My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 603 - The Gift Of The Maud Pie

Rating:

This is an episode review and now I’m going to tell you what I thought.  It's going to be better than the review you were going to write, or whatever you were thinking about saying.  As a fandom, when do we draw the line and say this level of quality isn’t acceptable?  Judging from many early returns, that time is never, and I’d better get used most bronies never caring about quality as long as colorful creatures are doing questionably funny and definitely non-offensive things.  Like many new writers before them (Dusedau, Confalone, Williams), Michael J. P. Fox (bet he hasn’t heard that joke before) and his brother show only a cursory knowledge of the characters and probably hadn’t watched an episode before.  Rarity is scouting locations for her eventual second shop in Manehattan (something which should probably be much harder), and for some reason this coincides with Pinkie’s planned “vacation” day with Maud.  They exchange gifts “every year”, and Pinkie really wants to give her sister a rock pouch for Boulder.  Yep, that’s it for plot, but Mike and Wil (Wheaton, bet he actually hasn’t heard that one) don’t give us much for character moments or insight either.  Their script is unusually high in exposition and retcons, as they literally spell everything out (including the final lesson).  Few others can match their apparent mantra of “tell, not show”.  Maud does receive her first extended concentration since being introduced during season four, and is generally in top form despite everything else.  While having some Pinkie-like abilities seems fun, this also debatably weakens her character slightly.  Despite doing what she can, there was no saving the episode’s poor quality.  Fox and Fox’s dialogue is so exposition heavy that the few ostensibly creative moments (like how Rarity and Pinkie find asides with Maud right there) are undermined, lose believability, and feel like trying too hard.  With awful dialogue, weak characterization (outside of Maud, who apparently can’t be poorly written), and a lesson borrowed from O. Henry’s short story which inspired the episode name, The Gift never reaches satisfactory quality.  My Little Pony’s brother tandem don’t prove themselves as worthy additions, since writing a successful episode seems beyond their limited abilities.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 522 - What About Discord?

 

Rating:

Oh god wh…wait I used that one already.  What About Discord? actually starts from a very decent premise about friendship but becomes an utterly painful mess.  Instead of seriously exploring this issue, Neal Dusedau makes his second episode one big in-joke that couldn’t possibly be funny for anyone.  Twilight gets a raging boner for reorganizing her books (again, as Spike points out) over some “long” weekend, but misses out on her friends partying with Discord.  Ever the scientist, Twilight tries recreating their meeting but unsurprisingly fails.  Because we need a twist though, Discord admits he planned the whole thing so he could teach Twilight that it’s okay to be jealous.  Then the mane six make Discord feel like shit too because fuck friendship.  Dusedau flirts with a decent moment for maybe one minute when Twilight admits she hurts despite feeling silly about doing so.  Unfortunately, everything else around this is handled very poorly.  None of the jokes are funny, but the mane six keep laughing while not even trying to sympathize with Twilight.  And Discord continues his cold streak by becoming a dreadful parody who ruins every episode he touches.  Obviously Dusedau wanted a Q Who aesthetic (where Q introduces humanity to the Borg, costing lives), but why Discord teaches this lesson now is never explained.  Instead, What About Discord? acts like a “bad friend” treatise.  We learn nothing about any character (Twilight was similarly confounded and pissed in Feeling Pinkie Keen) except that our ponies can suddenly find Discord hilarious if the plot demands it.  Too much of What About Discord? is painful and dumb to rate any higher despite a small sliver of positive.  Dusedau’s premise elaboration completely failed, and became yet another season five disappointment.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 523 - The Hooffields And McColts

 

Rating:

Why.  Why do we need a Ponyville adaptation of the Hatfield and McCoy feud?  The one where they were killing each other and anyone unlucky enough to be around them for decades.  Twilight and Fluttershy finish off the first mini map arc which everyone agrees was underwhelming in some fashion.  For me, Gilda’s surprisingly solid rehabilitation preceded two boring filler episodes where little of consequence happens.  Here, our leads must navigate an unnecessary battle between two Southern stereotype families whose solution is obviously apparent early on.  One family builds things well while the other grows crops, and each is terrible at the other’s skill.  The in-between parts find Twilight wondering why she can’t just ask them to stop fighting and Fluttershy trying to save every animal caught in the crossfire.  While somewhat less painful than season five’s worst episodes, Hooffields doesn’t do much right either.  Twilight (books) and Fluttershy (animals) are again nothing more than caricatures, and the new characters don’t distinguish themselves either.  Then Hooffields’ ending only occurs because animals have apparently squeaked their feud’s origin story down through many generations.  Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco’s third effort is easily their worst, since they couldn’t make anything from an admittedly terrible premise.  Warring factions won’t usually stop because of innocent casualties (lord knows this story’s real life inspirations certainly didn’t), and there really isn’t a lesson for the kids outside of praying for peace.  With silly betrayals and many head-shaking moments, Hooffields only marked time before the fifth season’s end.  There are far worse episodes, and Hooffields does technically complete an arc, but it still shouldn’t have been made.  Resources would be better spent on perfecting the few decent episodes rather than wasting time on such garbage.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 519 - The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows

 Rating:

So…what the hell was the point of this episode exactly?  Pinkie Pie learns early on that Cadance and Shining Armor are having a baby, but must keep this secret from Twilight and everyone else so as not to ruin the surprise.  And she does, after much comic “hilarity”.  Was this some sort of comment on social media, the press hounding royalty, or the prevalence of spoilers?  Nope, it was just an excuse to have Pinkie Pie make lots of weird faces and look like she has to piss.  Most of The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows is contrived filler which forces Pinkie to interact with ponies instead of just hiding in her room.  Some of the comedy bits work while others do not, but they can’t compensate for an oddly structured outing where practically nothing happens.  Why Pinkie has such difficulty keeping a boring secret is never addressed, nor does it have any meaning since she never tells anyone.  Considering this very subject was already addressed in Green Isn’t Your Color (with Pinkie as the warner), one wonders why she couldn’t follow her own advice.  G.M. Berrow’s overhyped script turned out to be a complete bust, although she was certainly hamstrung by an absolutely horrid premise.  Nothing could be done with a barely-there plot which apparently only existed for selling toys once the little hell-spawn is finally born early next season.  Not revealing the surprise immediately might have helped, but that’s doubtful since it would have become obvious at some point.  Pinkie Pie Knows needed to be much funnier or at least feature some iconic moments, but it ends up as another “annoying Pinkie Pie” episode which is only passably funny and not enjoyable.  Since the secret could have been tacked onto any other episode, Pinkie Pie Knows is a clear step backward and nothing other than filler.