My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 307 - Wonderbolts Academy

 

Rating:

Merriwether Williams only has vague surface-level ideas of the characters and goes off on tangents that are unlikely to be ex­plored

Even though I wrote this in the week before the debut of Wonderbolts Academy, it serves as a fairly accurate review despite not having watched the episode yet.  If M.A. Larson is on another level from the other writers, Merriwether Williams is on a completely different planet.  If it wasn’t clear earlier, Wonderbolts Academy confirms that Williams’ epi­sodes take place in a parallel universe to the actual show.  The characters may look the same but never act like it, while the plot progressions are strange without coming close to fitting in with the rest of the series.  I’m all for not fitting in, but Williams doesn’t have enough skill as a writer to pull what she wants to off.  Coming after the previous two episodes, it is es­pecially shocking to find a show full of clichés (“what are you saying?”) and standard plot developments (of course the most talented pony does something that almost kills everyone, leading to her demotion after the “good” Rainbow Dash won’t stand for it).  Even worse is the necessity of a B story, which is much more common in hour-long shows due to them being twice the length.  Fortunately most of the time is spent on the A story, which is unspectacular but at least watchable.  Williams is unable to find any great moments to rival the previous two episodes, and the story seems designed to be forgotten by the other writers.  While certainly far from the disaster of certain earlier Williams episodes (most of the time), Won­derbolts Academy doesn’t have much to offer My Little Pony’s third season.

The elite flying group the Wonderbolts have been featured a number of times on the series, as has Rain­bow Dash’s desire to join them.  Apparently this is not a lock to happen though, despite her being more talented than them (who saved the day in Sonic Rainboom again?).  How she would do so had yet to be explored, and it is interesting to see that the “Academy” is actually a combination of space and boot camp.  The week-long course will separate the best from the rest, but it’s unclear whether a “winner” will be added to the team or if everyone will just get a certificate.  Many of the Pegasi we saw in Hurricane Fluttershy are among the participants, including the ‘roid-raging pony Snowflake.  Dis­appointingly, he can actually fly after all despite the side effects of his drug abuse, although it is otherwise something of a delight to see him back.  All of the hopefuls are put through various training exercises designed to show their readiness, which makes up most of the framework for the plot.

Presumably Spitfire was chosen as the drill sergeant because she is the leader of the Wonderbolts (even though generals don’t run boot camp), although this necessitated an entire makeover of her character, including recasting the voice actor.  Such a development makes sense in Williams’ world, so this isn’t terrible assuming that the original Spitfire will return next time.  Some­one had to run the program, but if a new character was going to be created, then why not actually make a new character?  With all of the back­ground Wonderbolts who never get any screentime available, the bet­ter choice would have been to use one of them.  But Williams doesn’t make a lot of “better” decisions when it comes time for her to write an ep­isode.  Also questionable is having all of the ponies call Spitfire “ma’am”.  I was reminded of Star Trek, where in the future everyone is called “sir” no matter their gender.  We have yet to adopt that culturally, but this might have been a time for it due to the boot camp nature of the show.  It wasn’t going to happen and I can’t exactly fault Williams for making a wrong de­cision here, but a lot of the impact (found in Full Metal Jacket, for in­stance) was lost because of it.

Considering what we saw in Hurricane Fluttershy, it is little surprise that Rain­bow Dash is easily one of the best competitors.  But it wouldn’t make for much of a plot to have her dominate as she likely would, so why not have a new character that’s exactly like Rainbow Dash, but better?  Williams had little choice but to bring in a new pony for the role of Dash’s foil since only the great Fluttershy is capable of hanging with her (and obviously Fluttershy wouldn’t have applied to the program), but there isn’t much to Lightning Dust other than her being Dash’s evil twin.  Besides “push­ing herself harder”, they’re exactly the same character, and even look identical outside of the different coloration.  Usually the trope would go that the two would become bitter rivals, and while the competition is strong, they are also friends for a time.  This is a refreshing change, but doesn’t make for much more of a compelling dynamic.

Of course, the two are eventually paired up into a team, with Rainbow Dash being stuck as sous-chef.  Spitfire explains this decision elegantly enough, but Dash is still disappointed (especially considering her leadership skills in Hurricane Fluttershy are completely ignored).  Unsurprisingly, this leads Lightning Dust to abuse her power, which ultimately leads to a disaster that almost kills everyone.  Lightning Dust can’t really be faulted for not realizing how destructive a tornado could be, since they were portrayed as a good thing and a necessary part of society in Hurricane Fluttershy.  Clearly she was not privy to the knowledge of what those tornados were ac­tually used for, but operating under the assumption that they’re tools for helping the weather.

Running parallel to all of this is the B plot, which consists of the other mane six members dealing with Rainbow Dash not being around.  They have little trouble surviving a specific voice actor being given the episode off, but are now unable to function when a pony who doesn’t live in their town goes away to a day camp.  This is mostly true of just Pinkie Pie, who spends the entire episode having irrational fears that most mothers don’t.  Wil­liams’ version of Pinkie Pie is a bad reminder of the terrible episodes fea­turing her from previous seasons, where she’s only annoying without be­ing fun or interesting.  This time, she’s also dumb as a rock.  Confusing e-mail with regular mail, Pinkie Pie spends a section of the episode opening and closing a mailbox, hoping for a letter from Rainbow Dash on how the academy is.  Maybe the postal service is different in Canada, but in the US delivery only happens once a day at around a specific time (usually within a couple hours of lunchtime).  No letter sent is going to be delivered any sooner than the next day, and you certainly have no idea when a specific letter is going to come even if you know when it was sent (there’s always the possibility for it to get lost in the week-long hole for un­specified reasons, or stolen by a nefarious postal employee).  I guess we’re supposed to laugh at how dumb Pinkie is for thinking a letter Dash will never write could come at any moment.  It’s also extremely unlikely that the mane six would be picnicking on the exact day her letter was going to come, unless they were doing that multiple days in a row (which is possible because none of them work or anything).  Even ignoring how il­logical these scenes are, they contribute nothing positive to the episode.  All of them are extremely annoying and painful, and are clearly filler for a story that can’t even take up 20 minutes.  While the rest of the episode isn’t exactly spectacular, this B plot features some of the worst scenes ever aired in the series.  At least they’re forgettable and don’t affect the plot much (until the end), but it would have been better to just leave the mane six out instead of forcing them all in where they don’t belong.

So Lightning Dust’s tornado coincides with the mane six taking a balloon to visit Dash in the middle of her training, which causes the basket straps to snap and send them all plummeting to their doom.  Fortunately Rainbow Dash specializes in this exact situation, so she hastily whips up a cloud pillow to catch them before the kids are taught a nasty lesson about gravity.  This near death situation actually freaks Rainbow Dash out for once, causing her to announce her resignation from the academy rather than being party to the “get ahead at any cost” tactics the Wonderbolts have been espousing.  But we can’t have a downer ending to a children’s show, so Lightning Dust is stripped of her command with Dash being reinstated.  Presumably, she goes on to get that certificate after all, which will look better on her résumé.

The lesson Wonderbolts Academy deals with questions the limits of going too far (or ends justifying means), but like in Fall Weather Friends, this is mis­represented vis-à-vis reality.  Clearly needlessly fucking with the other academy participants and almost killing five innocent ponies simply to show off was not a good decision, but society actually rewards stepping on little people as opposed to punishing it.  The best sports stars probably cheated at some point (certainly in recent history), and if most successful people didn’t step on someone to get to the top, they at least depend on them to sustain their livelihoods.  It’s more likely that Lightning Dust would have been punished, not because of doing the wrong thing in taking an unnecessary risk, but because it would be bad PR for the Wonderbolts if five ponies died thanks to something she did.  The result at the end still would have happened, but not for the reasons the show portrays.

While I do keep an open mind regarding the writer of each installment, it’s quite obvious by now that Williams’ combination of eccentricity, stereotypes, and clichés are not a good fit for the series.  She writes like she’s never watched an episode of the show, and has yet to make a positive contribu­tion.  Her best episode (Hearth’s Warming Eve) mostly features characters not on the show at all (as portrayed by the mane six), while her worst (The Mysterious Mare Do Well, Dragon Quest) are just plain offensive.  Even her decent episodes completely contradict the show’s history, which I sup­pose is better than being forgettable.  Yes, My Little Pony is the result of the work of many people, and even though the writer is a small part overall, their importance cannot be understated or diminished.  For most series, I don’t pay attention to the writer because the tone is usually much more consistent.  This changed with My Little Pony when I noticed that all of my favorite episodes were written by the same guy.  It’s very poss­ible to sense the voice of every writer for each episode, and their vari­ous talents have made for a huge difference in episode quality.  You can pre­tend it’s otherwise, but writing does matter.

One wonders if Williams was partly punished with this episode premise after the incredible amount of Dash hate from the second season.  It’s to her credit that she kept Dash as a likable character, but she otherwise didn’t produce a compelling outing.  Instead of a hateful prankster (besides the teaser), Dash was a clichéd worrier who wasn’t sure about the questionable ethics of doing whatever it takes to get ahead.  The only “new” character was a clone of Dash, while Spitfire was so different that she was more new than a character we haven’t seen before.  The plot is a rehash (the Star Trek: TNG episode 519 – The First Duty is about the aftermath of a disaster by an elite flying squadron at Starfleet Academy who needlessly showed off.  The leader doesn’t see the big deal, while former crewman Wesley Crusher is nerv­ous about the ethics and eventually does the “right thing”), the char­acterization is terrible, and it’s never even clear how serious this academy ac­tually is (are they competing for a job or just training?).  I must be in a gen­erous mood to give the episode as high a rating as I do, but it is some­what pleasant to watch despite its badness.

Even if Wonderbolts Academy is in the top end of the Williams canon, it’s clear she shouldn’t be writing for the show.  Unfortunately, Williams continues to be part of the writing staff through the fourth season, which is not to any­one’s benefit.  Even if you enjoy her episodes, Williams is writing for a com­pletely different show in rather poor fashion.  Wonderbolts Academy offers no hope of any future improvement.  This doesn’t necessarily mean Williams should stop being a writer, but she has no place in this series.