), I do love fussing over stats where anything of interest is concerned, Fimfic included. Happily, I’m not alone (because duh 
): Recommendsday blogger, fic writer and all-around awesome chap TCC56 does too, and in his latestUnused Season 5 MLP Episodes – Part 4 (Original Episode Premises) · 9:45pm Feb 9th, 2022
Rarity: "…Let me guess, one of today's episodes prominently features you?"
Rainbow Dash: "Heh, actually, they both do! But don't worry, you get in on the action in one of them too."
Rarity: "Oh! Another episode pairing us up? That can only lead to unexpected things. Do tell, Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow Dash: "Well… it's actually more me and Applejack… and you're kind of in a supporting role and spend a large chunk of it offscreen."
Rarity: "Hm, yes. Well, I see the 'writers' and marketers continue to favour brash brawn over elegance when it comes to drawing in the masses with our adventures."
Part 3 can be read here, discussing unused episodes that form spiritual precursors to episodes we did get.
Now we've shifted through episode premises that resurfaced later under different forms, or otherwise were loose inspirations for episodes we did get, time for the most interesting kind of unused episodes. Those that didn't resurface later, and which are thus largely new and fresh stories to us. Only two episodes today, as a third original episode progressed to the outline stage, meaning there's too much detail to discuss in a shared post. Shall we?
Trend or Foe: Written by Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco
Applejack: "Dagnabbit, I thought y'all learnt your lesson about gettin' me involved in this fashion frou-frou shindig! I told ya, I don't know ma haute couture from ma couch!"
Rarity: "…I was just going to ask you to manage the front desk while I wrap up some designs. Just… try not to let your business sense make you get competitive in doing so. Selling fashion's nothing like selling apples."
This episode premise is dated to January 2nd, 2014. Which puts it nicely in between the 1st and 2nd drafts of "Castle Sweet Castle" the two wrote (dated to December 6th, 2013 and January 6th, 2014 respectively). Like some past episodes, they were assigned to hash out a premise while waiting on feedback for their script and later incorporating said feedback. Scheduling context matters!
Rarity has been working very hard on a new clothing line to show Hoity Toity. He’s promised to help Rarity achieve her dream of opening a second boutique in Canterlot! That is, IF he likes what he sees. Rarity has invited him to visit her store in Ponyville to see her style and her work, and of course, her new line. He’s coming in on the afternoon train. Rarity tells her friends the good news and it seems as if everything’s coming up Rarity... until the ponies step outside the boutique and realize that Suri Polomare has opened up a competing clothing store right across the street from Rarity’s! Ponies are actually lining up to get inside and get some of Suri's multi-colored tail extentions. Whhhaaaattt?!
Suri emerges from her store and takes the opportunity to taunt Rarity, “Oh hey, Rarity. Is that your boutique? I didn’t even notice it, because it’s so small and no one is lined up to go inside.” To all the other girls’ surprise, Rarity just laughs and says, “Good for you Suri, opening your own store is very exciting! Best of luck!” And with that, Rarity heads back inside to keep working on her new designs. She tells her friends Applejack and Rainbow Dash that she won’t get caught up in competing with Suri. She’s made that mistake before! But she confesses she would like their help looking after her store while she locks herself in her workshop to concentrate on perfecting her designs for Hoity Toity. She tells Applejack and Rainbow Dash that they really don’t have to do anything, just be nice and helpful should anypony come to the boutique! They tell her not to worry about a thing, and Rarity locks herself in her workshop.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack are determined to do whatever it takes to help Rarity out! Only...they don’t have anything to do. The store is empty and business is slow. They look out the window and see Suri Polomare's boutique is hopping! Ponies are lined up and Suri is outside, telling her customers they’ll get nothing but the best from the most fashionable clothing store in all of Ponyville. As she ushers her customers in, she shoots the ponies a smug look.
The ever-competitive Rainbow Dash and Applejack simply cannot stand to see Suri’s store out-performing their friend’s shop. How will it look when Hotity Toity shows up and sees that Rarity doesn’t have the #1 boutique in Ponyville? He’ll question whether Rarity can compete in Canterlot, that’s what! They’ve got to get the Carousel Boutique back on top! They start off small by asking Pinkie to bake cupcakes to give out to the first 20 customers. When Suri catches on to what they're doing, she orders twenty cakes to give out to her customers! Next, Rainbow Dash does rainbow “sky-writing” above the boutique that calls attention to the store. Suri then calls on some pegasus friends who flap their wings and blow the rainbow sky writing over Suri’s store. Finally Applejack and Rainbow Dash resort to an all out price slashing, cost cutting battle with Suri, marking down Rarity’s one of a kind couture pieces to next to nothing!
Meanwhile, Rarity is holed up in her workshop, oblivious to the shenanigans that are going on in the boutique. She only looks up from her sewing machine when she hears a THUMP THUMP THUMP coming from downstairs. She shrugs it off - must be a marching band or something.
In the boutique we see the THUMPING was really DJ Pon-3 laying down some heavy beats. Across the way we see Suri’s got a DJ of her own, but DJ Pon-3 is much louder. Applejack and Rainbow Dash yell over the music that this was a great idea! But in reality, Rarity’s classy couture establishment now looks more like a dance party. Sure it’s full of ponies but it’s also a complete mess! At that moment, Hoity Toity walks in. He tries to ask for Rarity - but no one can hear him over DJ Pon-3’s sick jams. He looks at the store critically and doesn’t like what he sees. He says good fashion speaks for itself and he won't be a part of bringing this circus to Canterlot! He leaves in disgust and Rarity emerges from her workshop just in time to see him go. She turns to Rainbow Dash and Applejack and asks, “What in Equestria have you done to my beautiful boutique?”Rainbow Dash and Applejack say they were just trying to help Rarity compete with Suri's business so that Hoity Toity would see that she could be successful in Canterlot. Rarity: “Did you not think my designs were evidence enough?” Rarity asks. Applejack and Rainbow Dash are as crushed as Rarity. They’ve ruined her chances of opening a second boutique in Canterlot! Applejack and Rainbow Dash promise they’ll make it up to her.
They chase down Hoity Toity and explain that Rarity’s boutique was a classy chic establishment before they got their hooves on it. This is all their fault and if Hoity Toity would please come with them to see what Rarity has been working on - they’re absolutely positive he’ll be impressed. Reluctantly, Hoity Toity agrees to accompany the ponies, and when he sees Rarity’s designs, he’s absolutely blown away! He tells Rarity she can absolutely have her very own Canterlot Carousel Boutique! Hooray!
Meanwhile, trying to compete with Applejack and Rainbow Dash forced Suri Polomare out of business - between slashing her own prices and all the money she spent on cakes and DJ’s, she’s flat broke! As she closes her doors, she again vows revenge on Rarity and gallops off into the sunset.
At the end, Rarity invites Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and the rest of the Mane 6 to the boutique to celebrate and Rainbow Dash and Applejack recap our friendship lesson: it's important not to get so caught up helping a friend compete with somepony else that you lose sight of what makes that friend special in their own way.
I'm not going to pretend there aren't some objectionable issues with this one right off the bat. Even if many of them are common at the Premise stage, when an episode idea is just being hashed out. Without further details, the step from "Applejack & Rainbow Dash watch over the store" to "they get marketing competitive against Suri" feels like a have-wave. While it's great to have Suri back, and still in an antagonistic role, the premise doesn't give a good indication as to her onscreen presence (though I am imagine a bridging scene before Apple/Rainbow getting competitive, where one or both of them visit Suri's store to observe and get in banter against her which ends up stoking their tempers and leading to them competing – that could help with the prior problem, and give her more space to be the same smarmy pony she was). There's also some other hand-waved plot elements (Hoity Toity can decide who get a Boutique? Okay; There's enough fashion business in Ponyville for a 2nd Boutique? If you say so), and, as always, it comes across as very plain and rudimentary when described with just the plot, without the character interactions that make FiM so great.
That said, while I do see this being dropped over some rudimentary predictability/shallow characterisation in its current form (a trend throughout Season 5 is new writers pitching episode ideas that go unused, and then they get assigned to episode ideas thought up of by the Story Editor – one has to wonder if the Editor wasn't willing to risk the writers not being able to spruce the episode up), this strikes me as an episode that could be absolutely made to work.
Another reason it might have been dropped was just using Suri as an antagonist in a straightforward role didn't sit well with someone. To this point, the Film Flam brothers were used as deemphasised antagonists when they did return, it's worth bearing in mind. Perhaps Hasbro or someone else wanted the same here.
Clearly, the writers, Hasbro and Larson (Story Editor at the time) thought this episode would be made, given it's all about a setup for Rarity getting another boutique. When this fell through, they had to squeeze an explanation about the right venue opening up into "Canterlot Boutique" instead. That works fine, and makes sense, so as far as rewrites to accommodate plans changing, that gets the job done.
Side note: this episode does share some mild overlap with "Honest Apple", in Applejack (with Rainbow Dash here) making a muck up when Rarity trusted her, then catching up to the other fashion pony/ponies and convincing them to give it another chance (with or without rope). Now, that's an episode on which this one's writers were the Story Editors, but it's mild enough and later enough that I don't really count it as repurposing this episode. It's equivalent to what one plucks aspects of a structural spine from an unused project, and that's such a common thing for writers, it's not really worthy of note. Plus, it's mild enough to be possibly coincidental, though not likely.
Daring Do's Muse: Written b G.M. Berrow
Daring Do: "You know… I could use a diversion for my next adventurer, and since you're just a lazy recolour of me, there's few ponies who would fit better. You in?"
Rainbow Dash: "I get to help you on an adventure? Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh –
Wait. What do you mean, lazy recolour?"
This episode premise is dated to May 9th, 2014. For context, G.M. Berrow didn't write the Premise for "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows" until the outline, which is dated to June 11th. So it's another case of getting reassigned following an episode being rejected, given an idea Meghan McCarthy thought up of. Fair enough! Berrow would have written this Premise shortly after submitting the final drafts, or near final drafts, of the three Daring Do chapter books, which were published October 7th, 2014. I haven't read them, but I've heard good things, so perhaps it makes sense she got to pitch a Daring Do episode! Though as we'll see, the strain to bring it into the same world as the Mane 6, and involve some of them, brings problems we're well familiar with.
When Rainbow Dash finds out that the next installment of the Daring Do series doesn’t have a release date yet, she decides to go see her friend A.K. Yearling to pry some of the new book's plot out of her and maybe even give A.K. some ideas for it in the process. After all, the inscription A.K. wrote in Dash’s advance copy of “Daring Do and the Ring of Destiny” said that she, “Hopes to see her again soon!”
Rainbow Dash shows up at AK's cottage with her suitcase and AK's not exactly thrilled.... "Oh, hi, Rainbow Dash. I didn't think you'd take my note so... literally!" But A.K. does consider Rainbow Dash somewhat of a friend. She decides to let Dash stay for a few days since she traveled so far. She even offers to take Rainbow Dash to the local museum to see a set of relics featured in one of the Daring Do books – The Diadem of Metztli and the Tiara of Tonatiuh. (Two pieces that cannot be separated from one another, or a terrible curse will be activate.)
As the two look at the relics, Rainbow Dash tries to nonchalantly get a few hints about the plot of the next Daring Do book. Turns out that A.K. hasn’t started a new book because her alter ego hasn’t been on an adventure worth writing about lately. A.K. Yearling is totally fine with waiting for just the right real-life story to unfold but the impatient Rainbow Dash worries that doing so could take forever. There has to be a faster way to jumpstart A.K.’s creative process!
At first, Dash tries to help by giving AK her own fan-fiction for inspiration. A.K., of course, can't read it and politely declines. What else can Dash do to inspire her favorite author? She is trying to think of something when she sees the brochure for the museum. Dash gets the bright idea to stage a kidnapping of herself and robbery of one of the crowns to get the "muse of adventure" going for AK. Then, AK can rescue both her and the relic as Daring Do and she'll start writing a book about the adventure. How could this possibly go wrong?
But of course things do go terribly wrong as the “helpful” museum docent who agrees to assist Dash with her plot turns out to be real-life Daring Do nemesis, ROSY THORN. Rosy works for Ahuizotl and is genuinely trying to get her hooves on the relics. She’s not helping Rainbow Dash fake a kidnapping, she’s taking Rainbow Dash hostage for real! A great DD action scene follows where Daring Do manages to get Rainbow Dash free, but in turn gets captured herself. In the process, Daring Do gets shot with a sleeping dart by one of the henchponies that show up to help Rosy.
Dash feels terrible!! Is Daring Do okay?!! It's all her fault-- whyyyyyy did she do this? Why did she try to force things to go her way? No more A.K. Yearling means no more Daring Do books... ever. THE HORROR!
RD must snap to action and protect the crown from Rosy Thorn, which she manages to do. When the dust settles, Dash tries to wake up Daring Do and dramatically apologizes for setting the whole thing up. Daring Do opens her eyes and laughs. She was trying to teach her a lesson, too-- be patient and don't force things to go the way you want them too. They never will!
In the end, Rainbow Dash leaves A.K.'s house with a book in her hooves-- the first in another adventure series that A.K. herself likes to read. She'll still have to be patient for the next Daring Do book-- and that's okay!
An author being legally prohibited from reading fanfiction of their work? Isn't that a familiar joke! Seen that in quite a few Daring Do fanfictions as it is. I don't know about you, but I'm glad that wasn't included in actual canon material.
While I haven't read them, I do know Rosy Thorn is a character Berrow created for one of the Daring Do chapter books (and also, some lore and info from there is supposedly sprinkled throughout the Season 7 episode that Berrow wrote, "Daring Done?"). Guess Nicole Dubuc wasn't the first to bring in OCs she wrote for lower-tier Pony media into the show!
I have to be frank: my opinion on Daring Do episodes as a concept after the first is so low; aside from the concept her being real being just the worst, a TV-Y show that had to focus on morals and keep at least one of our main ponies involved is going to throw itself through so many plot and tonal hoops just to tell a coherent story. So it would take a stellar pitch to win me over. Plus, I've soured on Berrow as a writer now I've read most of her work and recognise a common sets of flaws, not least an infantile tone and delivery more fitting aiming for two years younger. This makes a little more sense for the chapter books, where the writing had to get across everything, but her scripts fail to recognise that much of the info can be imparted through visuals, music, staging and timing, and thus the conflicts are simplified beyond recognition and plot points get repeated (endlessly, in the case of "The Point of No Return"). Even her one good episode, "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", suffers from this, and I'm not going to give Pony Life the time of day again, but it does too, among other issues. The only work of hers for which this theory doesn't fit is A New Generation, but a movie has so many cooks it's not surprising her writing tics are largely suppressed there.
Anyway, this plot doesn't inspire much confidence, lacking in enough incident for 21 minutes, having a weirdly anti-climatic climax that doesn't make much sense, and feeling like a partial retread of "Daring Done", not an episode one should want to retread. And setting aside the fanfiction nod, there are some awkward and cringe jokes ideas in here. I do like the final idea of Rainbow Dash being opened up to reading other books, and there is something to the scenes of them interacting before an incident presents itself. As Daring Do episodes go, it's not any worse than a few of the ones we got – Berrow is at least a good fit for this kind of character and episode, especially with those three chapter books under her belt, something Nicole Dubuc isn't, as "Daring Doubt" proved ten times over. But, yeah, not gonna lose sleep over losing this one.
Concluding Thoughts
So, one episode I would have actually liked to see, though with improvements and refinements, and one which I don't think many people are going to miss, being polite. Not a bad result!
Next time – a detailed look at Scott Sonneborn's unused episode "How To Become a Princess", both its premise and full outline. It's basically a Princess version of Comic-Con playing in "Trade Ya"'s mode of everypony getting their own subplot, individual or shared. You can read it here.
After that, this series will wrap up with M.A. Larson's "Rainbow Confession", the courtroom drama prototype that eventually became "Rarity Investigates!". And also the earlier version of "Brotherhooves Social", "Changing of the Guard", where Big Mac became Twilight's first guard.
I've read the Daring Do books, and they're... okay. More fleshed-out and globe trotting as is suitable for watered-down Indiana Jones/Nathan Drake* stories, with lots of decent supporting characters, and fun locations. (And egregious horse puns.) Worth tracking down if you're a Daring Do fan/completist, but not otherwise.
As for Daring in the series man, what a wasted opportunity!
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* N.B., if you liked the Uncharted series, whatever you do, avoid the movie!
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Sounds about right, my interest only goes as far as a casual read, not outright buying them, and the first six chapters books of Berrow’s I’ve read have not warmed me to how she writes these at all. My interest remained largely on the back of somewhat better word-of-mouth for them.
They’re such frustrating episodes with so many seams, and once she’s made to be real, there isn’t a single episode of hers I actually like – when I was rewatching Season 4 a bit back, “Daring Don’t” was the only one bad enough for me to write off into “skip this in the future” territory. Lord knows how I’ll react to the future ones! I do remember liking the desert locale and local costumes in “Daring Done?”, but if that’s the best compensating factor, one’s in trouble (I’ve also heard Berrow peppers the episode with references to characters, locales and objects in her own Daring Do books).
That bad an adaption, huh? As it happens, I’ve never played the series (or even owned a Sony console ever), so my familiarity with it doesn’t go beyond the well-known facts.
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For me, the worst thing about the Daring Do episodes is that they have so many good things in them! Lots of classic elements of an adventure yarn, but just not put together well. The great potential being fumbled makes it even more of a disappointment for me than a simple poorly-written episode.
The Nathan Drake games are wonderful if you go for the Indiana Jones type stuff. If you want to see several great action movies, hunt down the playthroughs on YouTube. Seriously, the stories are very well-crafted* and the graphics and acting are superb.
The movie is like watching 12-year-olds reenacting whatever bits of the games they misremember.
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* Amy Henning is also the creator of the Soul Reaver games and the first The Last of Us game. If Hollywood wanted a great ending to Game of Thrones, they should have hired her to write it. Hell, they ought to hand her $100M and let her run her own series!
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The author of The Alicorn Adventures series likes an old-school adventure yarn? Surely you jest!
There are few sins worse in the world of writing than wasted potential, my friend. As you well know.
But yes, that's how I feel too – there's elements in there I really want to love, and should, but the episodes, time and time again, suffer from the join of Daring Do's world existing in the same as our MLP characters, and getting out main character involved in the adventure. Among other reasons, some which shift from episode to episode, others of which are mainstays.
At least the Daring Do books, being actually about her and without the forced joins to the Mane 6/their Equestria, avoid the main issues. Guess that accounts for them being passable over sore disappointments!
I'll bear that in mind! I'm not opposed to watching the movie cutscenes of a game I'll never play myself (I used this method to experience all the extra content added in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky over buying a third version of a game I already had, and being a story-heavy JRPG, I got what I wanted and then some), so sounds promising.
Reading between the lines, I think you had a sour experience at the cinema a few days ago.
Most of that is new on me (I'm that ghost who's never watched a single episode of Game of Thrones), but she sounds like a wonderfully creative person for sure, and a great boon to writing in gaming. I work in game development myself, and our company was recently acquired by Team17, led by industry titan and innovator Debbie Bestwick. So I get why Henning is so well-regarded!
Honestly, GoT is one of those things you'll like if you like that sort thing. It's done well with a good sense of place, and there's a lot of stellar acting in it. But if you aren't prepared to forgive its many shortcomings, or its basic assumption that people are either thoroughly awful or clueless simpletons, it will fail to entertain. I stopped watching it before the last season because it became too repetitive and unrelentingly
grimdarkgrimvantablack. Considering how badly they screwed the pooch on the ending, I think I'm lucky I stopped being invested in it.No kidding? Me, too! Well, I did for quite a while a couple of decades ago. (Free-lancing VFX, now) I worked with Amy, and yes, she's an absolute treasure. I could go on at length about the awful way she was forced out at Naughty Dog, but there's no point really. It's the same old sad song about status-hungry "executive" nit-wits thinking they can do better than the real artistic geniuses.
I've been out of the loop with regards to the game industry for a while now, but I've heard about Team 17. They've been around for quite a while, right? Sort of a British THQ-style publisher?
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Well, I say 'game development', but I myself might be charitably described as a junior engineer, if even. It's a small company (though expanding in staff size) that does (usually) educational mobile apps for kids on Apple/Android/Amazon. Very successful ones, mind (all licensed IP from the likes of Eric Carle, Lego, Disney, etc.), and with plenty of awards under our belt, usually for learning goal integration. So certainly nothing like Naughty Dog, nor the level of visual, engine or gameplay fidelity you'd have swam in the waters of. But it's a neat gig. I've been working here since I left college three-and-a-half years ago, and have no intention of leaving any time soon. Not until I've up-skilled enough. That's Future Mike's problem!
So I've heard. You've certainly gotten around (and also raised my mental guess of your age range by a fair bit with that last comment
). Every time I think I've got you pegged, more comes out. It's quite impressive, actually. 
I mean, I often am too! I know the following mostly by association.
Well, I don't know about THQ-style, but in essence, yes.
For the longest time, they were best known for the Worms series, and almost fell into the one-IP trap that's done many a company in. A decade ago, Bestwick, one of the original founders, managed to wrestle control away from the other founders, and since then she's lead it to fantastic success (a lot of which is thanks to going public at the right time for their share price to skyrocket). Not only have Team17 gotten several evergreen properties these days to thus rely on, alongside standalone games and once-offs, the digital games market has been a godsend, allowing them to self-publish, as well as be a publisher for games made by other small teams and groups (they often handle physical limited editions for some indie games).
Lately, they've expanded with a few acquisitions in other gaming sectors they don't have any toes in, with the intention, at least in the short term, to let those companies keep operating independently. The company I work for, being one of those, does mobile apps for children, and precisely nothing on consoles, while they are all consoles with almost nothing directly in the mobile apps market, so there's minimal overlap.
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Don't be in a hurry to work for the Big Guys! Small, indie studios are way more fun to work for, and you'll probably learn more, too. Another reason to work for small indies besides being more fun and creative: If you've got some stock, when a Big Boy buys you, you can really make some money. Pro Tip: Don't listen when they tell you not to sell your stock right after the acquisition; cash in! Seriously, after Eidos bought Crystal Dynamics, I was able to buy my ranch up in the Sierras. Upper Management strongly implied that dumping your stock was somehow "disloyal," but the guys who held on out of herd mentality or naïve greed saw the stock drop 75% or so! Sucks to be them!
Okay... Worms! Yes, that's probably where I heard of the studio.
I have honestly seen some amazingly creative stuff come out as mobile games. Monument Valley and The Room immediately spring to mind as personal favorites, but there are a host of other innovative puzzle-type games out there. I think educational software still has an enormous amount of territory to explore, and clever innovation will be highly prized. I hope you have a lot of fun working in the industry!
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* The other Atari. Atari Corp. made the Lynx and Jaguar portable and home game systems, and Atari Games made arcade games. (I worked for them too, for a couple of years.)
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Oh believe me, I’m not. Even at the ripe
), that’s crystal clear. I only meant up-skilling as far as broadening my skill set of what I can do – I basically lucked into this position on an internship that kept getting extended and my encyclopedic knowledge of the IP for the project I initially worked on. But luck does favour the prepared, no?
oldyoung age of 27 (Heh, about that… can’t get too in detail, but the acquisition came along just as our company was about to finalize handing us our stock options. Part of the sale was that we agreed to sell our stake, so we did get some dough out of it. Not quite enough to buy a ranch up the mountain (
), but a nice bonus that could be used for a hefty chunk towards a decent car, if one is so inclined. Not that we have either ranches or mountains in Ireland anyway (okay, one or two mountains just inching over the 1km minimum).
In any case, I’m fortunate enough to still be living at home (the Dublin housing crisis kind of mandates it), so I’m doing well saving up thus far. A ghost can be financially economical, who knew?
Reassuring to have first-hand evidence one doesn’t have to fully grow up! Although now I’m having a mental image of you (by which I mean your Pirate Twilight pic, because I obviously visualize most people here by their avatars) with greying hair and hobbling along with a walker. Probably not that bad!
Then again, given Edios bought Crystal Dynamics in 1998…
Aw, thanks very much. I’ll do my best. You always know just what to say, don’t ya.
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Absitively, posolutely!
(And... 27? Do you even have your cutie mark yet?)
Dublin? Oh man, one of the big downsides to working in high tech is that the rent and house prices in the surrounding areas always go sky-high! Keep living as cheaply as possible! I wasn't lucky enough to have family in Silicon Valley, but I bought a sailboat and lived aboard for quite a number of years. Not the best living situation, but I must have saved $100k in rent. A couple of guys I worked with at CD lived in their cars!
Snow white, and I occasionally carry a cane... but only because it has a sword in it.
That rejected Daring Do episodes sounds like it would've been a retread of "Daring Don't" and a worse version of "Daring Done?".
And yeah, G. M. Berrow seemed to write her episodes like she was writing for her chapter books, and she always seemed to struggle to write a good finish, her stories always seemed to throw in something during the third act just to prolong the story. You'd think she would've learned that writing for chapter books is not the same as writing for a television show. You need to have a plot that can flow naturally for however long your run time is, and you need to know the importance of pacing and using visuals to tell your story instead of just dialogue.
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Nailing your ending isn't everything (Stephen King was infamously soft at them), but unless everything else is brilliant, it very nearly is.
Considering this was her first actual episode, before she later got "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", the many tics of Berrow present here showing massive growing pains paint quite a picture, don't they?
I wouldn't even say that's too big a deal here; those are things that can be worked on afterwards. It's more just the convoluted, messy, juvenile, go-nowhere plotting that does it in. Plus, her making a hash of the "Daring Do is real" thing and reconciling it with Dash, far more than the actually produced Daring Do episodes, makes more sense when you consider she would have turned in her manuscripts for the "normal" Daring Do chapter book novels, which didn't have to worry about that element, quite soon before she was assigned this premise to draft up.