My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 7 Episode 22: "Once Upon a Zeppelin" (SPOILERS) · 4:02pm Oct 7th, 2017
In which ZEPPELIN! (Also, Twilight Velvet and Night Light get speaking roles again!)
Velvet and Night Light win a family cruise on a zeppelin for their entire family. Twilight has too many princess duties (and towers of paperwork) and despairs not being able to go, but Spike insists she go and that he can take care of things in her stead. (No vacation for poor Spike. ;_;)
Ah, family togetherness. The entire Sparkle family is dorky!
Twi's parents get a little development: Night Light likes bingo and Twilight gets her OCD from him, while Vel loves adventure. Also, Shining Armor and Flurry are both airsick.
It turns out Iron Will is the cruise director. The "prize" is a setup so Iron Will can exploit Twilight and her family for profit.
(Iron Will should do better research if he's going to have the subjects of his exploitation ON THE CRUISE.)
Once the Sparkle family understands the situation, Twilight decides to take one for the team and make a deal with Iron Will: She'll bear the entire burden of the exploitation in exchange for her family getting to do what they want to do in peace.
Twilight runs herself nuts trying to please everypony and give her family a good vacation, and in the end, misses the one and only thing she was really looking forward to on the whole trip. ;_; That's the straw that breaks the camel's back; she snaps, goes off on an angry rant, and stomps on Star Tracker's hoof. Cadance tells Twilight that she needs to learn when to say when and how to balance being a princess with her own personal needs. Twilight apologizes to Star Tracker, and the entire family (plus Star Tracker) has ice cream together. When Iron Will tries to keep up the exploitation, Twilight lets the entire cruise know that they were cheated. Iron Will abandons ship, and the Sparkle family takes over the airship for the duration of the cruise--relaxing together as a family.
This was a fun episode. I'm giving it a 9.5/10, and I'll explain why: it gets points for character development for the Sparkle family and the surprise return of Iron Will, but it loses points for STILL not naming Velvet and Night Light on screen. The gains and losses balance out to a half point overall loss.
Other thoughts on this episode:
Twilight reacted pretty strongly to Iron Will considering she never knew anything about that whole mess except possibly whatever she heard second-hoof. Kinda reminds me of Chekov and Khan in Star Trek II.
Star Tracker is creepy. Velvet is NUTS.
So how DOES one deep-fry gems?
Well supposedly, Night Light is a name from the G1 toyline, though your guess is as good as mine as to why he and Twilight Velvet aren't being named on screen.
Huh, I didn't notice Velvet and Night Light weren't named on screen this episode until you pointed it out. Weird. It is too bad Spike chose to miss the vacation, but he has said in the past he doesn't mind being left out of big adventures so he can catch up on naps, this isn't that different.
Glad Twi's family finally got some much needed development. Iron Will seemed like a bit more of a jerk this time around, but I guess he was always a business man and was sure to cover the one flaw he had in his plan last time by stating no refunds.
Hello, airplanes? It's zeppelins, you win, bye.
I'm going to guess lava is involved.
One does have to wonder what Iron Will would've done if the parents hadn't signed those consent forms. Princess impersonators?
Also, adrenaline junkie Velvet is something I never knew I needed until now. And at least she and Night Light get properly named in the credits.
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Oh they did? Okies.
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Zeppelins are cooler though. Also, in this context, the zeppelin isn't used as a mode of transportation so much as a luxury cruise liner in the sky,which you have to admit is something airplanes aren't really built for.
Weren't named on screen, but their names were in the credits as Night Light and Twilight Velvet, which is more than Mr. and Mrs. Shy got, so I call that a win.
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It's also more than they themselves got in The Crystalling.
I wish the parents kept their voices from the first episode they spoke in. I mean they sounded like older versions of Shining and Twilight since they shared the same voices.
This does however have the benefit of increasing her MILF factor though.
YAY, ZEPPELINS!
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I doubt it would matter, he would have just come up with a different scheme. Gotta admit his plan was really well thought out. Even planned for a quick escape XD.
I found Star Tracker's earnest yet incredibly awkward attempts at bonding to be incredibly relatable, honestly.
Also, Spike got to be really cool for the brief time he was there, and Twilight explicitly refers to him as family for the first time, iirc. Yay.
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It has? Where?
I hope we will see more of Velvets antics
This was entertaining, though not all that great
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Check out the EqD post on the matter (one of today’s). There are links to the epis in the comments (the Mega link).
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Link please?
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I don’t think we’re allowed to link to leaked stuff on FimFic.
Just go to Equestria Daily, check for today’s post about the remaining episodes being leaked, and scroll through the comments. The Mega link I mentioned is posted several times, and I can confirm it includes epis. 22–26 in full HD. (Might have a hard time downloading them all, since Mega blocks free users who download too much too quickly, but still, they’re all there.)EDIT: Never mind, those comments have been deleted. However, I’ve just checked and the episodes are all up on Dailymotion; just search for the episode titles there and you’re set.4690664
Yeah, I just went on Daily Motion and found them. Finished episodes 23 and 24 and about to see the finale
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Goodie then.
With great difficulty.
Characterization-wise, it seems like they took a new direction with the parents in this episode compared to their brief appearance at the end of The Crystalling. Twilight Velvet is much more energectic, reminiscent of Windy Whistles (well, not quite to that degree), while before she was relatively calm and relaxed. Night Light seems a bit more casual, though that's probably owing to the occasion. I didn't mean his new voice, but I was disappointed that Tara Strong didn't reprise Velvet from the S6 premiere. I guess it would have been two much work for her to juggle two characters throughout the episode on a show where she recordes seperately from the rest of the cast. I'm not sure how I feel about Velvet's new voice. While it definitely fit her new persona, I couldn't help but feel that we already have a lot of other ponies with that kind of voice.