Monday 20 August 2018

Text Review Roundup: "Friendship University"

The personal reasons I alluded to last time mean that I wasn't able to post here for a few days, and I'm now falling behind with the show again. As I type, I haven't even seen "The End in Friend", and I'm really not going to start trying to keep up with the Australian/Swedish/French/Martian schedules! So, to the TRR for E16. No Dark Qiviut or ShutterflyEQD any more means a slightly light roster, though of course I'm always looking for any text-based reviewers I've missed!

"Friendship University" was a fairly well received episode. None of the reviewers outright disliked it, although some of them gave it only qualified support. Each reviewer's attitude to Flim and Flam tended to colour their opinion of the episode as a whole. Cuddlepug, who loved it, even came up with a pretty straight review, not something that happens all that often!

Cuddlepug – very positive (graded A; "complex, ambitious and funny [...] The stakes are high – higher than they are in most episodes [...] engaging throughout")

Derpy News – fairly positive (graded B+; "The episode itself is good, though points off because Twilight’s disguise leaves a lot to be desired while Rarity again steals the show.")

The Dragon Warlock – mixed (graded B+; "I think the brothers have run their course at this point. [though the ep] does have some funny moments, sets up stuff for the season finale, and it does give us a Rarity and Twilight episode.")

JDPrime22 – positive (rated 9/10; "Had some great moments in it, especially Twilight's disguise and... Plainity.")

Louder Yay – positive (rated 3/5; "I don't usually love FlimFlam episodes, though I do usually like them. That was the case here.")

Mega Sean 45 – extremely positive ("very clever [...] so using [Twi and Rares] was brillant! [...] a fantastic episode")

MLEEP Reviews – extremely positive (rated 10/10; "Star Swirl [...] plenty of new visual delights [...] plenty of surprises and entertainment")

The Railfan Brony – very positive (rated Excellent; "plays really well into Star Swirl's character [...] it almost looks as though they're building up to something grand for the finale")

Rainbine – mixed (rated 3/5; "[Rarity] was honestly the best thing about the episode [but it had] pretty poor pacing")

4 comments:

  1. I did post a smaller review, though in the MLPF's primary episode thread.

    https://mlpforums.com/topic/178472-s08e16-friendship-university/?do=findComment&comment=5378765

    -DQ

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    1. Nothing wrong with that at all. :) I don't think I can really start including stuff like that in TRR, though, otherwise I'd also be including mini-reviews from parts of discussion threads on EqD, Fimfiction, UK of Equestria, etc etc, and there'd be literally hundreds of the things. TRR is fundamentally for review posts, not comments in review threads, if that makes sense.

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    2. Ah, I see what you mean, and it does make sense. Having to juggle back and forth and include non-review posts can really increase the content and make things a little headache-inducing. :P

      P.S.: I didn't post my mini-review in my MLPF blog because it was an early release at the time (and didn't add when released in the U.S. due to a combo of focus on upcoming Aussie releases and laziness :P).

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    3. Yeah, the scheduling is a major headache. I had to give up doing TRR entirely for part of S7 because of the sheer volume of early releases. Sticking fairly rigidly to the US schedule is helping this year, so I'm hopeful I can get some sort of TRR out for every episode of S8.

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