A Hearth's Warming Tale Review · 5:11pm May 14th, 2016
A Christmas themed episode, in May? I've heard of Christmas in July, but never in May. It's not even fitting for a "Nightmare Before Christmas" kind of joke. Oh well.
A Christmas themed episode, in May? I've heard of Christmas in July, but never in May. It's not even fitting for a "Nightmare Before Christmas" kind of joke. Oh well.
So, we've got our Applejack episode of the season. Well, maybe now that Rarity and Rainbow Dash are wrapping up their character arcs and achieving their dreams, we'll finally get to see Applejack move away from just being a support character? Yeah, well that's not happening. Michael P. and Will Fox returned to write this episode, but guess who decided to "help" them, Neal Dusedau.
Now it's on to our first CMC episode of the new season, and much like how "Bloom and Gloom" set up the next phase for the CMC last season, this season sets up the phase for the CMC now that they've gotten their cutie marks. Keep in mind that they expressed their boredom in "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", so this isn't out of nowhere. The writer for this episode is one of the only veteran writers from Season 1 left on the show right now, Dave Polsky. Last season, he wrote
Yeah, it turns out that this is another episode with a title different from the one we were told about it. I'm not sure what's up with the name change, but regardless we're going back to Manehattan for our first Rarity solo episode of the season (remember, she shared "Gift of The Maud Pie" with Pinkie and Maud). Nick Confalone is back in the writer's seat, once again taking on new challenges with his first time writing Rarity. "No Second Prances" was a fairly solid episode from
I apologize for this review taking longer than it normally does to come out, but I had to go in to work at an earlier time than I've previously been scheduled for Saturdays where I do work. Hopefully, this won't be a problem in the future. Anyway, it's been a few months, but ponies are back with another season. This season premiere had a lot to work with, considering the bad taste Starlight Glimmer's reformation left in everyone's mouth at the end of Season 5. Could the
Let's talk about something happier, shall we? Like how a crapton of EQG shorts happened yesterday. Y'know, the day of the new season premiere. What were they thinking? Well, anyway, the last batch wasn't too bad, so let's see what else the queegees are up to.
Alternate alternate title: "The Blunder Down Under".
It's a shame "Blame Australia" doesn't have the same cadence as "Blame Canada" because goddammit fuck. I mean, it's nice that we can get into the hiatus after actually having watched half the season instead of 11/26ths of it, but aw who am I kidding, I haven't seen ponies in weeks and I've been loving it. <.<
Anyway, this episode wasn't worth seeing early.
Found a pitch corrected version on Daily Motion and watched it, just like with my last review if for some reason you're waiting on the official U.S. release suffice it to say:
We haven't had a group CMC episode where they were the focus characters since Season 6, though we did see them together in a supporting role in "Hard To Say Anything". But the writer for this episode is May Chan, who previously wrote the relatively medicore "Not Asking for Trouble" that was the last of the episodes to air early in Canada. So, was May Chan able to improve with her second outing, or just confirm that like Josh Hamilton, she's just not cut out for writing for the show? Well, let's
There's more than one way to be a nerd.
(Hey, if you don't wanna deal with leaked episodes yet, why not go watch me play Cuphead instead? :3)
So like, there was this thing last year? It was a bunch of EQG shorts, posted to Youtube (like, the official Hasbro Youtube channel), then taken down, then put up on an app or something, and you could choose the ending for each short from a selection of three. They ran about 2.5 minutes, maybe 6 total if you counted all the endings. I don't know if they're officially released or still in leak mode, but I watched them (or tried to, in one case) on the "Brony Master" channel, so who knows whether
Just when you thought Season 8 was finally gonna have some sembelence of normalcy now that all the leaks were done, the craziness comes back with a vengence! This episode was eighteenth in production order but for reasons unknown it has swapped places with the intended episode fourteen "A Matter of Principals" which will be airing early in Australia like "Discordant Harmony" and "The Perfect Pear" before it. This technically marks the end of the mid-season hiatus, and we've got our first new
It's official, Season 8 is the leakiest of all the seasons. Now we've got France dumping a ton of episodes in French all at once on us, and Sewden will be airing the finale early. At this point just keeping track of what airs when is going to be next to impossible, and it seems Hasbro is quite insistent on nuking any and all early uploads even though they're official airings from overseas (most likely it's because Discovery Family is still quite insistent on having their way). So of course it
I want to thank all of you for your outpourings of sympathy in response to my recent loss, they were a big help. I'm doing fine for now and I'm glad to know so many of you were willing to give sincere sympathies. Anyway, onto the episode proper, this episode had an already flimsy premise as it is with the idea that after all this time Spike's father would just show up. But the writer for this episode is Josh Haber, the same Haber who in Season 6 was the story editor for the season where Spike
So the student/young six are back for the first time since the end of Season 8. Considering how polarizing they were throughout all of last season, it's definitely a huge risk to bring them back for the first episode after the premiere of the final season. But hey, two of the all time best episodes of Season 8 focused directly on them, so maybe success is guaranteed? Well maybe that would be the case, if not for who the writer is, the infamous Nicole Dubac.
Well, this is the last of the early airing episodes for the time being, and it's also the end of the first half of the final season. Only thirteen episodes (and a special that's a sequel to the movie) to go. Of course, like with the past three episodes, if you're waiting for this episode to air in the U.S.
Well, unless the synopsis for the next several episodes get revealed soon, next weekend will mean that the upcoming early Chinese releases will be completely blind. We won't know what to expect until they've aired. Anyway, after a disaster of an episode last time, and a not too spectacular episode before it, Season 9's fate is looking bleak. But to get things back on track it looks like they brought in the big guns, Michael Vogel. Vogel's most recent writing endevor was "Best Gift Ever" an
...or Rarity Holmes: The Adorably Chic Private Detective.
This was a fun episode that I really enjoyed. It seems the writers are stepping up their game!
And Rarity was so adorable in this episode.
Spoilers!
So, we've got a Christmas themed episode for the second time in the show's history and it's not even Halloween. Wait, what?