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S7E22: "Once Upon a Zeppelin"
7 Oct 2017
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 7.7
Thoughts: One of the few times in late FiM when we didn't have a surprise spoilt by leaks. Iron Will's return was not expected! He's a tad too FlimFlamish this time, admittedly. A new writer in Brittany Jo Flores, who followed up this successful debut with S9's... "A Trivial Pursuit". Oh dear. But that's for another day. This ep wasn't part of some big arc, it was just an entertaining slice of airship-bound life. A Twilight-centric episode, something not that common at this point in the show's run, and one with Cadance playing a significant role late on especially. Shining Armor was mostly comic relief. Star Tracker got slightly wearisome, but points for not giving him a crush on Twi. Who I hated seeing so miserable – as I said in 2017, surely someone would have fetched her to see at least some of the Northern Stars display? So a fun episode with a few niggles. I think my four-star rating from before was slightly overdone, but it's still an episode I like. A top-end three feels more like it.
Choice quote: Shining Armor: "No way. How can I be airsick? I'm in the water, so it totally cancels out!"
New rating: ★★★
Next time, it'll be "Secrets and Pies", which didn't especially inspire me at the time and ended up with a high-end two-star rating. I'm not possessed of massive optimism that it'll fare any better this year, but I will of course give it a shot.
loved this ep for the Twi family bonding, and it lets Tara show her edge (altho I agree seeing Twi miserable was a little sad). I'm a sucker for family bonding eps.
ReplyDeleteSeeing Iron Will take a stark heel-turn was a bit meh, but I didn't feel quite as strongly about him as I do someone like Filthy Rich. Also, we get his "No refunds!" exit, which was one of the all-time funniest moments of the show. :D
ReplyDeleteloved that! :)
DeleteI am tempted to over-praise this episode a bit, being the last one this season (and one of the last altogether, alas) firmly in the Positive category for myself. Because if judged to the show as a whole, it's not great.
ReplyDeleteThere's still a decent air of the Season Six/Seven trend of minor continuity hand waves in the name of "funny" here, chiefly with Iron Will becoming a Film Flam expy over his intense but well-intended personality from before (let's be honest, the only reason they didn't use Flim and Flam is because they have bigger fish to fry with a whole resort now). That's he's so entertaining (while most results of these sorts of decisions often aren't) is a welcome consolation, at least.
And of course, it's downright mean of the script to not only have Twilight miss the one thing she wanted to see, but have her family, who previously showed heavy concern that she wasn't making herself happy, be so nonchalant about it. It's clear they meant for the intention to be that they bought her masking earlier as genuine, but that was a bridge too far. Have them have tried to fetch her but failed for some contrivance or something!
Honestly, not much else to complain about otherwise (well, Shining Armor being a total goofball again, but that airship – :D – sailed seasons ago). A plot like this was never going to have room to properly delve into the Sparkle family dynamics in a focused way, so I think they did a well-balanced job of letting the margins communicate some of the family dynamics (there's a subtle-but-present thread of how prior family vacations, or at least those set before the show, must surely have had Twilight being her reclusive, antisocial self barely engaging with anything, and how proud her parents are of how she goes about them now).
Especially as regards her parents' personalities – as much of a not-earned cheat it can feel for the show to go "oh yeah, those characters you wanted to see for seven seasons? One's a retired game night nerd and the other's an adrenaline junkie, we're gonna act like that was always so, kay thanks", something about the dialogue and voice acting makes them feel right. Cadance's supporting role in the non-Flurry moments, like her heart-to-heart with Twilight is even more effective.
And while the central character arc and lesson for Twilight is played a bit obviously and hammy, in that later-season way, it is agreeable and believable enough to sail over the rougher patches. Also, if the episode had to write Spike out (and look, I get they had so many family characters here jostling for screentime and subplots, to the point Cadance and Flurry Heart basically share a role, they couldn't afford more), at least they wrote a scene with a reason for such that… well, I don't buy that Spike would do that so readily or that Twilight would cave so easily, but Twilight saying he's a much a part of her family as the rest of them does warm my heart.
So, not perfect, and a little more prone to remembering the satisfaction of the general episode and its sensibilities over specific moments. But at any point in the show's history, this would have worked. Fair play.
This is also the last episode Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco were story editors on before they departed from the show (excepting returning to write the Season Nine premiere). I found their efforts decidedly mildewy and whiffy in that area, and only episode they wrote this season really worked for me (to be fair, it was "The Perfect Pear"). Certainly a case of writers that seemed to work best as writers rather than show runners. But the damage from Season Six and Hasbro's weird decisions would have been tough for anyone, and with foreknowledge if the damage Josh Habar, Nicole Dubuc and Mike Vogel were about to wrought on the show, I'll bid them farewell with bittersweet feeling. They still wrote quite a few cracking episode over the show's run, after all "Rarity Investigates!", "Gauntlet of Fire" and "Top Bolt" being their other best ones).
I just didn't have a strong reaction to this ep either way. For all that I did appreciate the family time, it's mostly just in the noise for me.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: How does Brittany Jo Flores do Twilight justice in her debut script, and yet two seasons later, she completely screws her character up entirely? It's a riddle for ages, but a part of me suspects that Nicole Dubuc somehow had a part in it...
ReplyDeleteAside from that, this episode was... fine. Nothing spectacular or whatever. Just fine. Twilight Velvet (the mother) was really unexpected in her portrayal, which raises my opinion on the episode a bit, and I almost wonder what it would be like if she and Windy Whistles had an episode together. Would've been quite funny, I imagine!
*sees what the next episode is* Oh, bloody hell...
This one gets an extra star from me, just because it's set on an airship. (I'm almost not kidding.) I agree with PP that "No refunds!" was a gem of a line, and seeing Twi endure a "princess problem" was both satisfying and uncomfortable. High-end three / low four is about right for me.
ReplyDeleteUnapologetic four stars minimum from me. Seeing the whole Twilight clan together properly (Season 6's premier didn't count) and fleshed out this much was a good chunk of the charm, but setting it on an exotic airship cruise? Bringing Iron Will back for fun? Poking at the foibles of celebrity versus duty versus personal life, a commentary done WITHOUT turning the fans into screaming jerkasses? Gimme!
ReplyDeleteI don't have a lot to say otherwise. Velvet being an adrenaline junkie I totally ran with in my fics (especially given the fandom's early speculating about her secretly authoring the Daring Do series), but Night Light emerging as a mathematical (kinda?) dork who must obviously have given Twilight her intellectual inheritance was a pleasant second surprise. Shining Armor was relatively one-note, but it was at least a funny note because of how much he pretends to be the tough-as-nails military boy, and it makes him even more endearingly dorky than his dad. I do like the Cadence (I refuse to use the new spelling) commentary on a family-work balance, plus her awkwardness around the crowds was like her scenes in the art gallery of "A Flurry of Emotions", so no complaints beyond her and Shining never feeling fully developed, but that's a problem with the series overall. Flurry's... tolerable, at least.
Star Tracker I honestly forget is even in this one. It's nice he made up with Twilight at the end, at least, since his behaviour comes across as innocently insensitive rather than pushy and jerkish. Iron Will and his goats are the true stars, though. Him making stuff up along the tour was just the start, plus his constant body posturing and lawyerly manipulation of Twilight for greed. I don't think it's that much of a stretch he'd behave like this, given how pushy he was in his debut: if nothing else, it seems like a fair case of sacrificing what little development he got last time in favour of him doing what he does best: large ham comedy. It's always good to get a new look at a fan favourite. And the ending was totally worth it.
Dunno what more to add, really. Funny, sweet, interestingly unique, total fanfic fuel, and Princess Twilight getting tormented by her own sense of duty and obligation? There are very few eps in Season Seven I really like on par with earlier seasons, and this is definitely one of them.
The only way this could've been better would've been if Spike got to be on the cruise, but his noble sacrifice comes a close second, so I'll give it a pass.