Monday 19 August 2019

Episode review: S9E16: "A Trivial Pursuit"

Question 26: Is Twilight's expression a meme face or an animation transition?
Oh look, now Hasbro has taken to advertising its products in the actual episode names. (Yep, they own Trivial Pursuit.) I couldn't decide whether that was annoying or amusing — which as it happened made it good preparation for the ep itself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. "A Trivial Pursuit" was written by Brittany Jo Flores, which I took as a good sign since her only previous FiM outing was the very solid "Once Upon a Zeppelin" in S7. Let's have a look at whether she could match it this time around.

Well, no, though this was considerably better than last week's mess. It was a lot more entertaining, for a start. The first two acts of "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" were 15 minutes of my life I won't get back. This time, there was plenty going on, much of it genuinely funny. Not all of it stuck: for example, the meme faces had been turned up so high that they actively distracted from the jokes beneath. Maybe this was just the animators having some fun before the (total guess) more serious episodes leading up to the finale.

So yes, this was a step up from the last episode. Unfortunately, it was a considerable step down from this writer's previous effort, and in fact it had a very similar problem to "2, 4, 6, Greaaat". Namely, that of the focus character being a total prat. I can easily believe Twilight being a huge trivia/pub quiz buff, and I can also easily believe her doing things like charting out which partner she'd have the best chance with. But I do have trouble believing she'd go off the rails like this in S9. This was "Lesson Zero" Twilight, and "Lesson Zero" was seven seasons ago.

Roseluck realises that she's entirely missed the only question about roses in the last six months
The absurdly complicated rules of the Trivia Trot caught my attention, and not just because of the way Twilight was (in one of the episode's most satisfying scenes) eventually caught out on them by Sunburst. I do actually wonder whether this was Hasbro having a sly dig at how the collectible card game, originally aimed at kids, has become so full of extensions and esoteric rules "clarifications" that it's now more or less impossible to play seriously unless you're an adult and have enormous amounts of time. And very deep pockets.

Anyway, back to the episode. Pairing Twilight up with Pinkie seemed like a promising turn for the ep, though I'm not sure I really buy Pinkie never having entered before. I'd have thought she'd be right up for a fun pub quiz. (Declaration of possible bias: the Pub Quiz at UK PonyCon each year is one of my absolute must-do events.) Pinks was a bit of a pain in the early rounds, if I'm honest, but later on she came into her own as a fun team-mate and, more importantly, friend. It's a shame Twilight didn't see that until the very end.

As I said earlier, there was a lot of fun to be had this time round, and frankly I found the bits that didn't directly involve Twilight to be the most involving. Fluttershy and Bulk's hoof-bump, for example, or Mudbriar's surprising sassiness. Applejack and Rainbow Dash's feud was hilarious, though I'm not sure I buy "Team AppleDash" being basically unstoppable. Why would they be? They're both intelligent mares who like their books from time to time, but I'd have thought their ultra-competitiveness would get in the way even within the same team.

"Now, how do I do this here 'Objection!' thingummygig?"
The rules of Trivia Trot were pretty strange. Only two ponies (or donkeys) to a team, chosen randomly, and minus points for getting questions wrong. Granny Smith was a pretty good choice as MC, though it strikes me that in an environment like that her hearing would need to be rather better than it's sometimes portrayed. I was disappointed that all the rounds took the same format – no music or picture rounds? Also, how come Twi wasn't disqualified for not having a partner when she sent Pinkie to look at the "confetti parade"?

Let's go back to that "Team AppleDash" thing. Oh look, after "20% cooler" last week we get ship names this week. It's not the first time – we had "FlutterDash" in the S5 finale – but it was really played up this time, especially by Pinkie Pie. Frankly, I'm not really that interested in watching My Little Meme, so I hope they've got it out of their system now. On the plus side, there was a nice little callback to "Slice of Life" at the very end. In episode 100, Derpy locked the Mane Six out of Cranky's wedding. Here, she was herself unable to gain entry – though maybe she should have tried pushing!

So... yeah. "A Trivial Pursuit" was a long way from being a classic episode, unless you're very forgiving about Twilight's characterisation, but it was often an entertaining one. I definitely give it props for that, and so while it's another two-star effort, it's a very different one from "2, 4, 6, Greaaat". That one missed a one-star rating by the skin of Smolder's teeth. This one could have been a three if only the memery and Twilighting hadn't been turned up to 12. So, not the best episode, but maybe one to stick on when you're after something that requires no mental effort at all.

"I... I just looked up Rule 63"
Best line: Mudbriar: "Technically, it's a kind of category where we know the answers and you don't."
Best moment: Granny Smith's reaction to Applejack failing an apple question
Worst moment: Twilight trying to get Pinkie disqualified. Twice

Yays
  • Lots of funny stuff around the sides of the main plot
  • Sunburst and – eventually – Pinkie Pie as the voice of reason
  • Twilight's DJ-Pon3 pyjamas at the start
  • Spike's forlorn attempts to keep Twily in check
Neighs
  • Twilight's Twilighting was so over the top as to feel like flanderisation
  • Way, way too many meme faces, even by S9 standards
  • One ship-name tease would have been fun. They went too far
  • Where in the absolute hay has Mr Cake got to these days?
★★

7 comments:

  1. To be honest bathing in a vat of acid would be more fun than last week's train wreck! As for this episode, if it wasn't for the humour and the madness that is the facial expressions I would of classed this as meh episode, not great but miles better than last one. What is worrying for me is that Mudbriar is growing on me (I must be ill!) Anyway this gets a 6.5/10 from me. Hopefully the next episode will kickstart what's left of the season.

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    1. I'll pass on the vat of acid, cheers. ;P But yeah, it's weird actually liking Mudbriar. I'm having the same feeling.

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  2. "I'm not really that interested in watching My Little Meme, so I hope they've got it out of their system now."

    You said it. :B I can't believe this is the same writer who did Once Upon a Zeppelin!

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  3. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems quite hard to reconcile this being from the same writer who brought up "Once Upon a Zeppelin", which, being frank, was the last episode nominally featuring Twilight to really "get" her and write her really well. At least the last one that springs to mind (obviously that doesn't include some Premieres and Finales where she's done fine but can't exactly be called the most prominent character by more then an inch, like "Shadow Play", etc.) Yet again, it's another Season 9 episode that puts into question how much of an episode, good or ill, can actually be credited to the credited writer (especially given the new details M.A. Larson recently revealed about exactly what happened regarding "Fame and Misfortune".

    Basically similar opinion; better then last week's pile of sludge by virtue of having its share of funny and entertaining stretches, but rather poorly written and conceived otherwise and not one I'm really going to come back to. Also, poor show that all the trivia is just old facts established in past episodes with no relevance to the current episode; not only does it mean it's all stuff we know, it comes across as the writers trying to impress up with them doing their homework on episodes they didn't staff, little realising that one of the bare minimums in an accepted standard. Little things that that do the episode no favours in the end.

    With only 10 episodes left, here's hoping we get a good uptick from this trio of a decent episode, a poor one and a helping of vile weed.

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  4. While the episode itself is better than that 'train wreck' with the cheerleading ordeal, for me I wouldn't call this a 'Classic' episode. Sure the episode has a few laughs, some subtle shout outs to the series, and fans of 'Trivia' games can vouch for this, but at the same time there's only so much 'Twilighting' we can take and she was a bit of a jerk at times. But, at the same time, I get Twilight's position as far as being someone as far as how much playing this game means and feeling like their friends don't take it seriously, as it seemed Twilight was trying to coach Pinkie to be a better player in a way it was Pinkie (And partially 'Sunburst') who got Twilight to understand she was taking the fun out of a game with so many complex rules (No wonder Starlight was so stressed out). Yet I wish they wouldn't make Pinkie such a huge comic relief she couldn't get a chance to answer an 'impossible' question "correctly" but what can you do?

    Overall, for me this episode gets a 'pass' because the episode itself is actually funnier, there are some nice character moments (Though Rarity is noticeable absent for those paying attention), and out of all the names there are for Twilight and Pinkie... I prefer 'Twinkie' myself, not just because it shares the name of a popular snack item.

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    1. Not that popular over here -- you often have to search for them on the "World Foods" shelves! A bit too sweet for UK tastes, I think.

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  5. So I've finally seen this now, and... It's Rainbow Falls, isn't it? With Twilight learning almost the exact same loyalty lesson as Rainbow (and Spitfire) did back then, plus Tara Strong channeling her work on UniKitty. I was so torn, loving Twi's adorkable demeanour while simultaneously hating her meanness towards Pinkie. This callback heavy script would also have been a great way to have Rainbow redeem herself from the previous week's abomination by recalling her own past failures and helping Twilight learn how winning isn't everything. But hey ho.

    Better than 246G, but that would also have been true if it was just 22 minutes of Bulk Biceps burping to camera. Not awful, really, but... I was kind of disheartened to be putting all three of these second half s9 episodes in my bottom five for the season; until the Summer Sun whatever it was called, I was really concerned about just how hard the final season was taking an alarming nosedive in the series' home stretch.

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