All being well, I will shortly start the next chapter of "My Little Repeats" as I rewatch S3. This, of course, is the first season where I got to experience the hype and the build-up as it happened – see video above! I remember having huge expectations for the S3 premiere, along with much of the fandom... and being disappointed, along with much of the fandom. That may – may – change this time around, since I now know what comes later.
One thing that thankfully won't be happening alongside the season now is a seemingly interminable fandom-spanning argument. Not that one, anyway. Twilicorn was, I think, the most miserably wearying row that I experienced in the entire run of Friendship is Magic. It seems almost quaint in 2020 that people were so exercised about whether a picture of Twilight with wings was real that some left the fandom over it, but that's the way it was.
S3 is also of course the only half-length season. I can remember many people predicting that 65 episodes would be all we'd get, I think because that was some magic number in terms of syndication on US television. (Come to think of it, even the idea that TV is the be-all and end-all also seems almost quaint today.) That brevity does hurt the season a little, I think, though perhaps not as much as most of us felt it did back in 2013. Having a one-part finale definitely did hurt, though.
That finale provided another long-running, though generally less heated, argument: did the episode work? I generally come down on the side of yes, but not as well as it could have done. Being the first of several musical eps gave it a different texture. The season doesn't have an awful lot of other obvious highlights, though: "Sleepless in Ponyville" is really S3's only cast-iron classic. Though maybe I'll change my mind about that as well! As always, we shall see.
I always put Apple Family Reunion in the high echelons alongside Sleepless, myself. It's probably Applejack's last good turn as an episode headliner.
ReplyDeleteI never rated that one all that highly. I didn't even much care for the song at first! It's an episode I'm particularly interested in revisiting for that reason.
DeleteSeason Three to me is as fascinating as a six-car pile-up in the middle of a motorway. Some things went horribly wrong during these thirteen episodes, and while there are some brave survivors (and ones who just kept going indifferently), it's the crashes that stand out. Helps (or rather doesn't) that quite a few games changed during this season, and there's an air of "last of its kind" hanging over it that marks a boundary between James Wootton's directorial era and Jim Miller's to follow.
ReplyDeleteIt really does feel like a bottleneck between one stage in the series' history and the next, and the fact that it's only thirteen episodes long is only the start. For better or worse.
I tend to come down on the side of "worse". It's the first of the really bad seasons (which I personally define as a season wherein I give a strong "NO" to half or more of the episodes), and the only bad season in the first half of the show. There are a lot of episodes here I think are compromised, some from the premise up, some in execution, some just because of one particular but seriously annoying element that overshadows the rest.
Even episodes I overall like tend to have some niggling nuisance keeping them from being great. I don't even exempt "Sleepless in Ponyville" from that category, though it definitely is a very good episode.
As for Princess Twilight, I take the position that the concept could have worked, and could have been made a fresh and interesting addition to the show, but it would have required a decent balancing act to square it with her unique strengths and more relatable aspects, without compromising the egalitarian basis of the theme of friendship. What we actually got was an exercise in how to take a practically gift-wrapped cast member and strip away anything interesting, relatable, or in-tune with the show beyond slapping the word "friendship" on everything and calling it a feel-good day (it's a good chunk of the reason why the Season Four two-parters fall flat for me, yet why I overall prefer Season Four's tendency to ignore her new status or barely touch upon it).
Actually, I might skip some of these "my little repeats". There legitimately are episodes in this season that flat-out enrage me, so best I go off and do something more productive than rant. But there are some I like, so I'll give it that.
It's the first of the really bad seasons (which I personally define as a season wherein I give a strong "NO" to half or more of the episodes),
DeleteHm, I think I'll tone that down to just "wherein I give a "no" to half or more of the episodes". Some of the "no's" aren't particularly strong; this is usually if I want to have a good time rather than if, say, I was rewatching the episodes for lore or research purposes or because there are good bits in them somewhere.
As far as I currently feel (though this may change!) there's nothing in S3 that goes as far as enraging me. Not even "Spike At Your Service", from what I recall, though admittedly I haven't watched that in ages. S4 is the first season where I know there will be episodes I really actively dislike.
DeleteYou interest me strangely. Season Four is about as close as I've ever gotten to a season with no outright horrible episodes (even Seasons One and Two couldn't manage that; Seasons Three and Five definitely don't, to say nothing of the second half of the show).
DeleteThat said, in my experience, Season Four also gets by largely by being the mildest season of the bunch, so it's probably something to do with that.
There are episodes later on that I dislike more than those S4 episodes. I'm not sure there's anything in S4 I outright despise. Mind you, I don't find any episode completely without redeeming features. But yes, there are a few in S4 that I doubt I'll ever again watch unless I have a reason like this rewatch.
DeleteI didn't comment much during the season 2 rewatch period, for which I'm sorry, but I'm hoping that I'll have some different perspectives to bring to these season 3 episode repeats, having (a) turned up late, (b) started literally straight after season 2, and (c) watched them with my growing children many, many times over the subsequent years.
ReplyDeleteNo apologies necessary! This isn't coursework, after all. But of course it'll be great to have you along any time you do feel like commenting. :)
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