Mariusioannesp Speculates Wildly: Season 7 Premiere Teaser, Trailer, and More!

All aboard the speculation train! Woo woo!

Greetings my Brony Brethren!

I have returned yet again much sooner than I expected because our friendly friends at Equestria Daily have released a teaster and a trailer as well as other stuff for Season 7 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic! I thought I’d take a break before MLP started up again, but I just had to talk about this because it already looks like some of my predictions have already come true!

First off, let’s take a look at the official summary for MLP’s Season 7 premiere provided by Equestria Daily from Hasbro’s official presser.

"In the back-to-back premiere episodes titled “Celestial Advice” and “All Bottled Up,” Twilight Sparkle agonizes over Starlight Glimmer’s future and receives some much-needed advice from her very own mentor – Princess Celestia. While the Mane 6 are on a friendship retreat, Starlight Glimmer loses Twilight Sparkle’s friendship map. Afraid her anger might get out of control, Starlight Glimmer casts a calming spell while the ponies search for the lost map."

In an unprecedented and radical departure, instead of a two-part episode, the Season 7 premiere will consist to two independent episodes aired back to back. It think that’s what Littlest Pet Shop used to do. At least for the premieres of Seasons 2 and 4. Anyway, to a certain extent, this is the MLP writing staff waving a white flag of surrender and admitting that they can no longer pull of an epic, two-part season premiere. That is kind of disappointing to see, but it does have the benefit of lowering expectations. MLP has been shining most in its regular episodes within the season. Starting off the season itself with two episodes like that is a good move. It’s certainly better than yet another lackluster two-part premiere. Either way, these episodes still appear to be connected in a way. From the synopsis and the fact that these two episodes appear on a Shout Factory DVD dedicated to Starlight Glimmer episodes, Starlight Glimmer will be at the center of both these episodes. Despite accepting this as good development, I still hope the season finale is still a two-part epic. If they go this route with the finale as well, perhaps it’s because they feel there's enough epicness in the MLP movie to equal an epic two-part season premiere and finale. That’s great for the movie, but I don’t know how that makes me feel about Season 7.

Now, let’s take a look at a teaser that has been released for the Season 7 premiere.

In just this one clip, four of the thirteen predictions I made were proven true. The season hasn’t even started, and I’m already on a roll! I was even right about Discord being back even though John de Lancie himself wasn’t even sure he’d be in it. Well next time around, I won’t be predicting if Discord will be in Season 8. John de Lancie revealed not too long ago that he was just asked to record for Season 8. So now we already know he’s going to be in Season 8 too.

As for what’s going on in this clip, I imagine it’s from the episode titled “Celestial Advice” as we see Twilight Sparkle has rendered a decision as to Starlight’s future. As per the synopsis, the problem at the heart of “Celestial Advice” is Twilight agonizing over Starlight’s future. I predicted that Starlight might complete her tutelage under Twilight this season, but given the unsure look on Starlight’s face, it seems she might disagree with Twilight’s assessment. The fact that the second episode also revolves around Starlight probably means we haven’t seen the last of Starlight quite yet. It’s also interesting that in the background of this scene, we see Starlight’s friends from Our Town as well as Sunburst. I kind of thought Sunburst was a bit underutilized last season. It might be cool to see more of him. Also, you can clearly see Starlight, Trixie, Thorax, and Discord have medals around their necks. I imagine they got those for their actions in “To Where and Back Again.” Thorax also still refers to himself as a Changeling when he suggests throwing a “Changeling Gorefest” for Starlight. I wonder what that could possibly be. There has been some speculation that these new Changelings might get a different name. Perhaps Thorax hasn’t quite settled on one yet.

Moving on, let’s look at that second trailer we got.

It seems that Season 7 will indeed premiere on April 15th! Well, as The Rev. Sir Dr. Stephen T. Mos Def Colbert, D.F.A. used to say…

I speculated that the premiere was that day in my draft of my speculation blog before it first appeared on Zap2It. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

That makes it a total of five of my thirteen predictions that have been proven true so far.

As for what’s going on in this clip, we see Starlight and Sunburst messing around with magical circles and opening a portal. Could this have something to do with that Cutie Map getting lost in “All Bottled Up”. I’m not sure. You can kind of see Celestia and Twilight in the background so this could also be from “Celestial Advice”. But Celestia and Twilight are all gray and stuff. I’m not sure what that means. Guess we’ll just have to wait to find out for sure.

There’s also a few other tidbits that came from Hasbro’s presser that Equestria Daily felt needed to be highlighted.

"Rainbow Dash’s over-enthusiastic parents"

We all knew that we’d be seeing Rainbow Dash’s parents this season. Beyond their names, we’re not sure of anything else about them. Here, we get the hint that they’re “over-enthusiastic”. I wonder what that could possibly mean? I can’t wait to find out.

"Additionally, guest stars William Shatner (Star Trek) and Felicia Day (Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) join the cast for a very special episode in late summer."

You remember when I said that because MLP usually has one big name guest star each season, William Shatner would be the only one this season. Well apparently, I was wrong. William Shatner will be joined this season by Felicia Day. As noted above, Felicia Day did have recurring roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural. She also made a couple of appearances on Joss Whedon’s criminally short-lived series Dollhouse as well as starred in Whedon’s online musical short film Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. Mostly though, Felicia Day is known for her work online. She created and starred in the web series The Guild, the godfather of the modern web series. She also hosts the retro-gaming series Co-Optitude alongside her brother Ryon Day on the Youtube channel Geek and Sundry. (She’s also been known to make appearances on other Geek and Sundry shows like TableTop and Escape!.) She may not be a familiar name to a lot of people, but to me, she’s a pretty big get for MLP.

From this blurb from the presser, it appears that Mr. Shatner and Ms. Day shall be appearing in the same episode airing in late summer. Intriguingly, this episode is described specifically as a “very special episode.” You may be familiar with the trope of the Very Special Episode. It was fairly common in cartoons and sitcoms of the 80s and 90s. Those were episodes that dealt with a serious issue and tended to be more maudlin than the show in question usually was. Now let’s see here. We have a big name actor and actress guest starring in an MLP episode specifically labeled “a very special episode”, and we already know that Applejack’s parents are showing up. I think that can only mean one thing that I shall now add to my predictions.

William Shatner and Felicia Day are guest starring as Applejack’s parents Bright Mac and Pear Butter. The episode they’re appearing in shall deal with them being dead!

I’m really hoping I’m right about this. I mean, this is something Bronies have wanted to see from the beginning. Even Lauren Faust confirmed Applejack’s parents were dead, but never thought The Hub would let them do episode making that explicit. Well let’s hope Discovery Family will actually prove her wrong. How they end up executing this remains to be seen. They could bump up the rating for this episode to Y7. They could air a warning before it starts for the young and easily traumatized. Or they could end up airing this episode as a prime time special, when only older kids and Bronies are still awake. Only time will tell for now.

Whether these predictions are at all accurate or just the deranged and perverse fantasies of a clearly addled fanboy remains to be seen. I do have a pretty good track record, and my streak is already starting to pick up again. I’m really looking forward to the possibility of seeing that Applejack’s parents are dead. Is that weird? I don’t care. What do you all think of these further speculations of mine?

God bless you all. God bless America. And God bless Equestria.