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| The elite Canterlot Royal Guard, on the ball as ever |
Written by M. A. Larson
10 Mar 2012
My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.4
The one with Madame Pinkie.
Thoughts: I really need to speed these things up a bit! Anyway, this is another incident-packed episode by M. A. Larson. As close to science fiction as Friendship is Magic gets – at least for now – this features time travel, Metal Gear ponies, telescopes, Twilight freakouts and, um, Tartarus. It gets its first mention here (albeit pronounced oddly) and Cerberus appears for the first time. Twilight is relieved to return him to Tartarus before any evil creatures could escape. Poor naive mare... As with many time travel stories, you don't want to look too hard at the logic – "not scientifically possible", to quote Twi herself. Mind you, if Twilight had thought a bit, she could just have brushed her mane after the explosion! Comedy is provided largely by Pinkie Pie, and it's generally lots of fun. Eyepatch emergencies indeed. Spike has a decent supporting role too, though ice cream should probably have got a credit too! Celestia's "Happy Tuesday" was briefly a bit of a fandom catchphrase, but it was the line about an "epic pony war in the distant future" that got the attention. You'll have to wait until the S5 finale for that (sort of), Twilight. Quite a busy episode, but one that (perhaps barring the repeated "two Twis" scene) is very well paced, a combination Larson tended to be accomplished at. Not perfect, but very good, and I think I really like this one now. Hence the four!
Choice quote: Pinkie Pie: "Anypony else wanna panic with me?"
New rating: ★★★★
Next up is "Dragon Quest", which I've never liked all that much and neither has the fandom as a whole. Some say that judgement needs re-evaluating, so I'll see whether I agree.
I've never been hugely fond of this one. Overall, I'd give it a two-star or "middling" rating. It's not actively offensive, and sometimes it's even fun, but I'm more baffled and alienated than I am actually entertained by it.
ReplyDeleteWhile the time-travel plot's relevance to the moral is clever in how it reflects the pointlessness of the self-created problem, and it's even complemented by a funny subplot involving Spike's complete recklessness, if I had to sum up my criticism of this one, it's that the whole thing is... "there".
Between the inciting incident and the climax in the archives, a lot of stuff just sorta happens.
Cerberus randomly showing up is the biggest offender - and I doubt the episode was designed with the S4 finale in mind so much as the S4 finale just saw the same opportunity there as some fanfic writers did, not least of all because this episode and that two-parter were written by different people - but honestly, most of it feels like a random events plot that keeps finding new distractions out of nowhere. It feels at times more like a gag anthology than an actual plot with stakes, and that takes me out of it.
And while the layers reinforcing the moral are clever, they also give the episode a weird overall sense of pointlessness in the grand scheme of things too. It boils down to a "Twilight learns not to freak out" lesson, which feels a bit weak on its own (even ignoring the fact future episodes would repeat it ad nauseum). A lot happens, but so little of it feels of consequence, even within the episode (the anthology-like feeling), never mind in any broader characterization or plot scheme.
In addition, Twilight's "STOP TIME!" campaign dips right back into what I found to be unpleasant "Lesson Zero" territory, and the only reason I don't have the same gut reaction to it is that this time, Twilight is utterly incompetent at even trying to pull it off. But it's still not a good look for her to be attempting stuff like that, and "Lesson Zero" is not an episode I want to be reminded of at the best of times.
To express something more positive, I will say some of the gags did land for me (after all, "Slice of Life" is pretty much a gag anthology, though I feel more kindly disposed to that one over this for a few reasons, one of which is that it was a more significant "meta" tribute with a fantastic moral). Fluttershy defusing the Cerberus crisis instantly, Pinkie's haircut as part of the disaster-proofing, Spike just tormenting Twilight during her attempt to stand still, stuff occasionally gets a laugh out of me...
...though even then, I'm not fond of some of the more self-aware jokes, like Pinkie wondering where the random plant pot fell from, or making light of the "monster invades Ponyville" trope. Plus I think I recoiled at the idea of the "epic future pony war", if that's supposed to be a reference to a certain fanfic I have NO love for. In any case, that kind of self-aware poking bugs me too much: its pointing out the artifice, and that's borderline immersion-breaking.
OK, I have to admit that I don't like this one a huge amount. Future Twilight is a cool design, and though it references a few things I dislike, as itself, it's not offensive. In the end, I just can't get into this one.
I will point out, though, that circular time travel (also known as a Stable Time Loop) is actually a form of time travel that makes perfect sense (as opposed to mutable time travel, which can be self-contradicting incredibly easily). So long as no part of the causal chain actually contradicts any other part, it's at least logically plausible. Whether current physics would allow it is another issue, but it is at least plausibly scientifically possible.
I'm idly wondering here how strong a correlation there might be between opinions of "Lesson Zero" and opinions of this episode. I very much like "LZ", which you decidedly do not. If Present Perfect happens by, that may give another data point.
Deleteif that's supposed to be a reference to a certain fanfic I have NO love for.
I'm guessing you mean Fallout: Equestria, and if so then I would be extremely surprised if it were a deliberate reference. Someone may come along with a Larson quote to prove me wrong here, but I don't recall him ever mentioning that, even after he'd left the show and could speak rather more freely.
Good point. Fair enough: I suppose it'd be more parsimonious to say it brought to my mind an association, rather than that it was a reference in itself.
DeleteThe "Lesson Zero" comparison is interesting. More data needed, but it makes sense to me. They are similar in a lot of ways.
Ehhhh?
DeleteThe time stop thing never bothered me. :B Mostly because she never did it. The last time I watched this episode, I called it "a way better “Twilight freaks out” episode than Lesson Zero". So there you go, I guess! :B
Well, there goes that hypothesis! The great thing about science is how wrong you can be. :D
DeleteNo doubt about it, Larson was my favorite MLP writer by a large margin. He knew and respected the world and all the characters, and was good at both plotting and valid emotional characterization.
ReplyDeleteAs just one small example, the fact that the guard recognized Twilight and casually let her into a restricted area would seem weird... but Larson did enough thinking about it to realize that Twilight had probably spent a huge amount of time in the castle, and of course she would be well-known there.
Most other writers seemed to think continuity was some sort of bowel disease.
This one gets five stars from me. Probably, the stars are not quite as shiny as the five I gave to Amending Fences, but close.
I am slightly dreading getting to "Amending Fences", in case I turn out not to adore it any more! I think there's precious little chance of that, though.
DeleteThis was all-around a fun episode. It did rely a bit much on random humor, which isn't inherently a bad thing if that's all you're trying to accomplish. That is to say it doesn't make for much of a plot, but it's still fun. I do think future Twilight could have done a better job of shutting up past Twilight to get her message across, because she already knew how past Twilight was going to get sidetracked and could have countered it. I did really like the touch that the guard reflexively let Twilight into the restricted part of the library. For that matter, I'm surprised she didn't have her own key already.
ReplyDeleteFun, fairly memorable, but on the superficial side, but prolific for fanfic inspiration.
If you must have random humour, make it funny random humour, that's what I say. This episode accomplished that quite nicely.
DeleteThis is one of those episodes where every beat just seems to land for me. Maybe not my all time favourite, but probably top ten or twenty. (And I'm another person who also likes "Lesson Zero", although I prefer this one.)
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the idea of the plot seeming random or disjointed because each incident between meeting future Twilight and being future Twilight has Twilight take a step to try to prevent the future that inadvertently leads to her looking more like her future self. (He says, over-explaining a very simple plot). So even though Cerberus's escape might be a bit random it's clear how it advances the plot. (Twilight gets a scratch on her cheek.) I dunno, each incident seems to be clearly driven by the main plot (Twilight tries a series of ideas to prevent the future) and advances the main plot (Twilight gets another physical change). A bit repetitive in structure perhaps, but with more than enough variety to keep me entertained.
Couple that with strong jokes, great worldbuilding, a character driven sorry, strong continuity, strong pacing (there's always something happening) and tired off with a really wholesome moral and this episode sums up to me why I love M.A. Larson's writing so much.