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| There's a stall selling saucepans at the back there. Saucepans. What a convention! |
S6E13: "Stranger Than Fan Fiction"
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.3
Thoughts: For reasons I can't now recall, the mid-S6 hiatus came after 12 episodes. Seven weeks later, we were back with this, an ep generally fondly remembered but also disliked by some for being so clearly aimed at the fandom rather than kids in places. I'm squarely in the "this is great fun" camp. Patton Oswalt is another excellent guest star, and his improvised closing-credits speech on fanfic is a real highlight – one of many. Rainbow Dash has a good outing, too: she's written satisfyingly and she and Quibble make a great "odd couple" team who, in the best tradition, move from sniping at each other to working highly effectively together. (As an aside, though it's very rare now, DashPants shipping was everywhere for a short while.) The dialogue is generally excellent, there's a lot of truly funny humour, the visuals and sounds are great, the convention stuff is glorious... in short, there's a lot to like here. Is it perfect? Nah. Daring Do's pebble thing at the end stretches credulity even for her adventures, Quibble is occasionally a tiny bit too dense... and why did nopony at the con notice Caballeron and his henchponies weren't wearing hoofbands? But none of these ruin what is a tremendously entertaining episode. This is a case where "this couldn't have been made in S1" isn't a criticism. It keeps its four, and it's a high four at that. I love this episode.
Choice quote: Quibble Pants: "You need to get your money back."
New rating: ★★★★
Next
time, I'll be rewatching "The Cart Before the Horses", an episode I found frustrating. Great concept, catchy song, fun visuals... but characterisation that just didn't sit right. We'll see if it does any better now.
This is the rare episode that walks the cringe line without at least falling fully into it. I still feel some secondhand embarrassment watching it (and I'm no particular fan of Patton Oswalt, so I find Quibble more grating than not) but at the same time, it really is a lot of fun. Ponies having a fan convention really hits the same spot as Lyra being obsessed with humans, a horse-shaped mirror in which we can see ourselves reflected. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a… difficult episode for me to wrestle with, and one I hadn't seen in full for ages before yesterday. It is, at least, a "Daring Do is real" episode that doesn't tie itself into writing knots trying to reconcile that, and having some of our mane ponies in the mix. Though kinda weird to think that, at the time this premiered, it had been 2.5 years since Daring Don't brought this concept to life – a longer gap than the not-even-two-years between that episode and Read It and Weep. Must have felt funky at the time to having Daring finally return, with only G.M. Berrow's three children's novels in the interim.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, on this rewatch, I'm largely in agreement with Present Perfect. It's walking a cringe line and doesn't manage to stay on the right side of it as much as I'd like. It certainly doesn't help when one is not a fan of FiM's later seasons of Gen 5, to see Quibble's arguments against the later Daring Do stuff. But, on reflection, more works than not even with Quibble, and it cannot be denied Patton Oswalt was well-suited to this character.
And really, outside of the secondhand embarrassment at chunks of his dialogue (and they're still significant enough to be highlighted), there's precious little to complain about. Dash makes a great counterpoint to Quibble, bringing out a different variety of "jock-><-egghead" comic chemistry than when she's with Twilight. I already touched on the Daring Do aspect, and as long as one is willing to roll with this temple being in a convention centre's back yard, it's sturdy enough to not crack apart at the slightest thought. Certainly, Caballeron is used here more satisfyingly than any other episode (Daring Don't subs him out for Ahuizotl, Daring Done? is an undernourished muddle, and Daring Doubt… yeah, we're not going there). Letting the captives go to lead them to the place? I'll take it!
And yeah, seeing a fan convention realised this vividly is pretty great.
Much like Flutter Brutter, the intentional cringe means this is rarely one I seek out to rewatch, but it's done pretty darn well regardless. Next to the writing travesty that is Fame and Misfortune (you can bet I have choice words for that one come approximately next September), it's a holy grail of meta commentary. And still best "Daring Do is real" episode by quite a significant margin. So, yeah. Bumpy show, but good one all the same.
Except the body pillow gag. That's just wrong to put in this show on so many levels.
Next September should be... interesting, then, given that in 2017 at least, and with the proviso that I didn't like how it came to be an episode, I really liked "Fame and Misfortune". Not even in a "so bad it's good" way either. If I still feel that way, expect to disagree with me about almost everything. ;)
DeleteI did like the idea of this one, and the guest star played his part well. But it feel like one of those stories that just keeps hitting the same plot point over and over again, leaving it with a taste of something that only stood to be half as long and got stretched to fit the time. I'd probably rate it a middle 3.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've no idea why the season took a break after Spice Up Your Life and then resumed with this episode. Given that Stranger Than Fan Fiction is meant to be the 13th episode of the season, wouldn't it have made better sense to make that the mid-season finale? They did the same thing with Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? the season prior, as well as The Mean 6 and Between Dark and Dawn since (not The Perfect Pear for whatever reason), so this decision is baffling.
ReplyDeleteThat aside (it's got nothing to do with my actual thoughts on the episode, but I did think it was worth pointing out), Stranger Than Fan Fiction is an episode I loved upon first watch, and I still do to this day, which is surprising given who wrote this episode. My guess is that when he's collaborating with another writer, usually Josh Haber, much of Michael Vogel's problems as a writer seem to vanish, whereas as a solo act, he's very much on autopilot at best, or misunderstands characters and/or themes at worst - Spice Up Your Life feels like it went against what Rarity went through in Canterlot Boutique the year prior.
While it's got the vibe of a critique on fandoms as a whole (and not just the Brony fandom specifically), unlike a certain episode from the following season, this one actually shows some nuance in that people who like the same thing will not agree about every aspect of it. And that is something I know all too well, and it feels just as relevant as it did back in 2016. Maybe even more so.