected was Captain Ahabjack.
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SSR wasted a multiple-viewpoints framing story technique on a boring story, and by not actually giving us numerous viewpoints. The whole point of PPOV is telling the same story multiple ways. Seeing what the characters think of each other is something I never get tired of.
4237482 Because an interview framing device is definitely the same as a multiple-viewpoints framing device purely because there are multiple people.
I assume you've watched documentaries.
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No, they're boring. :V
4237504 ...
And that's the story of how KingMoriarty gave up.
Yeah, there's actually a lot of "on the other hand" and other things like that in the show. Always have been, but I never noticed them until I started writing.
Honestly, I just appreciated the dip into aboriginal Australian mythology. In the same season as the cipactli in "Stranger than Fan Fiction," no less! Though it is still foul play in terms of giving the audience a chance to solve the mystery before the characters can.
And with regards to the theme song, I watch and/or listen to it every time. Usually more the latter on the first watch; gives me time to consolidate any notes I made on the opening scene.
I didn't register that. Mind you, there's Evil!Cadance having "a way of sneaking up on people" right back in the S2 finale, so I guess my brain just skips over it as par for the course. I liked the episode, which helped.
If I'm watching on a stream, I leave the sound on, because watching US TV commercials in a group is hilarious. If I'm watching a recording, I often skip it, but not always.
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Actually, if the episode committed any major sin, it's that, though I'll say I at least figured it was some kind of sea monster capsizing the boat because sandwiches. But unless you make the logical leap, yeah, there's no way to see that coming.
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The largest sin of the episode was "Handful."
One of the things that hooked me in the first place was the actual immersion. When they talked it was "everypony" and "let me lend you a hoof." Little things, nuances in the speech that accounted for them being horses...
Unless...
Starlight is originally from EQG world.
No, no. No. No no no. No. Uh-uh. No. No.
4238111 Because I have nothing better to do with my time, I tried a few searches on episode transcripts, and something surprising (at least to me) turned up: the season with the most "humanised" stuff like that seems actually to be S1. For example, in "The Show Stoppers", Apple Bloom complains about having "four left feet", while "Stare Master" has Rarity telling Fluttershy that the CMC are "quite a handful". They seem to have become a little more careful after S2, then slipped back a bit very recently. Odd.
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Hrmmm. That makes me want to look up how many times they use the horse-accurate terms. Maybe perception has been skewed by less use of the "correct" terms? Or maybe I'm batty and off my rocker?
One of the issues I had here was that it was set up as a mystery, but then broke the rules of mysteries by bringing in something nobody in the audience could possibly have known as the answer. I guess they did at least set it up so that nobody's actions on their own were sufficient to cause the wreck, but removing any would have prevented it, but when the actions are separated from the consequences by this black box of plot convenience, it felt like it really was nobody's fault rather than everybody's, which would have been a more satisfying ending. They accept their parts in it, recognize that the others weren't trying to cause problems, and hug it out, rather than just shrugging over what was basically a freak accident.
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Putting this in the perspective of the other mystery episodes really shows this off, too.
MMMystery on the Friendship Express, no one could have figured things out, but there are tells like the false eyelash on the painting if you know what you're looking for.
Rarity Investigates, again, the audience kind of can't put the pieces together themselves, but it's obvious that there are pieces and Rarity is putting them together (and Rainbow Dash is completely oblivious to this).
Whereas in PPOV, it's not even obvious till the end that there's any mystery element, and once we get there, there's literally no way the audience could have the background knowledge Twilight does to solve it. And I think the only way around it would have been to telegraph the fuck out of it by having her read a book about bunyips at the start of the episode (and then we would have gotten less of her being adorably excited in the intro).
The theme song always makes me sad, because, except for inevitably boring, super-long anime theme J-pop, it's the worst theme song of any show I can think of [1]. Look, here are the shows I can think of, going way back:
Jeeves & Wooster--awesome jazz music
Rick & Morty--pretty cool theme music
Steven Universe--awesome theme music, though the 2nd & 3rd season remixes are lame
Gravity Falls--awesome theme music
Breaking Bad--cool theme music
Dr. Who--awesome theme music
Samurai Jack--pretty good theme music
Phineas & Ferb--okay theme music
Buffy the Vampire slayer--awesome theme music
Cheers--awesome theme music
MASH--awesome theme music
The X-files--pretty cool theme music
Star Trek--several different themes, all good
Lost in Space--TWO awesome themes
The Andy Griffith Show--awesome theme music
The Addams Family--mind-worm theme music
The Munsters--awesome theme music
[1] It is better than the theme music to "Sofia the First", but I can't think of "Sofia the First".