My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 520 - Hearthbreakers

Rating:

Hearthbreakers should have been a great episode.  The Apples are inexplicably invited to spend Hearth’s Warming Eve with Pinkie Pie’s family (apparently because of the tenuous and likely nonexistent connection explored in Pinkie Apple Pie), and we finally meet her sisters and parents.  There are still many fine moments (which will be enough for most people), but the episode is so poorly written by Nick Confalone that I can’t justify any higher rating.  Between the Pie family’s questionable characterization, Pinkie and Applejack speaking extended sentences in unison (…twice), average at best dialogue (why do Pinkie and her sisters call each other by their full names?), and a very obvious second act conflict, Hearthbreakers was severely hindered by its writing.  Not helping matters is the show counting as a sequel to Hearth’s Warming Eve (by fellow terrible writer Merriwether Williams), and Confalone wastes time summarizing this earlier effort when it’s otherwise completely irrelevant.  Realizing that every family celebrates the holidays slightly differently almost counts as thoughtful, but all of these traditions were invented just for the episode and aren’t mentioned elsewhere.  Because of this, an artificial sense pervades Hearthbreakers, which feels contrived and constructed instead of organic.  We should enjoy spending time with the Pie family, but only get glimpses of how cool Maud is, the depths Pinkie’s twin(!) sister Marble hides, and Pinkie’s experience growing up among family members with completely different personalities.  Confalone apparently never comprehended these missed opportunities, which makes Hearthbreakers a tantalizing tease that still needs improvement.  Even with some enjoyable parts, it doesn’t come close to being satisfying.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 623 - Where The Apple Lies

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After two awful outings, Dave Rapp tried but failed at the trifecta, which turned out good for us.  Where The Apple Lies is surprisingly watchable and easily his best season six episode, although it’s also not without faults.  The improvement comes from Rapp watching previous episodes and applying that knowledge, but his origin story remains debatably believable.  It details when young Applejack told a lie which spiraled out of control, which we wouldn’t expect from Ms. Honesty.  While obviously troperific, the characters are young and lively enough to provide some entertainment.  Despite mostly taking place before Apple Bloom’s birth, Applejack’s parents still do not appear nor are they ever mentioned, so I guess one day the stork brought her.  We also learn Big Mac was previously quite loquacious, but piped down solely from this one event.  Probably not.  Such inconsistencies hurt Apple Lies’ enjoyment, as does its unoriginal plot and Rapp ignoring times when lies are necessary.  Considering his distinct lack of writing style cachet, those aforementioned problems, and still more filler, the episode can’t be rated any higher despite it representing an improvement on the previous two.  Rapp’s mildly competent work still isn’t great upon any reflection though, and season six needed a lot more than what he produced.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 621 - Every Little Thing She Does

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I must be feeling quite charitable not to give such a dumb, dull, and misplaced episode two stars or worse.  Michael Vogel had some relative success in season six (story credit for Viva Las Pegasus, Stranger Than Fan Fiction script doctored by Josh Haber), but every decision he made here was poor.  Starlight has been shirking her friendship lessons (guess that explains her relatively few appearances), so she decides to do them all at once.  “Surprisingly”, it doesn’t go well.  Given Every Little Thing’s somewhat introductory nature into Starlight’s mane six friendships, many bronies understandably wondered why the episode wasn’t aired earlier.  Like, say, in place of that Christmas episode which aired in May.  As also happened in The Fault In Our Cutie Marks, Vogel assumed Starlight had a more productive season than she did, including many new alicorn-strength spells with Harry Potter-styled names (accelero, fiducia compelus, cogeria, persuadere).  So instead of her lesson, Starlight hypnotizes everyone while Twilight is conveniently away and nearly destroys the castle, an event which includes her exclaiming “this can’t get any worse”.  At least Vogel tries touching on how difficult making friends can be for those who don’t have many, but this doesn’t compensate for the slapstick, dumb movie quotes, and overall general tedium of an episode that goes nowhere and has little to say.  Unfortunately, the animators also did him no favors, using more strangely ugly faces for angry ponies and putting footprints above a door which no animal could reach.

How the hell did a bear get up there?  Typically for season six, Every Little Thing was another sloppy and uninteresting effort from the B-team who clearly weren’t capable of better work.  Maybe it doesn’t reach the pain levels of inferior episodes, but that might only be because you’re too bored to notice.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Season 6 Bottom 5

I will come right to the point.  Season six is the worst one yet aired by My Little Pony.  It unnecessarily answers the question of what season two would have been like minus M. A. Larson.  With him, Amy Keating Rogers, and Meghan McCarthy (thankfully) moving on, and Dave Polsky penning only one underwhelming episode, a noticeable dearth of writing talent existed which the other staff members could not overcome.  In every sense a “B-squad” season, newly anointed story editor Josh Haber dealt with some scripts apparently 5-6 years old, other hateful ones like those found in season two, and his own problematic season bookending two-parters which didn’t match McCarthy’s better efforts.  On top of that, he was tasked with integrating Starlight Glimmer into the main cast, but this also failed.  Early episodes and the season finale focused on her while excluding the mane six, but the in-between efforts found her mysteriously absent.  Some of Starlight’s “appearances” had zero lines, even when her voice actress was used elsewhere in that same episode, so these cameos didn’t really count either.  Haber and the other writers couldn’t justify Starlight’s inclusion on the show, but this was only one of many other notable disappointments.

My choice for the top spot and the lone episode to earn four stars (out of 24 possibilities) was Stranger Than Fan Fiction, which featured comedian Patton Oswalt as a know-it-all critical pony who Rainbow Dash meets and eventually befriends at a Daring Do fan convention.  This outing was not universally well-received, and didn’t pertain to the season’s main themes at all.  Other stronger efforts included the Parks & Recreation tribute The Saddle Row Review (detailing Rarity’s troubled grand opening of her boutique in Canterlot), and surprisingly the final two map episodes (Viva Las Pegasus and Top Bolt), which both featured atypically strong characterization.  Outside of the season-capping two-parters, that was it, as most of season six hovered around 2-3 stars.

Overall, season six was both unsure and unable to accomplish what it desired.  Many new characters were introduced on top of Starlight’s integration, although not all of them were effective or worthy of returning.  But even with several strong animation efforts and the voice cast’s usual solid work, season six was not close to the quality of previous years.  No other season failed to have at least three episodes earn four stars or higher from me (and that was the shortened season three), but season six only produced one such (admittedly debatable) effort.  As such, I am dispensing the top portion of this list since there were not enough qualifying good episodes.  That leaves only the bottom, and while there were not as many awful efforts as season two, an astounding 14 of the 24 reviews earned two-and-a-half stars or less.  This kind of quality is unacceptable, and it practically forces me to suspend my series reviews indefinitely.  Despite so many poor outings, only five stood out as the worst, and they are quite dreadful.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 614 - The Cart Before The Ponies

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Did I use “oh god” already?  Apparently My Little Pony’s creators pulled an old Ed Valentine script out of the trash (his previous episode aired over 2½ years earlier), but its moral is so obvious and heavy-handed that The Cart Before The Ponies feels like it was written before season one.  Cheerilee announces her class will be participating in the Pinewood Applewood Derby so they can learn about physics.  Nobody does unsurprisingly, as Valentine starts feverishly retconning from there.  Now three awards exist instead of one, the mane six totally did this event when they were young, and everyone dies in a horrific car accident at the end oh never mind, they’re fine.  Valentine’s premise concerns parents who live out failed dreams through their children, but should an episode dealing with this common problem really feel so painful?  Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash ignore their sisters’ (confusing) desires over which prize they want and just build and race the cars themselves.  With no rule stating otherwise, the Crusaders could have just switched partners and been fine, except they never thought about doing so.  Instead, we get the pictured disaster which everyone somehow walks away from unscathed, and a “do-over” that now doesn’t have time to finish.  Every event only occurs in service to Valentine’s moral, since he obviously doesn’t care about anything making sense.  The previously competitive Applejack (Fall Weather Friends, Sisterhooves Social) happily finishes dead last in a rickety buggy?  Sweetie Belle is fine being seen in one too?  Scootaloo has no competitive desire either, and thinks putting a chicken head on her car equals creativity?  And are we really supposed to believe Derpy beat Rarity for “most creative” all those years ago?  Valentine’s script is poorly paced and almost feels written for a completely different series.  None of his choices worked, and the episode rates among My Little Pony’s most difficult to watch.  Even with an important moral, The Cart Before The Ponies cannot be recommended.

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

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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?

 

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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

 

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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

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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.

My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 622 - P.P.O.V. (Pony Point Of View)

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Didn’t I just complain about the previous episode being dull and pointless?  P.P.O.V. (Ponies’ Pussies Or Vaginas) trots out another Rashomon-style story regarding the above three ponies’ unlikely boat trip, except there doesn’t end up being any point besides filler.  Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack all recount various conflicting versions of how their boat sank while Twilight and Spike figure out what really happened, but the conclusion is profoundly unsatisfying.  The Foxes return for an episode that looks decent and has some fun with each story and their unspoken similar details, although it falls apart upon any reflection.  Wow is that teaser exposition convoluted, and did they really walk to shore after being capsized by a freaking sea monster?  Like Michael Vogel immediately preceding, the Foxes cannot justify why their episode even exists.  The story setup and actual events were more interesting, but instead we hear Rarity et al. make stupid exaggerations while perfect Twilight comes to the rescue.  Literally every series does the Rashomon trope at some point, but P.P.O.V. certainly doesn’t qualify as an interesting version.  The episode actually feels more suited for season one with an obvious moral, the mane six struggling to understand each other, and Starlight being mysteriously absent.  Even if this counts as a better showing for the animators, problematic writing and pacing hurt any chance for P.P.O.V. to be remotely enjoyable.  Every other season six criticism applies here, since these issues all stemmed from the script.  P.P.O.V. is therefore nothing more than poorly-written filler from that part of the season where it usually occurs.  While again not painful like more terrible episodes, P.P.O.V.’s odd feel does little right either and makes for yet another uninspired outing.