What We Can Learn From Where Applejack's Day Off Went Wrong. · 12:30pm Jun 7th, 2016
It will probably come as no surprise to anyone that I really disliked Applejack’s Day Off. As I’ve done in the past, rather than just complain about the episode, I want to break down what went wrong in the construction and why it’s important, and how other writers can see and fix it.
There’s a lot here to break down. And plenty of ranting, too.
Anyway, recently aired episode, so it’s under a cut for people who haven’t had the misfortune of watching it yet.
The first thing that I need to talk about is stakes: Applejack’s Day Off didn’t have any.
At first glance, it looks like a typical slice of life episode. But think about other slice of life episodes, and what you usually get is there’s a surface problem, and there’s a deeper meaning for the character.
Baby Cakes: Pinkie has wacky hijinx while foalsitting; Pinkie wants to prove how responsible she is.
Apple Family Reunion: Applejack over-plans the family reunion and hijinx ensue; Applejack wants to make the day really special for her family.
Saddle Row Review: Rarity’s shop needs to be set up and hijinx ensue; opening this shop at this time could make or break Rarity’s Manehattan business plans.
Applejack’s Day Off: Applejack’s inefficient chore routine is making her miss spa days with Rarity; …?
This isn’t reading into things. In each of the episodes with emotional stakes, there are lines or scenes that specifically set them: Pinkie “Responsibility” Pie, Applejack talking to Apple Bloom as she goes to sleep, Rarity explaining why things need to be perfect.
In Applejack’s Day Off, the only stakes set are that Rarity is annoyed and disappointed that AJ keeps missing spa day. Now, it would be hard to sell that as stakes to begin with, given that we literally see the Mane Six spending a ton of time together, so it’s not like AJ is neglecting her friends. But we’re not even given a real attempt at it. The writers could have tried noting that this is the only time AJ and Rarity spend together because they don’t otherwise have a lot of common ground, or that this is becoming a regular problem among all of her friends, or that without time off AJ is going a little nuts.
But instead there… really isn’t a problem here. Go see a movie with Rarity that evening instead. Problem solved.
Thinking about this is useful for writers, because it really shows that the emotional stakes are important to driving a plot. Even is a silly little story, the meaning the characters are imbuing the events with can be larger than the actual plot, and will make a story feel more fulfilling and important to the reader/viewer than the actual events would dictate.
Somewhat related is the second problem I noticed, which was that it wasn’t funny. There were a few funny moments here or there, but for the most part the jokes either fell flat, or… they just weren’t there.
Now, this isn’t inherently a problem. There are other episodes of MLP that just don’t have a ton of jokes, and some of those are my favorite episodes.
But in those episodes, the reason they don’t have a lot of jokes is that the climax for the episode isn’t a comedic set piece, it’s a dramatic one. Episodes like Hurricane Fluttershy, Wonderbolts Academy, Leap of Faith, or Canterlot Boutique can get away with with fewer jokes because the emotional stakes I talked about above are not just a part of the episode, but driving the episode. And in each of those episodes, the climax is a big dramatic moment when the emotional problem is resolved in a light-but-serious way.
If you’re going to climax with a comedic set piece, like Castle-Mania or Appleloosa’s Most Wanted, you need to write the story as a comedy, with a joke or gag in almost every scene. And while those might not be the best or funniest episode of the show, if you watch you can see that the writers of those episodes at least tried to do that: even Troubleshoe’s flashback is set up with a laugh line.
Applejack’s Day Off has a number of scenes without so much as an attempt at a joke, which makes the attempt at over-the-top comedy in the climax tonally dissonant, even if it had actually been funny. And, frankly, this is just a crime considering they used one of the funniest comedy duos in the show.
A story needs to set up expectations for the audience and then pay off, preferably a way that both surprises and feels right. "Finish the story you began." If you're writing a comedy with what you think is a hilarious climax, you have to also write the rest of the comedy.
The final problem was Applejack being out of character.
Now. It usually takes a LOT for me to call an episode of show canon OOC. Like, direct contradiction of previous canon. I will defend Somepony to Watch Over Me as perfectly in character.
And even after watching this episode, I kept analyzing it: was it really OOC? Previously established things could have led to things sort of like this.
And that’s when I realized the problem: It didn’t blow apart my suspension of disbelief, it just stretched it to the breaking point.
Established characters don’t exist on a binary of “in character vs OOC.” Instead, there’s a spectrum of how likely a character would be to do something like this is this situation. If Twilight is confronted with a problem, research, speaking to experts, and generally trying to solve the problem are all in character for her. Putting it off until later could be in character for her, depending on the situation. Handing the problem over to somepony else to solve is getting more OOC, but could still happen with good reason. Blowing off the problem to go to Los Pegasus is OOC for Twilight in all but the most specific circumstances (she’s under the influence of mind control, or mind swapped with Discord, or something.)
So, Applejack’s Day Off starts with Applejack having a regular spa appointment with Rarity. This… isn’t really OOC. Applejack and Rarity are friends, Applejack enjoys the spa. It’s… a little weird with no extra explanation, considering AJ and Rarity’s specific kind of interactions. It’s stretching a little, but there are some easy patches: maybe Rarity has spa dates with all of her friends except Dash, maybe this is one of the few things AJ and Rarity do together, maybe Rarity like to make sure AJ washes her mane at least once a week. The writers don’t give us this, but it’s possible.
Then we have Applejack’s totally friendly, generic, and pretty boring interactions with Rarity up until she starts investigating at the spa. Now, AJ and Rarity are friends, and we’ve seen this kind of interaction between them before their fight in Trade Ya or in Made in Manehattan, but in the former it ended up exploding on them, and in the latter it was punctuated with a lot of things accentuating their character differences. Here, AJ was just generic happy for most of the time with Rarity, which both loses one of the funniest dynamics in the entire cast, and… isn’t really Applejack.
Now, AJ’s reaction at the spa regarding the steam room was perfectly in character. 100% AJ right there.
But then we get back to the farm, and… I am an AJ fangirl, but all of the characters can be exaggerated for comic effect, and AJ does dumb things sometimes. Like I said, I like Somepony to Watch Over Me. But it’s really hard to buy AJ being dumb in this specific way.
“Oops, I did not mean for that tree to land there”-Applejack doesn’t overcomplicate, she oversimplifies, which can sometimes lead to insane complications. She does exactly what makes sense in the here and now, and makes her plans for exactly what she thinks will make sense tomorrow.
If AJ was being totally inefficient in a way similar to the spa, I would totally buy that. I could easily see Applejack spending an extra hour to do a chore to work around something that would take an afternoon to fix, never considering that it’s an hour every day vs. one afternoon, one time. I could even see her putting together a Rube Goldberg network of patches as smaller problems pile up, with her having less and less time to fix the problems because she’s so busy working around the other problems. That’s a situation where everything makes sense each individual time she does it, while she continues to miss the big picture.
You know, like pulling down a tree that’s going to fall on a house without realizing it will fall on a different house, or micromanaging a family reunion with activities to make activities more fun without considering what ponies will want at the time, or reacting to her sister spilling jam one time by babyproofing the entire farm. Those things make sense to Applejack right when she’s doing them.
Continuing to account for a problem after she’s fixed it doesn’t really make sense with AJ’s character. That involves specifically not reacting to what’s in front of her at this moment.
And the thing is, I could probably have forgiven that, if they’d spent the episode building up an in character picture of AJ.
But they didn’t.
So, that’s something to keep in mind when writing established characters: you can stretch them, and often people will be willing to suspend disbelief. People are nuanced, and different kinds of stories allow for leeway in different directions. But you have to earn that by making the rest of the character and your story really strong, because suspended disbelief can only take so much weight before the whole character crashes into OOC.
Over all, Applejack’s Day Off might take my worst episode slot, which is weird because there are other episodes I dislike with a lot more passion than I can spare for this one. *coughBats!cough* But this episode just did so much wrong, with so much wasted potential and so few redeeming qualities that I just can’t defend it on any front.
Luckily, I really enjoyed both Saddle Row Review and Flutter Brutter, the latter of which might just get its own post very soon, regarding some of the reactions I’ve seen.
Since this is a Monday Blog Post, a big thank you to: bats, diremane, First_Down, sopchoppy, Bradel, stormgnome, jlm123hi, Ultiville, Singularity Dream, JetstreamGW, Noble Thought, horizon, Sharp Spark, Applejinx, Mermerus, Super Trampoline, Quill Scratch, Peregrine Caged, blagdaross, Scramblers and Shadows, BlazzingInferno, Merc the Jerk, and LegionPothIX.
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Whatever your post about Flutter Brutter, can it not be about Sudden Sibling Syndrome? Because that topic was talked into the ground long ago.
I couldn't imagine Applejack going to the spa, actually. She doesn't seem like the character to do that. She'd much rather do something meaningful with her time or choose an outdoors activity instead.
Also I've always thought it was Fluttershy that would meet Rarity for a weekly spa visit.
I'm totally fine with Rarity hanging out with AJ but it would be better if they could find different activities for each pairing to have in common, as a life beyond the mane six as a whole.
What about the interaction of the moral vis-a-vis AJ's complicated farm chores with the zap apple rituals in Family Appreciation Day? I mean, the main prior episode conflict everyone's been pointing out is Rainbow's "I don't like ponies touching my hooves" from MDW, but after seeing someone bring that up, I can't help but take this as a refutation of everything we learned about Granny Smith.
Just further proof they're going to kill her off4005891
I have zero problem with Sudden Sibling Syndrome. I think it's aka "economical story telling for an on going series without a central plan." So no, I wasn't going to bring that up.
4005899 We saw in Ponyville Confidential that AJ enjoys massages, and Dash is the only one of the mane six who's totally not into it. Massages and steam room do make some sense to me for AJ; that girl is going to hurt herself if she doesn't take care of her muscles.
4005900
I think that's intended to be a different situation. "Magic is as magic does." Look at how Pinkie... well, is. It makes sense that natural magic in Equestria requires weird and silly things. Now, it's possible that some of those things were reactions to problems that could be addressed another way--if zap apple jam creates a pressure that some jars couldn't handle, maybe yelling at the jars worked fine, but getting specially reinforced jars would also work fine. But since it's poorly understood magic they're dealing with there, it makes some sense to avoid experimentation unless it's necessary to make things work.
4005900
Season 6 Episode 12: Pushing Apples
Granny Smith is dead. Now Twilight Sparkle has to help organise the funeral before the guests arrive. Of course, Granny Smith never spoke much about her long history, nor the sheer number of ponies who's lives she'd touched throughout.
But regardless; Twilight's going to need a drink after this one.
Spoilers, y u no work on multiple lines
4005920
Ah, I see. I forget about some of these details sometimes.
4006038
Don't worry, the rest of the mane six know about this one. He obviously came up in the offscreen conversation they had about why they're glad they're all lesbians.
See I can kinda puzzle through any episode to rectify it as making sense. I don't have a "worst episode", because that's more spite than I can really manage for anything.
4006064
I have spite for a few episodes-- Bats! and Slice of Life, especially. But I don't actually have spite for this one. It's more... awe at the blatant incompetence of people who are being paid to write a television show.
I have... a lot of very similar technical problems with the episode which are covered very well here, but I have one far more important problem:
Why does Applejack breed pigs. What is their purpose? Who are they for? Why?
4006107 WoG, truffles. My take? Pork.
4006079 Bats! and Slice of Life are two of my favorite episodes.
Now we must duel.
It feels like Applejack got Spiked, and ended up like the poor little dragon from "Spike at Your Service", perfectly competent to incompetent for the sake of trying to teach a lesson to children with hyperbole.
4006107
Body disposal.
I agree with everything you've said. And yet, interestingly, I still enjoyed the episode.
Odd as it is, the near total mundanity and lack of any real emotional stakes was a welcome change of pace for me. The episode managed to massage a hidden grudge I've been growing against the show the last few years, which is that we ought to have far more insight and seen much more of nearly every aspect of these characters' lives given how many episodes they've been in. Weird as it may sound, something like what a character's bathroom looks like matters to me. I want not just the exciting details, but the intimate and the boring and the pointless too.
AJ's Day Off assuaged that for me a bit, giving me the boring. Nothing remotely important happened. AJ learned a lesson sure, but it was a dumb one because they turned her into an idiot at the end. Not to mention the other OOC moments. But I felt like I was seeing a completely normal day for the mane six, and I've wanted that so much more than I've gotten that the other elements hardly bothered me.
I suppose I'm the starving dog happy to get moldy food, but eh, that's how it is these days. Not always though.
4006107
I've always believed they were trash compactors/fertilizer producers. Pigs eat the kind of organic waste you'd get a lot of on a farm, and turn it into fertilizer a lot faster than composting alone. An efficient way to deal with bruised or fallen apples and kitchen scraps.
I like this because my reaction to this episode was 'it was just ok' and now you've given me explanations for why I felt that way.
Honestly though from the synopsis I read I thought it was going to be about Applejack getting hurt and it would be an episode about Twilight and Spike trying to do all her chores that day. I think I would have preferred that.
4005899
4005920
I think this is part of it, and also explains why AJ got so particular and stubborn about their routine at the spa. S1 AJ would not have anything to do with this nonsense, but Rarity has her way of pleading. My headcanon was that Rarity convinced her to come to the spa one time specifically with muscle tension in mind, AJ was skeptical at first but pleasantly surprised, and as a creature of habit, The Spa Routine That Worked is now the only treatment she's interested in. That's why she wasn't remotely interested when Aloe proposed alternative plans.
I think too that the spa is particularly important for Rarity and in how she interacts with others. Spending time with Fluttershy or Applejack? Spa. Spending time with her sister after a bit of familial fighting? Spa. Soothing recourse for the Mane Six after a stressful week? Spa. It's not simply that she's obsessed with being pampered (though hey, that's a small component). I think that for her, it's a very social aspect. It's a ritual. Yes, to bookplayer's point, they could go out for coffee, or they could run into each other at Twilight's castle the next time they save the world, but it's not the same. The spa is where and how Rarity connects to ponies on an emotional level. When Rarity laments that they'll have barely any time at all for the steam room, it's not really that she's disappointed she won't personally be pampered. She's lamenting that she can't go to the steam room with Applejack. No shipping goggles. Okay, a lot of shipping. You caught me.
So really, this just carries on the time-honored tradition of Applejack episodes focusing on not-Applejack. Okay, that's not exactly true, as AJ has tons of screen time. But the framing narrative is about how this affects Rarity, rather than being framed about Applejack.
The Last Roundup isn't a perfect analogy, but it's sorta there. We have a framing issue that affects other ponies (Ponyville and the M5 miss Applejack, versus Rarity misses Applejack) yet the episode is supposed to be about Applejack and her issues. The stakes for Rarity are... fine, on paper. We've certainly had slice-of-life friendship problems like Look Before You Sleep. But there's very little narrative weight to it, as the story fixates on Applejack. For Applejack though, there's almost no narrative weight. While she wants to hang out with Rarara, she doesn't seem broken up in the least about fixing the steam room first and foremost. The montage of optimizing her routines was sort of a "hey, neat" thing for her, but there was nothing in the narrative suggesting that these inefficiencies were causing her emotional difficulties.
i.ytimg.com/vi/7tVyCOkg0wQ/sddefault.jpg
Buuut if we look beyond the narrative and into the fridge logic, that's where things really start to suck. Bless her heart, AJ has allegedly been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy since Ticket Master, and now we found out why in the most character-assassinating way possible. While none would question her work ethic or passion, she's apparently been ridiculously sub-optimal since taking charge of the farm from her granny / parents. And I do mean ridiculous, when a highly intelligent and technical mare and her diligent assistant (albeit from outside the industry) were handed a detailed point-by-point crash-book on a menial daily task, and not only could they not complete the task in a little over an hour, but they had many questions and needed clarification to the point where their manager just did it for them. Looking at that whole montage, there had to have been a bare minimum of 500% efficiency gains. That has insane ramifications on the profitability of her farm. Sadly, as a bit of fridge logic, I don't expect to see any continuity here in the show itself, so all it did was make AJ look particularly not-a-clever-pony for an episode.
It's just sort of all over the place in terms of focus and narrative weight. Rarity gets the stakes and the narrative importance, but not the actual weight of the issue. Applejack gets the screentime, sure, but moreso to teach an Aesop about having a blind spot to one's own weaknesses rather than anything pertinent to her character arc. Even this week's episode, by comparison, does a better job of linking Fluttershy and Zephyr into a unified story.
4006511
Very well put. I absolutely agree. Both with you and Bookplayer.
4006406
I would have preferred that as well actually. Just them having to get it all done before Applejack and Rarity gets back would be hilarious to see, especially with how Twilight functions and the dynamic she shares with Spike.
It kind of also has parallels with my joke comment below, in reply to Present
4006268
The mundane details are always nice for adding depth to the world.
I feel like the recent seasons are slightly lacking in that regard.I don't agree. To me it was a very relevant episode. My fiance identifies with AJ and this episode really struck a chord with him, because he shares the kinds of problems Applejack illustrates.
The stakes are similar to what they were in "Applebuck Season": AJ is driving herself crazy with work and in this case it's significantly damaging her friendships. She has no time to spend with anypony.
We get to see Applejack as a problem-solver by nature, and insight into why she can't relax. The fact that the problem was ultimately solvable by process improvement isn't the real issue. The issue is Applejack allowing her overworking personality to drive a wedge between her and her friends, and the importance of confronting that, because time spent resting with friends is equally valuable to time spent working.
4006511
I agree with your thoughts on Rarity's emotional stakes as a way they could have done it, but I don't think it's in the text, unlike The Last Roundup which very clearly has the problem you describe.
I'm actually thrilled about that, because as I said, the way it was addressed was OOC, and it would suck to have a point of continuity rest on something OOC, legitimizing the character aspect.
Thankfully, the writers were just bad and this can go in the black hole where we keep Spike at Your Service.
4006534
I'm... not sure where I said it wasn't relevant?
If you mean the emotional stakes thing, that, like 4006511's idea, would have been a fine direction to take it, but they forgot to put it in the episode they wrote.
If you mean the OOC thing, I addressed the distinction I was talking about that would have made the same message fine for AJ, I thought?
Edit: The episode would have had to have been structured differently if that was the stakes, because that wasn't actually resolved-- AJ still spent her time at the spa "working," and while she now has more time there's no indication she sees any problem with how she acted at the spa the first time.
It would have been a better episode, though.
4005902 I fully expect for Scootaloo to have Sudden Parent Syndrome someday when they need to use her parents in an episode, much as I expect the same for Rainbow Dash, who is the only 'Word of God' unparented member of the M6.
"Yeah, I don't mention my parents very often because they're so bore-ring. I mean my dad does something called 'Explosive Ordinance Disposal' and mom wrestles tigers. So totally not-cool."
4006318
I honestly considered that before remembering compost heaps don't have mortality rates.
hrmm, excellent critique, I hadn't considered a lot of this.
it appears to be a S1-style slice of life episode, but looking at your first point, it's easy to see how S1 pulled this off better
Green is Not Your Color: Rarity's upset at Fluttershy missing her regular spa meetings.... because Fluttershy is "enjoying" the success Rarity wanted. it represents the bigger problem going on. also, opening scene establishes why the spa meetings are important to their friendship.
Look Before You Sleep: having a sleepover at Twilight's is very low stakes. but AJ and Rarity aren't just neglecting the sleepover, they're actively ruining it with their bickering. the sleepover represents the bigger problem that these two can't tolerate their differences.
(unless Rarity and AJ are secretly dating, there is no bigger problem in Applejack's Day Off. it's just an "oops, sorry" petty conflict. is it really a big deal to Rarity?)
the entire spa sequence in this episode was still pretty funny, and the episode could've continued that train of thought. I could see it working as another AJ/Rarity episode where they learn from each other's viewpoints. but the sequence on the farm has nothing to do with Rarity. I can see Twilight as the type who simplifies a routine through the scientific process (even though in the show, she's more often shown overcomplicating things with her OCD), but Rarity just seems to be there to point out the irony of the situation.
in summary, we have half an AJ-Rare story, half an AJ-Twi story, put them together and it SHOULD be an AJ episode because she's the common element, right?
but as you pointed out, the inconsistency makes it feel even LESS like an AJ episode than either of the two halves would on their own. probably because AJ isn't the central focus of either half.
despite all that, uh.... I'm still a little positive towards the episode because it did have its charming moments
it didn't manage to offend me with its flaws like it did for you. I have other episodes for that...
finally, someone who understands!
I've been pretty much disappointed in AJ episodes since season four. They keep trying to find ways to make "farm work ethic" fun instead of engaging and after a few gags they shoehorn a bunch of filler and it waters down the episode. They clearly don't really know what to do with her anymore and it makes her less appealing as a character to others.
They have been sticking AJ with Rarity together a lot and they probably think it's supposed to make her character more appealing? I don't know.
4006640
To be fair, they struggled before S4 too. S4 really set the bar high for AJ. And Hearthbreakers and The Mane Attraction weren't bad, just not up to S4.
And they think AJ and Rarity will automatically be funny together. While this has been true in the past, recently they seem to forget they need to write jokes.
Applejack's "Day" Off was a comedy episode without the comedy. It was written as a comedy episode, but wasn't actually funny. That's usually a death knell for an episode, and it was.
It was a bad episode. Though I still think Made in Manehattan was worse, simply because while this story was tepid all the way through and never good at all, Made in Manehattan had that play at the end of the episode that was just... there. And boring. And was like, five minutes long?
I don't know what they were thinking. You've got like 21 minutes and you spend a quarter of the episode on something like that?
Bats! was a bad episode (and occupies my third worst slot now - thanks, seasons 5 and 6, that was not supposed to be a challenge), but at least something happened in it. That episode was bad in... oh, all sorts of ways, and was bad in a very central way, but there was at least some stuff there.
4005891
The main reason this is bad is when it contradicts previous characterization or is something which would have logically come up before.
Shining Armor was frustrating because A) there was ample opportunity to mention him and B) Twilight made a big deal out of him being her first friend of sorts, which contradicted her characterization from the start of the series as being an isolated, friendless nerd who didn't see the point of interacting with other ponies beyond what was necessary.
Zephyr is the sort of brother who could easily show up and not have been mentioned before because... seriously, would you mention your NEET brother all the time? Fluttershy seems more the type to avoid mentioning him, and feeling kind of bad when she ended up ranting about him because she was just so... peeved. He wasn't really important to Fluttershy's characterization, so he never came up before.
4006107
Applejack raises pigs to be eaten. We've already seen a ham sandwich.
mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-2961368-2-applejackhamsandwich.jpg
Besides, the griffons gotta get their food from somewhere, right? Because they sure don't know how to bake.
I think one potentially useful metric for looking at an episode is just to summarize its plot.
Applejack has been missing her spa dates with Rarity.
Twilight offers to do Applejack's chores so she can spend time with Rarity.
At the spa, there's a long line to get into the steam room.
Applejack realizes that the line is because the pipes are leaky, and the steam is used for both the warm towels and the steam room, resulting in the steam room not getting any steam at all thanks to the leak.
Applejack fixes the leak.
They are out of time, so they go back to the farm.
Applejack does her chore inefficiently.
Twilight and Rarity point out that Applejack does her chores very inefficiently.
They do her chores more efficiently.
THE END.
Nothing really happened there, and there was no real... anything here. No central conflict. There was, I suppose, a vague theme at best.
Made in Manehattan has a similar problem:
Applejack and Rarity go to Manehattan to solve a friendship problem. Twilight does not.
They spend some time trying to find the problem.
They realize that they are supposed to help Coco put on a play.
They look for help and no one volunteers.
They decide to do it themselves.
Applejack tries to clean up the park by herself but it is too big.
They build a stage on the edge of the park instead.
There's a very long, boring play.
People say "Oh, yeah, we'll help next time."
THE END.
Both are just... very straightforward, spend a lot of time on nothing of value, and are just kind of dull and don't really have any central... much of anything, really. Both have An Aesop, but they're just kind of a series of things that happen.
I mean, I could summarize both in a pretty short paragraph:
Rarity and Twilight manage to make Applejack take an afternoon off to go to the spa. While at the spa, Applejack spends all her time fixing a problem there instead of relaxing because the spa kept putting off basic maintenance. Returning home, Twilight and Rarity point out that Applejack does her chores inefficiently. They do her chores more efficiently.
Applejack and Rarity go to Manehattan to help Coco Pommel put on a play. They try to get other volunteers, but fail, and so have to do it all themselves. They do. The play happens, and other ponies offer to help next year.
These are both pretty freaking boring. There isn't even the implication of something interesting going on in either of them.
4006791
I totally agree with everything you're saying, I just want to say how amused I am by the vitrol you feel for that play. I mean, I agree, it's awful, but you really hate that thing.
4006809
HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE THAT PLAY SINCE I WATCHED THAT EPISODE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR THAT PLAY AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. HATE. HATE.
4006662
Yeah. I had hope for The Last Roundup, but when the spotlight was stolen at the beginning of the episode, I still had a little hope that they would rectify their writing. Too much to hope for, apparently. AJ does shine well in episodes that don't spotlight her, but her siblings and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Pretty much since the beginning of my entrance to the fandom, I've settled for fanfiction interpretations of AJ, but that's really falling by the wayside now. I can't even bring myself to watch any episodes this season. I just go to the reviews to find episode summaries. The show seems to be really trying to make all of the newer main characters unicorns/alicorns(just explain everything away with plot magic) and I find it a bit disturbing and lazy.
4006721
Maybe I'll just make my own blogpost... *sigh* I probably will. There goes my evening.
I super want to discuss Zephyr, but this is technically the Applejack's "Day" Off thread and I don't want to derail
4006791
Oh, I have no issue with the Aesop. Aside from bookplayer's point about it being OOC for Applejack to overcomplicate instead of oversimplify (and I agree), and aside from the presentation being terribly muddied, it's a valid lesson.
If you've had a moment where an editor pointed out a mistake in your fic, and you're like "every time I edit for others, I point out this mistake all the time. I'm so embarrassed I made it myself!" then you can relate to this message.
The text does support this, since AJ lampshades it directly:
Poorly paced, framed, and characterized, but I was still able to see the intent fine.
4006891
I don't think it's fair to say that Leap of Faith or Hearthbreakers spotlight AJ's siblings any more than Newbie Dash spotlights the Wonderbolts or Amending Fences spotlights Twilight's friends... Those characters are there, and important to the central character's plot, but they are supporting characters.
AJ does do well with family centered stories, which makes sense because it's what's most important to her.
I mean, that's true in the sense of Starlight, but in terms of important supporting characters, we've gotten Sunburst, Flurry Heart and Trixie, sure, but we've also had more from Coco and Maud and the Wonderbolts, plus Ember, Plaid Stripes, and that kid Apple Bloom made friends with. Not to mention Zephyr Breeze.
4007050
Derail away if you want. Or blog, either way.
4007100
I wasn't talking about reoccuring, background characters as much as Starlight and Co(I include Trixie here because she could have easily been Twi's "student" instead of Starlight). I doubt Zephyr will fit in past filler for future Fluttershy episodes. I wouldn't include Coco Pommel as a significant character this season; she was just a convenient excuse for AJ and Rarity to visit Manehattan. Ember might put in another appearance, but they don't do Spike episodes much and them being dragons; well, I was speaking speaking mostly of ponies, not other distinct species.
I don't recognize the others, but I have stated before: I haven't actually watched the episodes this season. I'm mostly getting inference and making assumptions based on what others choose to talk about what happened in the episodes this season.
I wasn't talking about Leap of Faith(That's more of GS, not of Apple siblings) or Hearthbreakers(Holiday episode featuring Apple and Pie families. I mentioned Apple siblings specifically for a reason) I was mostly talking about Somepony To Watch Over Me. That, I think, was one of the best(I liked The Mane Attraction, but it wasn't exceptional) AJ episodes. She wan't the main focus, but she had a prominent part in it.
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I wasn't saying that they didn't have a lesson, or that the lesson wasn't correct. It was that both episodes were a series of things that happened rather than a story. One problem with Applejack's lesson in Applejack's Day Off, for instance, was that what she fixed at the spa (the steam leak) didn't connect with her own mistake (she fixed all her problems and then kept doing the same thing over and over again anyway). Had the link between the problems been more strongly linked (for instance, bookplayer's idea that Applejack kept putting off fixing things because she was busy, but it was eating up her day with the workarounds) it would have hung together better as a story, because she was doing the exact same thing that the spa was doing, but because she was too close to herself, she didn't recognize it. That would have delivered the lesson more strongly.
That said, I would argue that the episode was intrinsically flawed in that it was just not very interesting to begin with. It isn't that the lesson isn't a good one, it is that the episode itself was dull. Even if you fixed the thematic linking problem, it would still be a boring episode, because nothing happened. It wasn't interesting or exciting or even particularly funny.
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Yes?
I think what frustrates me the most of about this episode is my wanting to see its lesson done correctly and coherently. I can't count the number of times I've seen a bunch of highly intelligent people collectively have the IQ of a bicycle just because they've institutionalized a few practices and ideas that any outsider would call idiotic. Through my last job, I went to a seminar run by a couple people who basically went around the company fixing those sorts of situations, oftentimes saving whole projects and divisions from imploding.
There were two things that really jumped out at me for this episode. One was that Applejack was "the smart one" in the first half of the episode, then "the not-smart one" in the second half. At that point, it felt like two disjointed stories, which was just odd to me. I would have either made the spa part the whole story, or made it just the first act and put more emphasis on the farm part. Either have Applejack represent the outside view that sees the real issue, or made her represent the inside view who can't see it. Having her be both confounds the moral.
Speaking of which! I honestly cannot believe they had the characters just outright state the moral. That was the whole point of doing the friendship letters--so that they didn't have to do that! Now that the friendship letters are gone, they needed to figure out a different way to explain the moral naturally. What they did... was not natural. At all.
Oh, good. I wasn't the only one who hated this episode.
4007560 Thanks. I'll delete it.
Sorry you don't get it. Let me try to spell it out to you. This episode is a lesson to the audience, one that could have been a little more direct, but having seen how far people will go to stupid and lazy, I think it does its part rather well. For the first half of the show, the audience needed to see how an over-complication comes into existence from avoiding what really needs to be done. Then in the last minute, the audience is shown how the same pony doesn't want to fix her own problems, and does the same thing. Now, you probably could see that, but the point is in the concept, not the specifics.
Applying this to something very AJ in the real world, have you every seen a redneck go batshit over their own utter refusal to learn anything about computers? I have, and its offensive, because the person in question threw a fit over trying to pay a bill over the phone because they didn't want to learn how to pay it online and they didn't want to actually get up and go deliver a check. There are a lot of nasty messages about personality here, but at its core the positive message is clear to me: actively fix your problems by learning; don't merely try to band-aid everything. There was simply not enough time in the episode to build an elaborate explanation for AJ's screwups; it needed to be made painfully obvious to wrap up the episode.
On the surface, I can agree that it could have been done better, but for the ones who needed this particular lesson, chances are, in the future, they are going to see how their own complications are reflected in this episode, and come to see how the solution for the episode is the same in their own lives.
The one thing that royally pisses me off about this episode is that the tard who wrote it tried to show Rainbow Dash enjoying ponies touching her feet when it was made almost violently apparent long before this season that she will not allow that to happen. This calls for twenty lashes.
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This is factually incorrect, because AJ fixed her problems.
So... the positive message "actively fix your problems by learning; don't merely try to band-aid everything." kind of doesn't apply here. The problems were fixed, actively, before the episode started. You're letting your prejudices get in the way of seeing the episode they actually wrote.
The actual message was to get another set of eyes because you can get into bad habits without realizing it.
And the episode had a fine moral, and could have been done better in multiple ways, if, as I suggested, AJ hadn't actually fixed her problem:
But an episode having a good moral doesn't matter if the episode itself sucks. I'm a mom, I see awful kids shows with good morals all the time and I don't watch them (and therefore my daughter doesn't watch them.) In fact, we'll probably be skipping this episode when it comes on Netflix, just because I don't want to watch it again.
If you write a bad story with a good moral, no one will care about your moral because they'll be paying attention how bad the story is.
My biggest problem with Applejack's Day Off was the episode was so forgettable. By time Flutter Brutter came out, I had forgotten about AJ's Day Off. Until I read your review. Not my least favorite, I can't even be mad about it, because it's so forgettable and bland. Newbie Dash I could be mad about and A Hearth's Warming Tail I could rave about the awesome songs. This one... meh. And that's, undoubtedly, the worst sin an episode or movie or book could commit: failing to provoke any thought or emotion. You've clearly put more thought into this episode than the people who wrote it.
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Additionally to what bookplayer said...
Ehhh... nah. I know that pacing is one of this show's most frequent weaknesses, and I know that they've really pushed how much they can stuff into 22 minutes without turning the episode into an incomprehensible rush. But AJ's "Day" Off doesn't get a pass from me in terms of pacing. If they wanted to have spent more time introducing a more natural problem for AJ, they absolutely could have. This episode was super casually paced a la Season 1, and honestly felt a bit padded at points (the meandering establishing shots as AJ traced the pipes from the steam room to the laundry room comes to mind.) If they wanted to spend time establishing a realistic problem for AJ to notice, reconcile, and overcome on the farm, they would have caught this at the scriptwriting phase of production. This choice seems deliberate on DHX's part... for better or worse.
I dunno, I just figured that spa days were really, really important. A Female Mystery. You know, like the Male Mystery of sitting in a deer blind until
you run out of beerthe topless clubs openyou can enact the ancient blood-ritual of brining sustenance home for your mate and young.Or something, anyway.