Season Eight Episode Reviews: Surf and/or Turf · 4:49pm Apr 21st, 2018
Many months ago, there was a drought of pony content. The Gods on Mount Hasbro toiled to create new episodes to please the masses, but as time continued to pass, the people grew weary and desperate. And then a thief managed to make off with the Gods' nascent creations, including several unfinished-but-finished episodes. And the people...mostly wrote this off as the actual crime it was, but those like me who have no ethics watched them anyway.
This is the first of such episodes.
Let us join the Cutie Mark Crusaders for “Surf And/Or Turf.”
TECHNICAL SPECS:
Season: 8
Episode: 6
Written By: Brian Hohlfeld
First Aired: April 21, 2018
SUMMARY:
The Map has decided to add the CMC to its stable of heroes. This time, they're being dispatched to Mount Aris, the former/current home of the Hippogriffs, to solve a friendship problem. Since the events of the movie, hippogriff society has split, with some returning to the mountain to resettle, and others remaining as seaponies in Seaquestria. One young hippogriff/seapony finds himself split between both worlds, and the CMC must save the day...after making things infinitely worse first.
REVIEW:
I have to say, I'm actually kind of impressed with the effort Hasbro is putting into making sure we accept the movie as canon. It feels a lot less hamfisted here as well, with just a few exposition moments scattered throughout versus the season premiere's massive info dump at the start. And as flawed as the movie ultimately was, the hippogriff/seapony thing was actually pretty clever and I'm glad it made the jump to the actual series. Shame that cat guy had to die offscreen, but the Hasbro Gods must have their blood sacrifice and there weren't any robots to murder in horrific detail on-screen this time.
In the same vein, I like how not all of the seaponies immediately decided to switch back the minute their homeland was free. They've been underwater for quite a time, so it's only natural that some members would develop bonds and interests that compel them to remain underwater. Heck, the youngest generation has no memory of anything else, so saying Mount Aris is automatically their home feels a bit iffy.
This brings us to Terramar and his problem. A lot of the leak discussions framed the episode as an allegory for divorce or separation. If so, it's definitely of the G-rated, mutually amicable variety, since we see both parents getting along perfectly fine. There's no veiled threats or tension, no yelling or violence, and thankfully no using the kids as weapons against each other. They aren't even that far from each other – the solution even turns out to be that Terramar was thinking too hard about things and can freely live in both worlds. That said, we can see that both of his parents are very proud and very involved in their particular home, so that likely contributed to their son's frustration unintentionally.
The weakest point of the episode, unfortunately, is the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They're fine as comedic foils for the rather serious events going around them, and seeing them squee over their respective favorite lands is awesome. However, in yet another example of a trend this season, they proceed to make everything worse while having little actual involvement in fixing things. In fact, it's Twilight who points out Terramar doesn't have to make a choice and her presence on the beach is what causes the two parents to reunite and lead to the picnic that fixes everything. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed their antics, and they got a pretty good song this time around. I just didn't care much for the forced break-up in the third act.
Twilight is also adorable, even as she's using her position as principal for a free vacation. Going with the issue with the CMC, however, is that she seems to take too much control over the lesson. Remember that this is the same pony who was adamant about all map quests being resolved by whoever the map called, to the point where she drove herself and Starlight nearly insane. But then again, Starlight taught her to disobey the rules. So she did. She's disobeying every rule she's made for herself. By the end of the season, she'll be shoving grumpy ponies into Friendship Re-Education Camps, and it will all be Starlight's fault.
CONCLUSION:
This episode was a fun one that lightly touches on a serious topic. I would have liked the heroes to be a bit more active in solving the problem and Twilight a bit less so, but that didn't get in the way of some funny gags, a good follow-up to the events of the movie, and even an enjoyable musical number. Definitely one of the best episodes so far this season.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must kill and devour a cow and a lobster.
Next time is a Celestia episode. This is my measured reaction:
Change it up a little, and we're back in S6. I think this is my issue with the more movie-related episodes so far this season. The movie wasn't that great, you guys. Stopping the episode so the characters can gush about it is just crass.
I'd maybe concede that it's "creative", but "clever" seems a bit of a stretch. It always just struck me as haphazardly smashing two races together on the slimest of pretences, that being that another name for Seaponies would be Hippocamus which sorta sounds like Hippogrif, without consideration for the fact that's only because the "hippo" in both names refers to their shared horse-like attributes. I don't hate the idea, but it still feel very random to me.
Otherwise though, yeah, the episode is weirdly unfocused mix bag. Like maybe they were going for a divorce metaphor, but if so its so vague as to go almost unnoticed. I mean heck, there's not even any real indication that the parents ever broke up at all, so much as their lives just took them in different directions, and in this day and age it's far from unheard of for two people to stay married even while pursuing cares that require them to live apart some or even most of the time. Besides, their homes are practically next-door for all intents and purposes.
Overall that really does just make the "problem" of the episode seem all the more making mountains out of mole hills. Like, Terramar says that every other hippogriff/seapony his age has already decided where to live, but there never really any indication that this is some sort of right of passage or that any decision has to be made at all. Heck the magic neckless they are where pretty much seem to be a statement to the contrary and that while some or even most might choose one life over the other, that the ability to go back and forth at will is considered of intrinsic importance.
Which unfortunately brings us back around to the CMC, who much like the Mane-Six all the way back in S1's Over A Barrel do more to exacerbate the problem then solve it, made all the worse by the fact that they were ostensibly called to intervene by "destiny" itself. At least we got Scootaloo's heartwarming comparison of swimming to flying and tying into her own shortcomings, so that's a plus, but we also got Sweetie Belle randomly hating everything about the water for little discernable reason other than some one had to be the foil. Apple Blooms sorta gets it worst of all though, since with Twilight around to be the voice of reason, she doesn't really have anything at all to contribute to the plot.
Still, for all it's short comings the episode is at least harmless and inoffensive. Although there is one complaint I can't shrug off, a complaint that ties into the rest of this season as whole. After hyping up the new school of friendship in both the pre-season trails and the season premier, it's really not been much of a driving factor since then, nor have any of the new characters introduced made even so much as a cameo, which seems especially inexcusable in this episode. I mean, not only does this episode take place in Silverstream's homeland, but Terramar is even explicitly her brother, so why she wasn't involved in this episode only seems all the more strange to me.
Honestly, one would think that the purpose of adding new characters to a moral driven show like MLP is so that they can be the ones to screw up and have to learn the lessons of the day, with older characters that have ostensibly already learned those lessons now acting as mentors/guides. Instead it just sorta feels like S6 all over again, and just like how poorly Starlight was underutilized back then, it leaves me begging the question why this show even bothered expanding the cast in the first place?
I did like the Scootaloo characterisation in this episode, particularly how swimming was so like flying to her that she didn't really want to give it up. A poignant look into the mind of someone with a severe physical disability, I think.
4844700
...You're alive?
*pokes with a stick* (J/K, btw)
This is an issue with FiM as a series: the show has a lot of trouble getting out of its comfort zone. Forget about Starlight - think all the way back to Twilight becoming a princess. It should have been an immediate change to the show's status quo, and yet for most of a season the most it got was lip service in the premiere. Instead, they tried to just use plots that would have been fine if Twilight was still a regular unicorn, but felt awkward once you've put royalty in there. Even after they started acknowledging she was a princess, it wasn't really until Season 5 that they started having her do actual princess things, and that was after the order was given to destroy the library. If Tirek hadn't pulled a Transformers: The Movie on that treehouse, they'd probably still have her in there pretending to be a unicorn.
Having seen the other leaked episodes, I will say the school looks a bit better overall than the other changes. The students are involved in a small way in the next episode, Spike's episode has a lengthy and important scene with one of said students, and several of the released episode guides mention the running of the school or the students being important. That said, the show also wants to still have its old episode plots to fall back on, even though making the characters into explicit mentors only exacerbates the problem. It's a shame, because you can see that they want to evolve and advance, but at the same time forces within the writing room or at the executive level keep pulling them back.
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Yeah, sorry if it seemed like I haven't been around lately. I have been keeping up with your seasonal reviews though, but I've also been getting most of my own episodic ranting out of my system in private chats with Grey, so I guess I've been forgetting to spread the love around.
I could always shoot you a couple retroactively if you like?
4844810
If you would like. Missed you, man.
Wait what?
4844700
This conflict was played entirely too safe. The idea of the parents choosing to separate was confirmed to me with the line "you look well," but this episode refused to lean into it. Maybe they weren't actually allowed to do so. But if that's the case, I'm now worried about how the supposed episode with Trixie's dad is going to function if the show is almost forbidden from even acknowledging non-nuclear families.