NB: I call My Little Repeats' main section "Thoughts" and keep it down to one longish paragraph quite deliberately. MLR is not intended to feature full reviews, nor to cover every last significant point. Right; off we go.
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| One day, I may actually watch Turnabout Storm all through... |
S4E04: "Daring Don't"
Written by Dave Polsky
7 Dec 2013
My original rating: 7.5/10 (=★★★)
IMDb score: 7.9The one with National Random Holiday Party Day
Thoughts: Last time we had the debut of one controversial writer; this time we see an episode from one of the early series' more divisive. This ep certainly was, what with its blatant retconning of the Daring Do story. If you can't get past that, you won't like this episode at all. I can to an extent, though the change still niggles a bit all these years on. Definitely some highlights here: there's some snappy dialogue, often a Polsky strong point. Rainbow Dash and Twilight's intense exchange about little details in Yearling's books is brilliant. Caballeron makes quite a solid villain. Pinkie literally painting the red line is great. A particularly nice, fittingly Indiana Jones-reminiscent score from William Anderson, too. On the other hoof, what exactly is Ahuizotl's motivation for unleashing 800 years of sweltering heat? Plus for our heroes, repeatedly pestering an author who so clearly just wants to be left alone isn't laudable behaviour and shouldn't have been rewarded – which it was, by putting Rainbow on the front of AKY's upcoming book. Dash's meme faces annoy me a bit more than they used to, too. Back in 2013, I said that, while entertaining, this episode "seemed to make fun such a high priority that one or two quite substantial underlying problems were glossed over". I still think that, but those flaws show up more clearly to me now than they did when this ep was new. I wavered between a bottom-end three and a top-end two, but in the end I have to bump it down a notch. Two it is.
Choice quote: Fluttershy: "Uh... should we go in and help her, maybe?"
New rating: ★★
Next up is "Flight to the Finish", and if I don't greatly enjoy that one then I think I may start to wonder whether there's something wrong with me!
"I wavered between a bottom-end three and a top-end two, but in the end I have to bump it down a notch. Two it is."
ReplyDeleteHuh? It shows three to me.
Oh, I think you'll find it shows two stars. And has definitely done so since the post went up. Yes. No sneaky editing out of my mistakes here, no indeed...
Delete"I call My Little Repeats' main section 'Thoughts' and keep it down to one longish paragraph quite deliberately. MLR is not intended to feature full reviews, nor to cover every last significant point."
ReplyDeleteNo, that's my job. :P
I maintain this one is watchable entertainment. It's a trainwreck, no question. But to me at least, it's an amusing trainwreck with some compensations.
When it's "Daring Do and the Fight for the Ring", it's leaping into familiar action with respectable verve. All the pulpy action scenes a shallow but indulgent watcher could ask for. Daring's gruff, no-nonsense attitude, parade of villains, literal catfight, and final thwarting of Ahuizotl at the Temple of Tenochtitlan are as cliched as hell, but that's part of the charm. I'm very partial to the Adventurer Archaeologist genre (Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Nathan Drake...), so a pony version of it makes this episode a neat little proof of concept and a reasonably cool, fun way to spend a few minutes.
And then there's everything else.
When it's "My Little Pony: Meta Weirdness", it falls flat on its face. Rainbow's portrayal is, to put it bluntly, broken. She's too selfish, annoying as hell, weirdly has bystander syndrome twice when the plot calls for it, and her turnaround at the end is so whiplash unconvincing that I absolutely prefer Daring Do just keep giving her the cold shoulder. You're right: Dash basically gets rewarded for harassment, and that is a black mark in my book.
There's little point reiterating how nonsensical the "Daring Do is real" setup is, because everyone sees why (example: Daring's otherwise-fair line about keeping secrets becomes utterly ludicrous in that context). It seems engineered solely to bring the Main Six into the proceedings, which is pointless because "Read It And Weep" split the difference so, so, soooo much better it makes this one look worse. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's obvious the only Main Six members who were needed were Rainbow and maybe Twilight: everyone else is dead weight.
And that's not all. Once you start scratching the surface, a lot of weirdness starts showing up all over the story. Why are Aztec-like ruins - previously depicted in a tropical jungle - suddenly relocated to what's effectively the southwest Canadian wilderness? Why do the Main Six - confirmed heroes at this point - just hang around for so long while Daring's getting attacked? Why do Twilight and Rainbow feel the need to remind each other of a series of plots in the books that not only should both of them already know, but that's superfluous beyond the most recent detail? What the hell IS Ahuizotl's goal? Why does Caballeron fall for Daring's obvious disguise, and if he did see through it, why didn't Daring just start with that, given how avaricious he is? What's the point of mentioning his backstory when it informs nothing about his character? Where the hell was Daring hiding that sack of money anyway? Why does removing the rings cause the tower to collapse? And why, in that case, is Daring - who so far has been 100% effective in thwarting Daring Do - so conveniently unable to do so without help this time?
Some of this can be swept under the pulp genre rug (Ahuizotl being evil is just part of the premise, you could say), but overall these mounting incongruities do point to the conclusion that this episode is sloppy as all get-out. It makes an already-broken premise look outright shattered.
I can still watch the episode fine, but its premise is dead on arrival and the worst part is that it didn't have to be at all. There were plenty of ways to get a Daring Do adventure there without such a nonsensical framing device. I mean, Season Two managed it with flying colours.
"who so far has been 100% effective in thwarting Daring Do"
DeleteDarn, I meant "her enemies". Garbled it there.
Oh, and a couple more...
DeleteHow the hell did Twilight find Daring's address if Daring's working hard to keep up the masquerade? It's glossed over in the early going, but seriously, given the premise this is a super-convenient plot point.
And why doesn't Daring Do act like she's got a masquerade to maintain? Why does her picture on the cover NOT look different to her if she's keeping this a secret? How has no one else noticed the similar coat colours, for one thing? This series has been going on for ages! Someone would have blown the whistle before now...
My word, this "Daring Do is real" premise really is asinine.
Why are Aztec-like ruins - previously depicted in a tropical jungle - suddenly relocated to what's effectively the southwest Canadian wilderness?
DeleteNot sure, but I'm betting it's the same reason another episode, Appleloosa's Most Wanted, which I'm pretty sure Polsky also wrote, has a dense woodland growing around Appleloosa, when last we saw it, it was surrounded by nothing but endless desert.
Pretty much everyone agrees this episode - and all future Daring Do episodes - are conceptually broken by virtue of having her and the genre-rific events of her pulp action books occupy the same world as the modern Equestria we all know. That's been a universal observation ever since this episode debuted 7+ years ago. Where people differ is in whether they look past that and enjoy the surface-level pulpy action. Unlike Impossible Numbers, however, I can't do that, at least here. Believe me, I tried, but if anything I hated this episode even more on a rewatch, and I was already quite distasteful to it.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that even the Daring Do-centric bits, divorced from the Mane 6's intrusions, don't really work is - well, we get constant cutaways to the Mane 6, or just Rainbow during the middle. So at no point is enough momentum build up with the potentially-fun Adventurer Archaeologist aspects. I actually timed it, and the longest section spent with none of the Mane 6 onscreen is Daring's attempted bribery of Caballeron, followed by Ahuizotl's appearance. It lasts 36 seconds. The great majority don't last more than 10. Believe me, I love me some Indiana Jones and anything similar. But this episode seems determined to not let those aspects be any fun.
Take it as a given that I agree with just about every negative point mentioned by Impossible Numbers above. In the interest of avoiding repetition, I'll focus on some others.
Twilight never using anything on the level of her unicorn power is bad enough, doubly so now she's an alicorn - the "Freeze, Everypony!" spell she literally used last episode would have made all action scenes pointless. Couple the dead weight of the rest of the Mane 6, and this is an episode I wish had come several seasons later (blasphemy!), when only bringing along a few members was the norm.
The structural transitions of this episode are borderline barbaric - the switch between Caballeron and Ahuizotl as the Big Bad is done with so little care that it only calls to attention how Caballeron's backstory doesn't inform his character at all. The episode can never settle on what kind of reaction it wants its characters to have to the "Daring Do is real" twist, and thus it alternates between fangirling, to a nerd-off that makes Twilight and Rainbow look unable to focus on the prize, to Dash-is-unjustifiably-clumsy, to a crisis of self doubt on Dash's part that doesn't remotely sell. It's whiplash of the highest order.
Finally - well, not finally, but finally of the point I'll make here - the final book's cover having Dash as she is rather then a visual alias shoots the premise to bits even further, drawing attention to the conceptual train wreck that it is. Not only should Dash look different, the episode would be improved immeasurably if Daring here had a different design to her book design that's a Rainbow Dash expy (I'm guessing both these ideas were axed to make sure kids Get It).
The early stuff before they set off is fun and unremarkable banter with the Mane 6, but other than that and a few isolated action moments and gags, this episode is an insufferable, vastly misfire. It didn't have to be this way - the "Daring Do is real" concept isn't 100% unsolvable - but there's little point in pining over the episode this could have been. And yes, Dash's character breaking bothers me the way may say episodes of hers in Season 2 did, what with the episode rewarding her harassment. Move over, Pinkie from "A Friend in Deed".
P.S. At one point, we see Caballeron and his flunkies eating from a hay bale - Withers is literally chewing off of it. I appreciated that isolated moment of more horse-like behaviour. A nice visual throwback to Season 1 by the storyboard artist.
Whenever I see complaints about how much "Daring Do is real" doesn't make sense, it usually comes down to two arguments: why is a villain as clearly dangerous as Ahuizotl allowed to run free in Equestria when so many others are Element-ized, and "it goes against the comics!"
DeleteThe latter, of course, is technically not true. An older comic showed Twilight's mom had numerous writing awards at home, but never specified what for, and it was just the fandom putting two and two together. Though, for what it's worth, Twilight Velvet being AK Yearling would honestly have matched up well with her thrillseeker personality we got in season 7.
Regardless, my point is no one ever talks about what keeping Daring fictional could have done for the show. Picture this: Once a season or two, we get "a Daring Do episode", with Dash and Twilight reading books to each other, or one just remembering what she'd read and recounting it in a similar situation. Not only would there be more TwiDash ship fuel, but it would also allow the show to open a path toward teaching the target demographic how to interpret and analyze stories, something that they could then apply to the show itself. You know, a lesson of "Because Daring did this, Rainbow could follow her example and do that" would reinforce, "Hey, you kids are supposed to be learning shit from this cartoon."
Of course, corporations don't want to teach critical thinking because it's bad for them. And the whole fandom would be nitpicky assholes instead of just us here on this blog. :V
Not only would there be more TwiDash ship fuel
DeleteThis is not necessarily a potential plus point. :P
I require few things in life, let me have this. :V
DeleteIt's not just the villains being allowed to roam scot-free, it's so many ponies not copping on to the adventures being a real thing, what with all the locations and treasures that actually exist. And that the ponies and Equestrian government would do nothing about it. At least if Daring Do's book character had a visual alias that was quite different from what she actually looks like… but I guess we can blame Hasbro wanting to make sure kids Get It for that one.
DeletePersonally, I think the Daring Do books should have remained confined to that one Season 2 episode and not been such a features element again. Because if they're not real, we're otherwise confined to "recap" stories, and the ideas you mentioned, as you indicate, would not have survived through the production process with their soul intact. Only other solution that springs to mind is a "get sucked into a book" kind of story, and clearly the writers thought of this idea too - because they used it this very season for an unrelated episode. Meep.
But, I get the feeling we're not going to agree on a lot here (I acknowledge your wish for more shipping fuel, even if I couldn't disagree more), so I'll leave it be there, my good pony.
In terms of the process of writing this episode, it's the first this season to have changes worth recounting.
ReplyDeleteThe opening focused first on Dash imagining a fantasy of her fighting bad guys as Daring Do - whether while cloud-busting or right after her excited moment with Fluttershy in the final episode - and crashing into a cliff that she saw as a bad guy rather then a bird's nest.
Early on Dash had written Yearling a letter offering to help with everyday stuff so she could write the book faster, prompting her to go there in pony when it went unacknowledged.
Lots of little differences at the cottage scene, chief among them being Twilight so focused on reprimanding Dash's lack of politeness that she doesn't noticed the henchponies fighting Yearling until the others alert her right as Yearling dons her adventurer getup. What's more, they don't sit idly by for the whole fight, but are blocked by one unicorn henchpony putting up a forcefield, at least in the script's 1st draft (okay, this is little better as it wouldn't stop Twilight, Polsky had written himself into a corner).
Moving forward, Daring's lines were explained more (she quizzed Dash on the principle of her working alone from the books, and was somewhat less abrasive throughout), like her remarking that having a book series gave her the ransom money she needed. There were also some scenes of the Mane 5 following, complete with wondering over why Daring stored the ring in her house.
The most notable change is that Auhizotl was a different villain called Huitzlopochtli (yeah, I have no idea how one would even go about pronouncing that) who had bat minions (earlier, the villains were just tribal ponies and Dash was more involved in the fight rather then just standing by, and it was a moment of cockiness on her part that led to their defeat). And the villains didn't let Dash be either, instead some bats were about to overwhelm her as the rest departed with Daring and the ring, but the Mane 5 came to the rescue - complete with a Fluttershy lecture that their mothers would be ashamed that send those ones flying away in panic.
In the final act, the 800 years of heat were instead of a "frozen wonderland". And the epilogue changed with each draft, either being all the ponies reading the new book with all of them having aliases within (so they did have sense in them at one point), or the Mane 5 about to get the new book only for Dash to flaunt her private copy and lend it to Twilight and co. to read, hinting Daring has a sidekick this time (no Friendship Journal yet, as that episode was written as the 7th this season).
Each further draft of the script brought it more in-line with the final version (though the ponies still tried to help Daring in the cottage, this seems to be an animatic change, as did axing the scene of the Mane 5 following and changing the bats to cats, and removing a whip Daring used), and it's clear they realised the visual aspects needed more screen time then is apparent on the page, so it got three pages shorter during the process, and that still wasn't enough, so more parts (like Dash's early fantasy) were removed at the animatic stage.
Some small differences here and there that make the episode slightly better then what we got (though also some bits I'm thankful were removed, like Rarity remarking she'd be glad to have an assistant but is too she to trouble others for help - only for Spike to show up saying he finished cleaning her studio like she asked, to which Rarity blushes and remarks, "What unfortunate timing."), but it's only akin to getting splattered with ten or nine rotten eggs, as opposed to eleven. Almost every problem in the final episode is still present, even if a few are somewhat mitigated early in the process.
Still, the changes with every draft, and many more getting changed at the animatic stage, suggests this episode was tougher to come together then those involved reckoned with. If only they knew...
I wish that Spike scene had remained, that is gold. XD
DeleteI didn't really mind this one so much, but I agree, their pestering of Yearling was irresponsible, and they should have known better. I'm ok with Ahuizotl being relatively unknown, as is Caballeron, just because there's this air of mystery about all of them, Daring included, where nobody thinks they're real. Besides the intrusion into her privacy, I doubt Yearling wants it known she's real, because then it calls attention to her (possibly criminal) exploits and might inspire more competition.
ReplyDeleteAnother gem from Dave "Screw Continuity and Established Character, I'll Just Throw in a Lot of Slapstick Gags and They'll Never Know the Difference" Polsky.
ReplyDeleteAnd with the obvious moral of "Stalk your heroes. It'll work out just fine, trust me," this is one of the few episodes I'll give a low two-star rating. (On a good day.)