The School Daze review nobody wanted or asked for, part 1

I hate you too, Big Jim.

I think the season 8 premiere was fine.

I also think it was not only deeply flawed, I believe the mere concept of Applebee’s season 8 itself is beyond the pale, and completely, totally, irrevocably ignores the very foundation of the show’s original message, tramples on whatever chance it had to be a cultural icon, and completely subsumes whatever was left of Lauren Faust’s original vision beneath an avalanche of marketing, simplistic writing, and the ever-increasing volume of the insidious mantra that IT’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL’S SHOW YOU GUYS.

So now that we have that out of the way, read on for the review. Or don’t, if you actually liked the premiere. Or do anyway, if you’re stubborn.

---

Why is it whenever I talk to people it’s always under the auspice of ‘being fine?’

I’ve heard that phrase thrown around a lot lately. The movie was fine, the food was fine, the music was fine, I’m fine. I’m starting to hear it with alarming regularity. Nowadays everything is just fine. It’s not serendipitous. It’s not calamitous. It’s not inspiring or transient or desultory. It’s all just fine.

Every thorn bush that threatens to snarl our path, every mountain that rears over us, every rocky descent that might break our ankles is smoothed out by those two words. It’s fine.

I hear those words a lot in reference to pony now, too. I don’t think here, at the precipice overlooking the end of generation 4 and the deep gloaming of generation 5, is the right time to use those words. I think it’s time we looked back upon what was accomplished, what opportunities were missed, and especially the direction the show has taken nowadays.

If all pony is now is “fine,” it’s probably in the worst shape it has ever been in, because it was not made to be “fine.” My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was made to be more than the sum of its parts. Dare I say… exceptional.

Red, you say, that’s dumb. Come on. It’s a toy commercial for dumb kids, who are dumb and do not need to think about things like quality or morality or life lessons. Why would you even try to apply such things as ‘critique’ or ‘analysis’ or ‘deep character building’ to something that ultimately we watch so we don’t have to think?

Well, I submit as my counterargument the mere fact of our existence as a community. We did not build all of this from a show that was just ‘fine.’ If we were going to do that, we’d all be die-hard fans of Dora the Explorer instead.

I think this was the first season premiere I watched where I did not feel excitement or even distaste. This premiere was so bland and unappealing it struck me with a great big plank of overall boredom. It did not put forward any real lessons applicable to children, it did not utilize the magical world it’s set in, it did not even give us anything approaching a story that either made sense or jived with the seasons that came before. Yet neither did it do anything remarkably badly. Dialogue was serviceable. Animation okay. Characters mildly entertaining.

I felt nothing.  And in feeling nothing, I felt sad that I felt nothing, because before whenever I watched the show I felt something. And before you go off saying I’ve ‘fallen out of love’ with pony, as if I just randomly decided one day to devote so much of my life to some generic and stodgy cartoon far outside my age group for no good reason and then decided to stop liking it again as though some switch was flipped inside my brain, entertain this question:

If this was the first episode of pony you ever watched, and this was in fact the beginning of the entire show, would you even be half as enamored with the characters as you are now? Would this have been enough to launch an entire fandom defying gender stereotypes our culture had set in stone?

I know I wouldn’t be here if that was the case. I didn’t see characters in this episode. I saw a bunch of colorful talking blobs and one of them was obsessed with apples for some reason. There was nothing here to actually recommend to non-viewers of the show, rather like the movie. It has no spark. No magic. No sense of grand and transcendent friendship whatsoever. It just exists. Ta-daaaaa.

So why are we even getting this school? What is the reasoning behind it?

The glorious ideal of cultural imperialism, of course!

The idea is that the crystal castle map has grown due to… reasons. We hear a lot of expository remarks on the events of the MLP movie, which I covered elsewhere and would really rather they had just ignored. Supposedly the map is going to send them on quests to teach friendship outside Equestria…

But this ignores the fact that two whole seasons were already dedicated to going outside Equestria and teaching friendship—you know, the one where we got Ember and Thorax et. al., and Twilight Sparkle and her friends have already established a lot of friendships and taught creatures how to make friends.

In any case, the dilemma is: How do we spread the Equestrian way of life? I mean, they could just actually explore Equestria like one of the earlier taglines promised, bringing themselves to these other cultures and immersing themselves. They kind of already did that, but gosh darn it, Hasbro wanted their new stupid playset to be featured so come hell or high water we are going to damn well ignore our own work okay guys.

The obvious answer is to build a school, seizing young children from foreign countries, indoctrinating them into the pony method of thinking, and sending them back home to further spread the state-sanctioned creed of Equestrian cultural and philosophical superiority. Wonderful Twilight, I’m sure the power of being a Princess isn’t going to your head or anything.

Oh look, Celestia’s here, being totally irrelevant to everyone and everything as usual. How’s it going, former god-king of creation? Just spouting exposition like she always does. I mean, it makes sense that Twilight would go to Celestia for advice on how to make a school… but Celestia doesn’t give her any advice. She does throw her to the proverbial wolves from the so-called EEA, represented by semi-famous Maurice Lamarche with an Evil Goatee, who has a mantra of doing things ‘by the book’ and throws a Giant Rulebook at her.

I capitalized it because it’s not the actual rules inside that are important. Just the book. It’s The Rulebook. It’s not an actual thing ponies would use in real life, just a symbol of opposition. We never see or hear what any of the rules are, we’re just shown that it’s Big Bad Rulebook because Twilight Sparkle is perfect and awesome and amazing and anything that gets in the way of her super duper awesome wonderful school is awful and horrible, so even if they’re rules that you actually NEED because any self-respecting institution would actually give itself some structure because structure is one of the most important things for a young child to have, rules are disgusting and horrible and scary because WHO NEEDS RULES AM I RIGHT?

I mean, look at the way this scene is set up. It’s dark and gloomy and Lamarche puts on his Brainiest Brain voice, and says that this all has to be ‘FOR PONIES’ to learn ‘how to protect themselves.’ They’re acting like these ponies are Voldemort’s evil council just because they’re trying to restrict Twilight’s precious vision. So that’s the theme of this episode then? That ‘bureaucracy is actually an evil cult?’ They’re trying so hard to frame Neighsayer as some kind of all-powerful villain because… rules are scary? Scary people are scary? Powerful people are scary when they act mean?

I mean, I get it. This is Twilight going up against “the real world” where not everything is magic and rainbows and sunshine but, uh, magic and rainbows and sunshine is her real world. You can’t say that she’s being overly-idealistic when she’s actually beaten god-like beings by mere virtue of having friends. Also, how utterly apathetic and horribly irrelevant must Celestia be if the organization that runs every school in Equestria is staffed by universally ugly, horrible people?

No, don’t answer that. The writers don’t care, so neither should we.

This entire set-up is so grindingly banal and mindlessly childish I wonder if the staff know who they’re writing for anymore. It’s like they’re expecting children who are so young they start crying when their parents aren’t going ‘boo boo ga ga’ to be watching this show, instead of you know, a wide breadth of children at different maturity levels who can handle some subtlety and layers that will be appreciated by some and not all.

The next scene is Twilight encouraging her friends to become teachers at this asinine institution, which in and of itself is not a horrible idea… if we didn’t already have seven seasons of establishing their own lives, their own futures, and their own desires that have nothing to do with being teachers. A lot of people have covered this already like everyone’s favorite Big Jim up there, so I’ll just say this:

The fact that this happened, that they could not find a better way to mesh being teachers into the lives of the mane six, means that the writers essentially do not care anymore. About anything. If they do, they have an odd way of showing it.

Just throwing this out: they didn’t even give us some kind of throwaway line about how this is only a part-time gig, or how Twilight has a background staff to help her out, or something, anything at all to give us some assurance they had even the slightest inkling of internal logic. But they didn’t. They just knew Hasbro wanted a school, so gosh darn it, the mane six are going to school. Because after all, we aren’t writing an actual show, right? We’re just making a little girl’s cartoon. That means we don’t have to care! And why should you, either? In fact, why are you even watching this show? Who invited you? You’re not a little girl, you’re a slightly larger girl, or a big boy. Go away.

Friendship School. Doesn’t that just have a sinister, dystopian air to it? Like the Ministry of Love, or some other form of reeducation. The mane six seem to think so, since they’re obviously uncertain about all of this. But Twilight, who is under some kind of evil spell cast by the wicked EEA, is determined to shackle them all to THE BOOK. Because for some reason eight years of learning that doing things by the book never ever actually works. Gee Twilight, it’s almost like now that you’re a Princess you’ve become nothing but a blank slate destined to repeat rote, meaningless axioms ad nauseam, like ‘do it by the book’ or ‘you can’t learn friendship’ or ‘I used to have a character, I used to have agency, why can’t I be released from this existential agony.’

So new students show up and some of them aren’t ponies, whoa, what a surprise I’m so shocked we need to cut to commercial.

Oh great. Now I have to talk about the new students. Fortunately, there’s not much to discuss at all. Their success as characters will depend entirely on whatever random-ass headcanons you can think up for them, so they’re about as compelling as Lyra or Derpy; it’s whatever you make of it. Credit where credit’s due though: they aren’t literally smaller versions of the mane six! Just smaller versions of other characters.

Sandbar and Gallimimus are nobodies. Both defined by one trait each: lazy and compact Gilda.

Yona is a yak, so she swallowed the idiot ball back when she was a child and it still hasn’t successfully passed through her system. She bumps into things as her solution to everything.

Princess Skystar is still herself, except with a new name and appearance to avoid assassins.

Ocellus is The One Who Does Everything, which is appropriate because she’s a changeling. She is shy like Fluttershy, yet also studious, brave, intelligent, and generally a swell person. The only one of the group worth talking about, basically.

Finally, there’s Smoulder. Her accomplishments are being Scootaloo and flying at the same time.

And then there’s a song, because of course there is, and not even a good song. It’s probably the laziest way the writers could have shown this whole ‘learning friendship’ thing being a failure. On top of that the entire structure, the whole message behind this song, is ultimately kind of self-defeating. Let me explain.

First, the students sing about how they’re having fun doing stuff in what appears to be an active, hands-on kind of way. We clearly see them learning… something? Meeting animals, learning how to make dresses, learning how to… identify apples? You know, that sight gag of Applejack pointing out how apples are best would be a lot less painful if we didn’t already know they’re giving Applejack the axe specifically because they hate how she’s a hick and they can’t think of any way to use her except as “the gal who loves apples.” It basically exposes their ongoing lack of imagination, poking fun at their own character. "Oh ha ha, look at us, AJ is so bland and boring we can't write her as anything but the stupid apple person."

But then, if the students are learning things, then what aren’t they learning? If the whole point of all this is that you can’t learn friendship in a school setting… why are they in a school setting and succeeding? What is preventing the students from learning friendship? From what I can tell, they’re just doing what you’d normally do at any school, just with the added bonus of hands-on activities and books that explode. I see learning, I see friendship. I do not see a sign that the writers know what they’re doing.

Then Twilight comes along and says they’re doing it “wrong,” and that they must do it… “by the book.” But she doesn’t actually explain what they’re doing wrong, or what it means to do it by the book. She just takes away the arts and crafts and makes them sit at desks and learn from chalkboards like any regular school in the world. We see Fluttershy teaching actual biology for crying out loud! Literally the only things that I can agree with are the lines “there is not an equation on how to have fun” and “you can’t teach honesty.”

But if that’s true, what were they teaching before? Was Pinkie firing people at the walls until they had fun? Was Applejack creating social experiments? Why was it great then and suddenly boring now?

What is the theme here? What is the thing that the mane six are struggling against? Is it the rules? Is it the way students are being taught? Is it trying to tell children that if you’re bored, something is going wrong and it’s not you it’s the class? Is it the book? Is it Twilight? Is this some commentary on Common Core or how blitheringly soul-crushing modern schools are? What rules were they breaking? What rules are they now following? Can anyone tell me these things? Bueller? Bueller?

I’m sorry to harp on about this but I am genuinely confused. So the school is doomed to fail, but only if the ponies don’t make it “fun.” I have no idea what kind of “fun” they’re talking about. They’re in classes learning random junk that is never defined except as the nebulous concept of “fun,” and then suddenly they’re in class learning things that are “not fun.” Wow, top-notch writing on display here.

Twilight then literally berates her friends when they admit they aren’t actual teachers, just regular people who were stuck in front of a bunch of kids and told to make them functioning members of society. I think this scene speaks for itself in how bad it is. Twilight, you’re dumb and wrong and I hate you. Also, “every school in Equestria” follows the EEA’s guidelines? Uhh, so every school in Equestria is awful and boring and the ponies there pick fights all the time?

That’s right Cheerilee, your school is awful and we hate you.

So then the students decide to play hooky to get away from how boring school is. School is boring, you say? Wow, I never would have figured that out on my own. To the surprise of exactly nobody, they start making friends once they’re outside the stodgy, dull routines of the school. Because they’re having “fun” now, I guess. I didn’t know having fun was some state of mind you just flick on and off like a switch, entirely dependent on whether or not you are following a random set of “rules.”

A bunch of really weird and awkward coincidences start happening here. Neighsayer shows up to inspect the school, and for some reason Twilight is under horrible pressure to impress the guy who we didn’t know existed up until now. She insists he stick around for “Friends and Family Day” where conveniently all the friends and family of the students also show up so they can all be in the same area.

At the exact same time, the runaway kids are having the time of their lives, uh, racing around. Then the flying kids pick up the non-flying ones, ostensibly as an act of generosity so their friends can enjoy flight.

Then Skystar (I forgot her actual name) tells Yona the yak “Congratulations, you are the weirdest thing I’ve seen so far.” Which I guess means a flying yak? And then Smoulder challenges Ocellus to be “weirder.” Because she’s a changeling, and can presumably change into weird things. Then Ocellus changes into a weird giant bug monster.

Then they all keep flying… directly back to the school. Right at the exact time and place Friends and Family Day is happening. They just go back to the very place they wanted to escape from. Flying in a straight line directly at the other characters.

And when they show up, Neighsayer immediately assumes the school is under attack, because Ocellus is still a giant bug thing.

And then everyone panics for no actual reason.

And this causes the kids to crash because they… I dunno, fly right into a bunch of panicking pegasi? And then just kind of throw their friends at people? That’s literally what happens. Gallus just straight up fucking hurls Sandbar at their parents/guardians, Smoulder and Skystar dive-bomb a table with Yona, and Ocellus, uh. Ocellus for whatever reason doesn’t change back into a regular changeling until after she sees Thorax, and crashes herself into a building.

Was that all a bit awkward to read? Good. Because it was even more awkward to watch. I need to get across just how… off the pacing felt. Like a bunch of random things had to happen all at once to get things set up exactly the way the writers needed it to. Absolutely none of it happens organically, all the lines are stilted, and it just doesn’t make any sense as a chain of events.

If the kids are playing hooky, why did they just run straight back to school? Why did they go in a straight line back to where everyone was gathered?

Secondly, what kind of dialogue are we hearing here from wannabe-Skystar before Ocellus changes?

“Congratulations Yona, you are officially the weirdest thing I’ve seen so far.” What is that supposed to mean? Where does it come from? This is a scene where everyone is having fun and learning to work as a unit. Why wouldn’t she say something like “How’s the view” or “I’m so glad you are having fun.”

Skystar’s dialogue is not a line anyone might actually say. She just blurts it out out of nowhere, and a character being random for the sake of being random is not a good character at all.

The fact of the matter is, that’s NOT good dialogue. That’s just a set-up for Smoulder to ask

“What do you say, Ocellus? Can you be weirder than a flying yak?”

Which prompts Ocellus to change into a giant bug thing, which has to happen or Ocellus wouldn’t look scary, and Neighsayer wouldn’t assume the school is being attacked. It’s not actually something that feels natural. It’s just a series of events strung together so we can have a bridge from one scene to the next.

You know what this reminds me of? Newbie Dash. Remember the scene where Rainbow Dash gives Scootaloo a plan to put a cloud in her way to show off, and then in the very next scene she just forgets the plan and freaks out from the very cloud she ordered thrown at her, just so they can have her crash? It’s like that. Simply put, this is not a well thought-out episode, and it’s clear they weren’t trying very hard.

Okay, and now, the next gaping plothole. Neighsayer for some reason assumes a bunch of child delinquents are single-handedly responsible for “an act of aggression” ponies. Ignoring the fact that one of them is, in fact, a pony. He is shocked and amazed that Twilight has actually brought non-ponies to the school, and accuses her of endangering Equestria because the kids might take what they’ve learned and… I dunno, learn how to make friendship siege cannons or something?

And then he insults non-ponies, and says they should go back to “their kind” before closing the school.

Sigh. Really, really big sigh. Their kind? Really? We’re going with the racism angle here? REALLY?

Can I just ask… how the hell did he not know that Twilight brought non-ponies to the school? Didn’t she give them her papers? Did they not read them? Did Twilight not include this information in her proposal? If so, why not? Why is it such a surprise, Twilight? Why is it such a surprise?

Well, again. It’s because the writers were lazy. They needed an awful, contrived conflict, so they contrived for all they were worth. Apparently, Twilight was too utterly stupid to let the EEA know non-ponies were attending, and the EEA were drooling morons who couldn’t be bothered to properly inspect the schools they run. Also, all of them are pony supremacists. Like, really fucking hardcore supremacists who out and out despise lesser races.

I guess the EEA’s only actual guideline is “be as flippantly and openly racist as humanly possible.”

Which, really, only makes Princess Celestia look like even more of a stupid idiot if “every school in Equestria” is run by these guidelines in particular, is run by a guy who LITERALLY SPEAKS OUT LOUD ABOUT HOW HE HATES ANYONE AND ANYTHING THAT ISN’T A PONY, and she never once thought “Gee, I wonder why everyone in the EEA is such a huge asshole and non-ponies never attend my schools?”

Okay, so, that giant thorn tangle of a scene is out of the way. Not unpacked or broken down or anything, just out of the way.

The school is now closed.

And I need to wrap this up in a part 2.

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

Uh, hrmph hrmph, I hate to break it to you, squirrel, but I -- hrmph -- have already written the School Daze review nobody wanted or asked for -- hrmph -- already.

This is far too reasonable and balanced for people to not want. You'll have to do better next time. :V

[Dafaddah]

The things that bothered me the most about the episode were:
1) YES - Twilight co-opts the entirely main six into dropping their LIVES to become grade-schools teachers without even asking them first. It would appear she still needs a few friendship lessons!
2) Twilight TOTALLY ignores the fact that there already exists a school in Ponyville, with an experienced teacher, Cheerilee, the first pony she should consult for help. It also smells outright elitist - and insensitive to the welfare of her OWN subjects - for Twilight to leave Ponyville’s foals to learn in their tiny rural schoolhouse when she’s just built a world-class school in the same town!
3) That Twilight presented the EEA the rational of “protecting Equestria” for building the school, which is apparently the argument that won them over. WHERE DOES FEAR-MONGERING XENOPHOBIA FIT INTO THE IDEALS OF FRIENDSHIP AND HARMONY?
4) Twilight states that these non-equestrians know “nothing about the magic of friendship”. WHOA! Can we get a little more condescending towards foreigners here? What’s next, an appeal to the “Equestrian’s burden”?!!!

Overall, this episode is superficially light-hearted fare, but when you stop and think about, I can’t think of an episode with a more anti-friendship, racist, downright evil subtext. It’s a new low for the show.

[Pigeonsmall]

It really makes Celestia look pathetic that she has to answer to someone like Neighsay, and incompetent because she allows such racist pony supremacists to have such a high position in the first place. What does Celestia even do as ruler of this land? Eat cake, drink tea, and sleep? This Celestia is closer to being a brony meme than an actual character. Doesn't help that even with Luna's return this hasn't improved anything.

And like what Dafaddah said this premier reeks of unintentional racism. We're not dealing with another group of people who just happen to be poor or has no written language, or hasn't discovered indoor plumbing yet, or revels in child sacrifice. No Twilight Sparkle literally says "these heathens don't even understand the basic human concept of friendship." FRIENDSHIP. Like every other race besides pony is 100 percent sociopaths. Even some of the most murderous war mongering people in history were at least friends to each other and their own kind.

So what is Twilight saying? That griffons are borderline non sapient Neanderthals that must be civilized? That is some really bad PR. I'm accepting of the fact that the world outside of Equestria is a thick soup of gray morality but just because they are different doesn't make them bad. This is something ponies should learn more than anything.

[ponygrad]

This is a very fair review of the episode. I agree the episode was good given the bad premise.

But I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the writers that they tried to reach compromises with the demand that the school be featured and this is the best anyone could possibly do. It seems they were on a very tight leash here.

I suppose 2 seasons of good quality with bad premise is good way to ease us out of the need for g4