Season 8, Episode 7: "Horse Play" · 10:19am Apr 29th, 2018
Hello and welcome to the Logan Disagrees With Ninety Percent of Fimfiction, Apparently Show! 
Because I really liked this episode, and remember I'm a big Celestia fan. Going into slightly more detail than usual for a blog mini-review, so I'll put it past a break. But my score is an unashamed ★★★★.
The cringe comedy aspect seems to be what's most divisive. This makes sense to me, because I also liked the impressions Rainbow did in "Newbie Dash", a scene that was outright loathed by quite a few people here. The weird thing is that, in live-action sitcoms, I usually find cringe comedy unappealing. (Fawlty Towers is an exception, but that's because it's a work of actual genius.) But here? No. I had a wonderful time. This episode is right up there with "Surf and/or Turf" in terms of how much fun I had, though nothing here quite hit me like Scootaloo's swimming scene. The one line I really didn't like was Pinkie's one about the fireworks, which was unbearably clunky and forced. Maybe also the Mane Six being a little unkind to Spike in pushing him out on stage like that. But the rest was plain ol' fun.
It does occasionally strike me as a bit odd that I feel this way. After all, when I'm writing well I tend to feel that characterisation of major canon characters is one of my better points. Yet I tend to enjoy episodes like this, even when half of Fimfiction is yelling blue murder about how various ponies were poorly written in such-and-such a scene. I mean, I wouldn't put this ahead of "A Royal Problem", but ahead of "Celestial Advice"? In terms of how much time I spent smiling, yes. This is the third episode in a row that I would happily rewatch just for the sake of having a good time.
The entirely unscientifically chosen eight-person sample of reviewers on UK of Equestria divides into: four including me really liked the episode, three liked it with significant reservations, one wasn't that keen. That about fits with my equally unscientific feeling regarding EqD commenter sentiment. I'm now intrigued as to what Text Review Roundup on E8 will reveal when I compile it in a few days' time.
I've seen a lot of positive reactions for this one, including my own. There is a bit of a fridge logic element in how many of the elements of acting Celestia would have to master after more than a millennium of politics, but at this point, I'm pretty sure it was a combination of nerves during rehearsal and seeing if Twilight would ever dare to admit the truth afterwards.
See, trixie’s back alley at midnight fireworks was one of my favorite lines of the episode. It’s perfectly pinkie and perfectly Trixie.
Eh, it was all right.
They're all just all right. :B
4849840
I quite like the interpretation I saw, I forget where, that Celestia is fine at acting when she doesn't even consciously realise she's acting. She's been doing diplomacy for so long that it's pretty much instinctual by now. Being in a play is not something she's done every day as Princess (or at all, apparently) and so she makes the fatal error of actually thinking about it.
4849852
My problem was that I felt "Why would untested magic fireworks that I bought in a back alley from Trixie at midnight be unsafe?" made Pinkie come across as thick. She's silly and strange and her logic is bizarre and often outright impossible, but she's not stupid. I can believe Trixie doing the selling, though.
4849856
Hey, if that now means you think "Surf and/or Turf" was all right, I'll take it. :P
4849863
Centipede Dilemma? Huh. That actually makes a bucketload of sense.
I don't think that The cringe comedy is as bad as people are saying it is. Anyway, good episode.
4849867
Thank you! That was the phrase I couldn't remember. I still can't recall whose blog it was mentioned on, though.
4849870
That was pretty much my feeling about "Newbie Dash", too.
4849876
"Newbie Dash" I thoroughly disliked, though "Top Bolt" and "Parental Glideance" made up for it.
4849863
I don't exactly mean it as a compliment, though...
4849885
Still better than outright saying you hate it, which is what you did last week. Well, maybe. :P
4849878
Of those three, undoubtedly my order of preference is PG, TB, ND. It's not even close. But I do still like ND to a moderate degree.
I had a good time watching this episode, and there are many inspired bits of characterization and funny lines – I loved Fluttershy's and Applejack's roles in particular. However, and this is a common thread with S8 so far, there is a fundamental laziness to the writing, a lack of attention to detail, which makes it hard for to elevate any episode this season so far beyond "perfectly okay"
4849856
4849958
You've put your finger on it, I think. Somewhere around S6, I stopped watching FiM in quite the same way I had up until S5. When, say, "Amending Fences" aired I was looking for much the same things I do when reading a fanfic, including writing quality. Now, I watch the show for Fun With Colourful Talking Ponies. In that sense, I've lowered my standards -- but I can't deny that it's worked. I feel happier and more relaxed when watching the show now, and that makes it a worthwhile trade-off. because fundamentally I watch the show to be happy. I wonder sometimes if I'd think differently if I'd been here from the very early days, rather than wandering in at the end of S2 when the show's original structure and vision were already beginning to be diluted (eg with Cadance).
There are, of course, things I will now let pass in a show episode that I'd still find irritating in a fic. Some were in this very episode. But that inconsistency is one that I know exists but that I'm going to let keep existing. After all, you find some much more interesting stories in ponyfic than they could ever show on screen!
Surprisingly, I actually liked the episode quite a bit better on the second viewing. That's probably because I loathe cringe comedy[1] and had an instant hate-on for the episode when it was clear that was going to be central to the story. A low two stars would have been my first rating.
I wouldn't have rewatched it, except my wife hadn't gotten the chance to see it in the morning, so we watched it together last night. Aaaaand... it wasn't so bad.
Because I was a professional actor for several years, I have no trouble believing that an experienced diplomat could be a terrible actor, which seems to stick in a lot of craws around here. That was never a downside for me.
The rest of the jokes were pretty good, and I appreciated the fireworks joke a lot more that you seem to have done. I mean, come on! Trixie stole a scene she wasn't even in!
So... a solid three stars from me on a rewatch and some reflection.
4849840
Lying (and the professional version, diplomacy) takes a very different skill set than acting. That may sound counter-intuitive, but take it from someone who made their living for a while as an actor and extra, the two things don't necessarily cross over.
4849958
Bingo. And this is part of why I (mostly) hate cringe comedy; it is easy to do badly and is usually a fill-in for actually creative comedy.
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[1] Fawlty Towers is a notable exception, which is easily explained when one realizes that it was written by persons possessed of high intelligence and wit, rather than by persons who can't string a couple of good gags together and go for the lowest-hanging of fruit; the usual sort that write cringe comedy.
4850113
Now I come to think of it, there is (almost) a real-world example: the short Yes, Minister sketch Margaret Thatcher wrote and starred in, back in 1984. She played... the Prime Minister. The only version I can find is in black and white, but after the first few seconds the picture and sound quality are tolerable. Thatcher's acting a little less so:
4850147
Wow! I'd never even heard about that!
Agreed. And am I the only one who's noticed that the scene in the night sky is one of the most beautifully composed in this entire show? I mean, wow.
4850442
Gosh, it is, isn't it? I don't think I fully appreciated that until I went back to
readrewatch just now.