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| Snips is here. Snails has gone to get another dictionary |
Written by Merriwether Williams
26 Nov 2011
My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 6.2
The one with the Hoofer Dam. (At least, that's my name for it.)
Thoughts: Okay, here we go. In the early days of the fandom, this episode tended to win "Least Favourite Episode" contests. Its 6.2 score from IMDb is testament to that. Is it that bad? Well... no. It's a mixed bag. On the plus side, it's undeniably entertaining, and there are some very amusing bits. Ghostwriter Spike, for example, and the Batman: The Animated Series-nodding crowd scene. Scootaloo's Rainbow Dash Fan Club opening scene. The score is excellent too. On the debit side of the ledger, not only is Rainbow Dash at her worst in inflated-ego terms, her friends aren't very nice either when they all brag about Mare Do Well in front of her. Ponyville also doesn't feel all that much like the town we know and love – that cliff the pram hurtles towards, for example. When did that turn up? And as for the hydro dam... Fast forward a few years and episodes like this, that don't really get Ponyville, became more common. But for Season 2, this is a mis-step. It's not awful, but it's certainly very uneven and well below par overall. It deserves its rather poor reputation, if not really the actual hate it used to get.
Choice quote: Unnamed stallion: "Excuse me? Do you think you could skip your catchphrase and just hurry up and save us?"
New rating: ★★
Next up is "Sweet and Elite", an episode I've been looking forward to considerably. Several significant debuts coming up in that one!
You know what the worst part of this episode was?
ReplyDeleteIt's not even the worst episode ever.
There's far worse the writers dared perpetrate on these characters in later seasons. And that just steams my ham. :|
I am virtually certain I will be dishing out a few one-star ratings before I'm done with these rewatches. Not yet, though.
DeleteWhile the hate this one received at the time was overblown (and the treatment Merriweather Williams got some some of the community was totally uncalled for; those people should lower their heads in shame), it is still one of only a few episodes in the first three seasons that ultimately is more of a negative experience then a positive one. Besides a lot of the characters been rather jerkish, a lot of the fun character dynamics of the show just aren't present due to it mostly focusing on Rainbow Dash alone (Scootaloo nearly vanished from the episode after the opening).
ReplyDeleteA lot of the superhero stuff is neat, and there's some amusing gags, but all in all it's just a dissatisfying episode, though by no means an especially bad one (Perfect Present is, of course, correct - later seasons would all have multiple episodes easily worse then this). If this episode was in S9, it would easily be in the top half, probably the top third. But maybe that's just me.
This was before I joined the fandom, so I wasn't really aware of the abuse directed at Williams. Given what happened with "Filli Vanilli" though, I regrettably can't say I'm that surprised. Sigh. Some people.
DeleteIf this episode was in S9, it would easily be in the top half, probably the top third. But maybe that's just me.
Mixed feelings from me. As you know I'm not quite as down on the last two seasons as you are, so I think this one would still be in the bottom half for me even in S9. But it wouldn't be anywhere near the bottom.
I only just heard about the "Filli Vanilli" controversy the other day; it caught me off guard, given it's only two small moments of Pinkie's in that episode and the fandom largely loves Amy Keating Rogers' work on the show (that said, Season 4 is where the nitpicky YouTube review Pony community kicked into gear, according to some sources of mine, so perhaps it fits).
DeleteMerriweather Williams is unique among the show's early writers in having virtually no social media presence (if she appeared at any cons, it wasn't any ones I've watched videos back of, and I've done that with lots of panels). I just hope that wasn't a result of bad hate from some of the fandom off of this episode.
Regardless, she turned it around with the rest of her output: I find both "Putting Your Hoof Down" and "Dragon Quest" underrated episodes, "Bats!" and "Wonderbolt Academy" are really good/great ones to me, and "Hearth's Warming Eve" is another solid, unique entry. While she never turned out an out-and-out classic, her quality level is still fine, if obviously not quite at the level of M.A. Larson, Amy Keating Rogers, Charlotte Fullerton, Cindy Morrow or Meghan McCarthy among these early writers. Only "Spike At Your Service" has severe problems among the rest of her output, and unlike this episode, at least there's fun shenanigans there among all the idiot ball holding Spike is taking part in. And though I don't let it affect my rating of the episode, Applejack and Spike as the main leads of an episode was something I was really happy to see.
If you can shut your brain off and watch this, it isn't terrible, but it's a rather mean-spirited trick they all play on Dash. (And it won't be the last time they do.) I agree with the way Ponyville seems a lot more urban that it should here, but the show kept doing that. The dam, the big construction site, etc. in this one, but in "Read it and Weep," they add this hospital on the outskirts of town because the plot demanded it, and the town kept expending and shrinking for seasons to come in the name of plot convenience. Hell, for tech level convenience as well. In isolation, I don't think it's a stupid plot idea, but it doesn't fit the context of the rest of the show very well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's honestly another issue with this episode that isn't super awful in retrospect. (There are problems with the portrayal of Appleloosa in Appleloosa's Most Wanted in season five, for instance.)
DeleteBut it's really easy to take a look at that modern Ponyville and the bad episode it appears in and correlate the two as a sign of impending doom. I certainly did back in the day, and I wasn't the only one. (I was also a fool, and not the only one...)
Is it the worst episode of the entire series? Maybe not. Is it the worst episode of the entire 'season'? Possibly. I say that because I don't like to assume that 'everything' about it was bad. The concept of The Mysterious Mare Do Well would go on to inspire a 'ton' of Fanfics over the years and some moments are slightly funny. But I had to say that calling a 'mis-step' is being too nice... For me, it's more like a 'miss-fire'.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Rainbow Dash's ego has always been a major issue when it comes to her episodes. She gets so caught up with being Ponyville's hero that it's almost hard to watch when she grows so desperate for attention that she resorts to yard work. Suffice to say, her friends weren't any better. They go on telling Rainbow Dsah that it's not right for her to go on bragging about being a hero, when they were doing the same thing when talking about the Mare Do Well (Which one, made it obvious they were involved, and B., most fans would say they are being hypocrites). On paper, it sounds like it could've been a fairly decent episode but the major issue with this subject is the overall 'execution'. Not to mention, for some pony being Dash's biggest fan, you'd think Scootaloo would notice how hurt R.D. was thinking this masked vigilante is the new hero when she could at least say Dash will 'always' be her hero no matter what.
If there is 'one' good thing I can note about this episode... There would be far 'worse' episodes as far as poor execution and questionable writing. So this episode got lucky that even saying that it still finds a small audience.