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S8E07: "Horse Play"
28 Apr 2018
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.1
Thoughts: Fluttershy is an alicorn princess? Five stars, next question. Ahem... this episode gets plenty of love from me for being one of the very rare Celestia-heavy eps out there. It is somewhat uneven, with some characterisation that really doesn't belong this far into the show, but it's also lots of fun. Applejack trying repeatedly to convince Twilight to be honest really tickled me for some reason. I can well believe Trixie selling dodgy back-street fireworks, though Pinkie's line about it is very clunky. Celestia herself is of course a bad actor,¹ though her (fortunately brief) anger with Twilight is real and of course in the actual crisis late on she demonstrates immense calmness and competence. The Student Six play nice little supporting roles on stage,² and Luna's late grumpiness at Tia's Sun-raising had me in stitches, brief as it was. This is far from a faultless episode, but I can forgive most of its faults as it's just so watchable. As such, though I'm nudging it down to three stars, I consider it really quite high in that band.
¹ Not in that sense. I hope.
² Though having six characters play unicorns, none of whom actually are unicorns? Tsk, I say.
Choice quote: Spike: "Now that's the best acting we've seen all day."
New rating: ★★★
The next episode on the list is "The Parent Map", which as I recall is an ep I found okay but no better, whereas I know some people greatly appreciated it. Who knows which category I will fall into on a repeat viewing?
I had about the same reaction, that it's not an amazing concept, but so many little details work about it that it's a fun watch. Celestia's situation was very relatable. It's been long enough since I've seen it that I don't remember Pinkie's or Trixie's gags. Really, the only thing that made me uncomfortable about it is the student six. They're all visiting Equestria, so they're all going to be assimilated into the culture. It wouldn't have taken much to lampshade that (they all want to experience the culture and are happy to portray ponies, for instance), or otherwise, maybe have them ad lib the story so those other races are part of it, too. Still, only one not so good thing about it for me, and it was an enjoyable episode.
ReplyDeleteThinking about it again, I just wonder whether the animators had that thought about the students as well. It's noticeable that very prominent in the play's audience, right at the front next to Luna, are Fancy Pants and Fleur, two extremely notable... unicorns.
DeleteEasily my favorite episode from the first half of season eight; no doubt about it. Nicole Oliver must've had tons of fun in the recording studio, hamming it up as Celestia (the other time I can think of in which she did just that was when she did Daybreaker in A Royal Problem last season), and her relationship with Twilight, even if it's evolved a lot from the early days, remains strong as ever.
ReplyDeleteThere's... not much else I can say here, really. It's just 22 minutes of unabashed entertainment.
Pretty much, yes. Nicole Oliver still does cons, so I wonder if there's a recording out there somewhere in which she's asked about this episode. I'm sure there is, I just don't know where.
DeleteI must be the odd one out in not liking this. o_o The only reason it's not, like, absolutely rage-inducing is because the Celestia/Luna episode in season 9 exists. Or does not.
ReplyDeleteone thing I was thinking about earlier: unless I miss my mark, the play says that the unicorns all lost their magic when raising the sun <_< not temporarily, gone
Star Swirl the Bearded was one of those unicorns, apparently
so why's he got his magic in the present day?
the boring answer, of course, is that the play is not historically accurate :P give me something else!
"Between Dark and Dawn" is a strange one. It happens that I managed to do a Text Review Roundup for that episode, and people's views were all over the place. People who hated it (you, the Railfan Brony) and people who loved it (Dark Qiviut, TheDragonWarlock) and people who had mixed feelings (me, Ghost Mike). I honestly have no idea how I'll feel when I eventually get there again.
DeleteNot at all, PP, I loathe it too. I'm just not chiming in to episodes in these last two seasons unless they're at least Mixed. So if I don't say anything, know I dislike it too.
DeleteHere, that is overwhelmingly for how anti-laughably bad an actress Celestia is – you know, a millennia–plus leader and politician. It's the final nail in the coffin for the show undermining any dramatic credibility to the Princesses (well, "Between Dark and Dawn" will provide a second set of nails, I suppose). Though Twilight had the idiot ball nearly as much. I get some people, like Logan, can just enjoy the goofiness such a scenario ostensibly provides to the point of it still being watchable despite the disaster of a credible foundation in the script, and good for them. I am not one of those people.
The play's inconsistencies can be chalked up to Story Editor indifference. Eagle-eared fans will notice its lore overlaps with that of the Journal of the Two Sisters book Amy Keating Rogers wrote in 2014 (just with Luna taken out, weirdly), despite that contradicting the new lore for the Tree and Star Swirl in "Shadow Play" last season. It seems the episode's writer, with no show bible information on Celestia, went to the only source, and Story Editor Josh Haber cared so little he didn't notice this contradicted (terrible) lore from an episode he supervise and wrote not even a year ago.
Dunno about you, but I think all this serves as a good microcosm for what went wrong with Season Eight/Nine. That, and the cheat notes they provided for new writers with summaries and episode clips on characterisation of the main characters, making it no wonder they were reduced to caricatures of themselves (and in some cases, the clips were nominally about other ponies!).
people who had mixed feelings (me, Ghost Mike)
Gordon Bennett…! Even after going back and looking at it, I can scarcely believe I had "mixed feelings" about that episode on first airing. Even by the time the season had finished, I had soured on the overwhelming majority of Season Nine episodes (the only ones I would not put in the negative or worse category now are "Sparkle's Seven", "Common Ground", "Frenemies", "Sweet and Smoky" "Going to Seed", "She Talks to Angel" and "The Big Mac Question" – and most of those are still thoroughly stuck in mixed category). It's even worse than my much-loathed "A Royal Problem", it just has enough other dissenters that I don't feel the need to devote energy to calling it out.
Yeah, I'll admit it: I included your name in that list for fun, since I'm well aware that you despise "Between Dark and Dawn" these days. I was actually surprised to discover looking back that you hadn't been as straight-negative about it on first viewing.
DeleteAs for "Horse Play", I actually thought this might be one of those episodes where I like it and then the comments section consists entirely of everyone else saying they don't. So Pascoite and Zack finding it fun as well made me feel a little less isolated!
Mind you, the usual IMDb caveat applies, but if you ignore the finale (since those always score very highly) this is the third highest rated ep in the season, below only "What Lies Beneath" and the inevitable "Sounds of Silence". Going on that and some very unscientific chats about it (eg in Worcester) over the years, I'm fairly confident in saying those of us who like "Horse Play" are in a majority. Doesn't give us any special status over those of you who don't, obviously.