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| Featuring Andy Price and Katie Cook's OCs, both wearing glasses |
S5E10: "Princess Spike"
My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 5.6
Thoughts: Neal Dusedau's writing debut was not well received. In fact, it is the first FiM episode to score in the fives with IMDb, the previous low being the 6.0 for "Somepony to Watch Over Me" last season. Is it that bad? Well... yes and no. It's not actively disastrous, but it's just... there. I already feel it fading from my mind, and in any case after four and a half seasons "Spike is stupid" was getting really old. It was well past time he developed as a character a bit more – that was coming, but at this point we didn't know that. I actually like the world-building here, with the summit and the regional ponies (even if I don't recognise all the accents and stereotypes) and Twilight hugging books as she drops off can never not be adorable. I thought this was one of Cadance's better eps, too, as she was clearly unconvinced by Spike's explanations. However, I did not like the dragon-sneeze trees. They could perhaps have worked with even a hoof-wavy explanation of why they were in Canterlot, but no. Without that they were just stupid plot devices. The non-magical chainsaw was ridiculous, Fancy Pants wasn't very pleasant and all in all this was... mediocre. Not a total disaster, but it wasn't and still isn't an episode you'd want to show off to people as an example of what FiM can do. Two stars still, and not especially high in that band either.
Choice quote: Fancy Pants: "There's an angry mob here that demands satisfaction!"
New rating: ★★
Next up is "Party Pooped", which I found a bit of a mixed bag, a definite upgrade on "Princess Spike" but still a long way short of being a classic.
"Princess Spike" – Production Changes
ReplyDeletePREMISE
After the special case of “Pinkie Pride”, this is the first episode where the story idea is officially credited to DHX staff. Accordingly, the Premise is quite short. Here, Spike is in Ponyville (feeling neglected in the revised version, with everyone else advancing and him much the same), when Celestia returns an exhausted Twilight from the conference in Canterlot. The broadstrokes of Spike keeping ponies away, then making decisions and it going to his head and causing big trouble – derailing the train into Sugarcube Corner here – all the same. The revised premise ends functionally the same as the main episode, just with Spike waking Twilight up rather than the townsponies. In the original premise, Spike isolated himself in the forest and it took the Mane 5 telling him he owes it to Twilight to tell her, even if it increases her stress. Which it does, but Spike blurting out that she’s his best friend mends the bridges.
Easy to see the reasoning for the changes made in just a week for the revision, but even so, the main issues – a go-nowhere “respect Spike” plot and requiring meanness on the part of incidental roles – were baked in right from the start.
OUTLINE
Apart from the Mane 5 being present in the opening setting things up (they’re otherwise absent except when mentioned), and Celestia fulfilling Cadance’s role, this outline starts out scarily close already. Most differences are extra bits that only get cut at the animatic for time (or minor details like Whinnyapolis being Whinnysota, which survived for one draft).
It deviates when Spike takes over meetings, getting the wrong idea from Luna wanting Twilight to remember the little ponies who made the convention a success, focusing instead on taking the responsibility off her hooves. He even takes her crown to speed up the process, shrugging off Rainbow Dash’s “is it cool to use your friend’s position to make yourself feel good?” Though ponies pay more attention, he doesn’t feel as good, and his words to reassure himself accompany the derailing incidents (here involving derailing the train, which eventually crashes into the ballroom, breaking up the Cakes’ cake (though Pinkie likes this new method of serving).
Here, the delegates instantly blame Spike, and Dash has to rescue him, delivering him to Twilight to break the news. Broadly the same afterwards, just with the delegates remaining angry until Spike starts trying to do the repairs. Episode ends on Spike giving a speech about what he learnt in a different room when Twilight suddenly needs it (having double-booked it), and Spike’s duties are back to normal.
Removing the Mane 5 was obviously done because their presence creates tons of plot holes. Otherwise, pretty close, for this stage of the game.
SCRIPT
Not the closest 1st draft, but even on the metric of functionally-similar-but-different scenes and dialogue, it’s not too severe. The opening scene is functionally similar, but different in dialogue and scene specifics, having Fancy Pants get Spike’s name wrong until Twilight corrects him, and Spike being held back by royal guards from following Twilight past a line. Weirdly, the gem statue is a toothpick statue. Like the outline, Celestia has Cadance’s role in the next scene. That scene is already close, but the business with the bird is more drawn out. Like in the outline, the polo ponies are foals playing kickball. And the dragonsneeze trees are more normal, they just have pollen that Spike reacts to.
[script changes continued below]
[continued from above]
DeleteThe next notable change is Zecora being one of the delegates Spike answers for (“No, you shouldn’t bring Everfree monsters”). The bit with Luna from the outline is now with Cadance (this being the equivalent of her first dressing down of him from the final episode). The script also gets in Spike saying “It’s a princess thing, you wouldn’t understand” during his pampering montage, because of course it does. The water mains pony is on hand to jackhammer a hole to drain the water away (he’s also a delegate). The rest of the script is a mix of final episode bits and following the differences from the outline.
The 2nd draft is the usual stuff – most major differences above, and a fair chunk of the incidental dialogue, now resembles the final episode. The next draft corrects all notable differences, and all incidental dialogue differences get altered in the remaining drafts. Except for some – more on that below.
ANIMATIC & OTHER CHANGES
Notable Time Cuts:
* When Cadance said that Twilight’s been preparing for three days, Spike says “Tell me about it”, and we get a reveal of a wall covered in notes. Even Spike’s bed is covered in notes. The script says it looks like Carrie from Homeland lives here. Cadence admits Twilight does love scheduling, to which Twilight opens an eye, says “that’s true”, and falls right back asleep.
* Spike cites his orders as being from Cadance, not Twilight, when talking to the tree-cutting pegasus and water mains unicorn. A few words are tweaked in the latter’s case. This occurs in most places going forward.
When Spike goes to Twilight for the first answer, he trips on the book pile, knocking them airborne. To prevent the resulting THUD from waking Twilight, he shoots green flames. Cut to Celestia with some delegates, only for the books to rain down on her mid-speech (“It’s a lovely idea to record the history of Equestria in one definitive volume of – books.”). Shortly after, when Twilight gives a nonsensical answer and totters back to sleep, Spike imagines Twilight giving more sleep deprived rantings at the summit, gradually revealing Equestria to be like Mordor, a barren wasteland of misery.
* After Spike tells the two delegates to share, he adds it makes sense on the grounds of them learning from each other. The Manehattan pony counters there’s a big difference between their two talks (“Saving Your Bits” and “Don’t Spend All Your Bits”), but they relent anyway.
* Spike had confident dialogue narrated over the dragonsneeze trees and water mains fixes going pear-shaped.
* Both the water mains pony and tree-cutting pony are shown entering the deluge’s aftermath, looking for their jackhammer and landscaped trees.
* There was a page of delegates complaining (complete with Cadance taking the fall, but they didn’t buy that), replaced with two ad-libbed lines from the Whinnyapolis and Manehattan delegates. Cadence also said Spike”s “You’ve got it all wrong” line originally.
* The cutaway gag of Twilight seeing the result of Spike’s decisions originally had extra lines on both sides that weakened the gag.
* Spike’s apology speech was longer, belabouring the point. Also, throughout, the delegates were more angry, their expressions not softening at all until the sad sight of Spike trying to put the statue back together.
* Spike’s final sneeze (which was just a leftover tree branch, not one a pony foolishly handed to him) didn’t smash cut to black, but had Twilight levitate a napkin over to stifle it. (Cadance: “Gesundheit”).
Notable animatic changes/additions:
* In the script’s pre-title scene, the statue was revealed from the start, rather than getting a dramatic curtain reveal. There was also microphone feedback when Spike spoke, and the audience of delegates went to silence much quicker.
[animatic changes continued below with final thoughts]
[continued from above]
Delete* Twilight stumbled in with Cadance when she entered the tower, rather than when Spike asked what she needed from him.
* The bird was tweeting on a treetop rather than a neighboring tower.
* Spike’s meeting with the gem delegate was in the main ballroom, the episode changed it to a street cafe (the pony was also a guy originally, referred to as such later in Spike’s recap). Similarly, Spike’s first dressing down by Cadance happened after a time cut back to the ballroom, rather than on the streets as in the episode.
* The cameo of Gustav and the painting callback to Fantasy Spike in “A Dog and Pony Show” were board additions – the written gags lacked the callback elements.
* Spike’s recap of his good deeds had the visuals added over the dialogue in the boards.
* Spike originally used the jackhammer to drill a hole and drain the water – him fruitlessly scooping it away with a bowl, and the water bursting out the doors, replaced this. Cadence stopping the water onscreen was a board addition too. Lastly, the delegates and Cadance originally saw the ballroom’s state before Spike sneezed out one gem that toppled the whole statue (Cadance: “Gesundheit”).
Back to hardly any feedback. Just revisions to Cadence’s expressions to be less threatening/suspicious, and revising the gag of Twilight waking up to visually land better.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Interesting how the final script still got a good few tweaks even just in the recording booth. Given that script itself had changed a fair share of lines just from the previous draft, it seems many aspects of the moral, and sternness of other ponies, was a dicey balancing act. Debatable whether they succeeded. The scars of such are evident, given how muddled the layers and tone of the theme still are, even if they’re clear (also, Celestia and Luna retaining one bit each after Cadance took over most of their parts – at least in Celestia’s case, the scrapped book gag partially explains why she was kept).
Really, though, this episode seems to have been a victim of an inherently flawed premise from the seasonal retreat (it feels very Jim Miller, actually), and it’s evident they didn’t know quite how to balance that towards the end. Small wonder it’s meager even by Spike episode standards. Though perhaps we shouldn’t judge the new writer too harshly – anyone would have a tough time with that, and Larson/Hasbro were focused with “Slice of Life” at that time.
_____
NOTE: Starting next week, these comments on the changes will be Highlight comments, including only what I honestly believe are the most interesting parts, and outright skipping the rest. Trying to condense those down without losing any information did them no favors. Better to focus on the best bits.
Don't fret – I plan to start cross-posting these summary/highlight comments on my Fimfic blog soon (formatted better, of course), and they will include links to the unabridged list of changes, for the morbidly curious. Only a small minority would want to read the full list, I realise that now.
Also… did you know Season 5 had over a dozen un-produced episodes? A few resurfaced later (wait till you see the original version of "Applejack's Day Off"), but most never saw the light of day. I'm thinking of doing blogs on these – whole lost episodes are bound to be more interesting than "this gag was scrapped, and this element was slightly different earlier" notes, no? We have Larson's courtroom version of "Rarity Investigates!", a speakeasy episode, discarded map episodes, Suri returning as a rival for Rarity… interested yet?
NOTE 2: I lost my prepared comment on the actual episode itself and what I think of it, ugh. Will redo it later today.
I love the detailed stuff, but I have to admit the "un-produced episodes" are very intriguing!
DeleteIt sounds like this episode was so mediocre that anything slightly fun or interesting was immediately grafted on at whatever stage it came up.
I always felt this one was just shoddily constructed, so Mike's production notes are especially interesting in that regard (and Mike, I really appreciate the extra detail you provide and I'm sure lots of other readers would say the same!)
ReplyDeleteThe moral seemed at odds with the plot on so many occasions. Sure, half of that is Spike being made to hold the idiot ball too often (the water pipe thing being the worst example, but I remember at the time it becoming a running joke where we were all shouting - *chanting*, by the end - "DO NOTHING. GET. CADANCE.")
But the other half is nonsensical - the idea of Spike letting the power go to his head and abusing his newfound authority for personal gain, and Cadance upbraiding him for it, just doesn't track with his actual actions. He makes a lot of bad decisions, some based on lack of information, but the ones which cause the chaos aren't anything to do with him being seduced by corruption, they're direct consequences of him trying to fulfil his instructions and look after Twilight. It felt like the episode didn't want to commit to the sleaze angle and risk just having a re run of Secret Of My Excess, but still needed to find a reason for Spike to be responsible for the mess without accidentally encouraging kids not to do as they're told.
Since Cadance could have avoided all of this by just telling Spike "if anyone tries to speak to Twilight, tell them to come and see me" - which would ruin the episode, but that would perhaps have made for an interesting short, leaving out the decision making stuff and just concentrating on Spike trying to eliminate noise like Donald Duck or something - it all just felt contrived. Even adorable sleepy Twilight can't quite push this into the 2 bracket for me.
Mike's production notes are especially interesting in that regard (and Mike, I really appreciate the extra detail you provide and I'm sure lots of other readers would say the same!)
DeleteOh, don't worry, they're not going anywhere. I'm just streamlining the notes. In particular, I've realised most of the snippets cut from the script to the final episode (the animatic cuts) are no that interesting. I used to think so, because sometimes they gave more context to moments in the episode (Double Diamond stopping by his skis and going "This is where I first met Starlight", for instance, had extra dialogue that made it feel far less random). But most of the time, the trims were invisible and just provoke a "smart cut" reaction. Which is a good thing, it just means they're doing their job right!
That's the main change going forward, keeping the animatic cuts to those ones that are properly informative and/or interesting. The bits on the Premise, Outline and Script will be much the same, just streamlining to keep to important parts (no need to repeat "changing lots of small dialogue changes as the drafts go by" every time!)
I think this change will make them more readable. We'll see next week – "Party Pooped" still hits 1.5 comments even with this new approach, and is a clear example of an episode who's original take would have probably been much better (at least to those of us who dislike the Yaks). So imagine how much space I'd need with the old approach! It's better in the long run.
But yes, it's illuminating to see how this one was tripping over itself from day one and kept reinventing itself more than these usually do, but to little avail. I can only assume Larson knew the episode was unsalvageable when he inherited it (other than his own episodes, his ten-episode stint as Story Editor was largely episodes already in "let's flesh these out" territory by the time he came along), or he and Hasbro were too focused with "Slice of Life" to give this as much attention as it deserved.
Agreed. by this time in the show's run, "Spike can't win" episodes were really old, and I didn't appreciate getting another one.
ReplyDeleteSpike episodes are often frustrating. Despite him being my 2nd favourite character, I have no reason to deny he was never designed to be a solo lead character (indeed, one reason I'm softer on "Spike At Your Service" then most is because it's the only episode that does a dual pair with him and somepony that isn't Twilight or Rarity), and the fact that his episodes tend to sideline or remove most or all of the Mane 6 just highlights how, when not changing his status quo, his plots just un in circles. On top of being short on much of the comic chemistry possible with any of the Mane 6.
ReplyDeleteYet even given that, this is a uniquely frustrating episode. As evidenced by the Production Notes, the episode never figured out the balance between Spike letting the power go to his head, and making him sympathetic via other ponies being mean/plot contrivances. The attempts to fix this in the recording booth, while appreciated, only salvaged a few moments, not the overall package. And the plot contrivances (though the dragonsneeze trees were called something more scientific in earlier drafts, so there's that)! I mean, hardly the worst example out there, but they are impossible to ignore. Cloptimist said the rest (and I did laugh at the image of him and his daughters shouting for Spike to get Cadance, so there's that), so I'll just stand by what he said.
More problematic, is that the episode isn't actually funny much at all. Most jokes are tied to Spike going power-hungry or the contrivances, making them generally not funny, and the few remaining ones (tired Twilight, some of the delegates, etc.) don't really register. Neither does Cadance getting a decent role (she's still as bland as ever, but by giving most of Celestia and Luna's parts in this episode to her, they're trying, at least), or the lore regarding the summit itself elicit much beyond a "that's neat, I guess" reaction.
The end result is a frustrating episode very short on compensating factors to stave off boredom. This, I believe, is why it has the lowest IMDb rating thus far – almost any viewer will have an episode they despise more, but those usually work for some subset of people due to taste, enough for their average rating to be higher. Episodes dumping on Spike, as you all said, were not what we wanted by now (and this is the first to directly pull the "poor me" card, making it more frustrating).
Also, why put a crystal pony delegate there if they're not going to support Spike? Only the Brave and Glorious when the plot calls for it, again.
On the other hand, the Whinnyapolis Delegate was given a perfect Minnesota accent courtesy of Tabitha St. Germain, 4 years before we got "Rainbow Roadtrip", and the DHX artists made the perfect decision to clothe her as a homage to Marge Gunderson from Fargo, the film that popularised the friendly Minnesota accents, don't'cha know. Doesn't matter that her winter clothing makes no sense in Canterlot here. Everything she says and does is a delight, and once again, I salute DHX and crew for making a throwaway role stand out. Plus, it makes some sense – the show already had the Big Lebowski ponies, just continuing the Coen Brothers' homages here. Hm, wonder if there's some True Grit ponies in Equestria…
So, you know, that's a compensating factor.
Oh, one other thing – this episode is the first this season to have Twilight taking on new duties as part of being a Princess, confining it to background plot rather than as the main thrust. This happens quite a few times this season (just next episode, for starters), and knowing that the show scaled back on doing this thing more directly this season (among other serialised notions), does make the shoving of this development into the backdrop harder to ignore. Now I better understand those frustrated at the Big Mac-Sugar Belle episodes not focusing on their building relationship.
It's at this point that I remember that, in my original review of this episode (since edited!) I somehow managed to say the pony was from Montana. That was a pure brainfade, since I am not so bad at geography that I think Minneapolis is in Montana! Still, it gave one or two people some fun in the comments. ;)
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