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| So maybe Derpy didn't stop winning races after leaving the Wonderbolts... |
S6E14: "The Cart Before the Ponies"
My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 6.0
Thoughts: Back to earth with a bump now. This episode seemed to have so much in its favour: I love motorsport, I have great affection for Wacky Races, I enjoyed the song, there's Cheerileader, there's a nice Derpy flashback scene and a race gives plenty of scope for interesting conflict. Plus the ep's written by Ed Valentine, who we know can write effective CMC episodes. It could have worked really well. It should have worked really well. Why didn't it? Well, the absurd design of the track didn't help, and the hoped-for Wacky Races homage is confined to one extremely short scene during the song, but I could mostly have looked past that had the characterisation not been so annoying. The CMC's three older sisters are quite unappealing throughout, coming across as a mixture of oblivious and obnoxious. They go pretty much the entire episode without realising their sisters are upset – have you learnt nothing since "Sisterhooves Social", Rarity? This also means that there is a serious predictability about the whole thing, even for a kids' cartoon like FiM. I'm with the consensus on this: sadly, it's a rather poor episode. I'm not bumping this one up any stars.
Choice quote: Applejack: "No, not the fringe!"
New rating: ★★
Next
time, I'll be rewatching "28 Pranks Later", another episode I don't have very much enthusiasm for. It would be great to change my opinion for the better, but I'm not all that hopeful.
This is one of those levels that really tests the "is mediocrity worse than offense?" question. It's definitely garbage, but there's also worse in terms of technical merit. Maybe not much worse, but ugh.
ReplyDeleteIt was as I rewatched this one and saw the writer credit that I thought, "Oh, Mike Vogel wrote the Premise, maybe that means he's the catalyst for the older sisters being out-of character and such self-absorbed competitive jerks? It would certainly fit." So I went back and looked at the Premise and found that this was mostly true.
ReplyDeleteThe episode started off as the CMCs each captaining a team of foals playing Hunt for the Horseshoe (Capture the Flag). Unable to win, Scootaloo ropes in Dash for some advice, and when this helps their team win, the other two bring in AJ and Rarity. Soon enough, the casual fund descends into guerrilla warfare, the other foals quit due to not having fun, and the CMCs learn to pony up and chew out the adults.
So, basic notion of the other ponies ruining things due to taking it too seriously is there, though it's only implied at this stage that the CMCs worry they're taking it too far but don't speak up due to assuming adults know best. This got an outline later that fleshed it out and changed some details – it's a one-off event now; Sweetie Belle draws a poor team and thus instantly enlists Rarity's help, which the others overhear and follow suit with Dash and AJ; the long capture-the-flag game derails into a war zone gradually until the CMCs rat their sisters out to Cheerilee – but it a pretty normal extrapolation.
In any case, this was retooled to a beat sheet for a kart racing episode, meaning they didn't like how the episode was looking and wanted a more exciting game. Other than a few aberrations (no clarified three-prize system, though Rarity does still flashback to missing most creative; the kids race alone, making the adults taking over even wilder; Diamond Tiara is present though largely peripheral, mostly to show she gets more fun racing despite not winning), this beat sheet is the episode already. And those differences get phased out along the script's progress, leaving a final script barely 26 pages long that, while still having some tiny bits here and there cut later, actually totally lacked the montage of the CMCs trying and failing to steer the designs of the carts in the direction they wanted. Yep, that was purely DHX's invention (the animatic notes infer it may have been to solve a timing issue). Wise, I'd say, even if it hardly saves the episode. We also see a first-hand example of Diamond Tiara getting weened out by (presumably) Hasbro's insistence that "her story is done".
Whoa, did not mean to return to digging through the full slate of production documents. I suppose it speaks to how one-note this episode's failings are. There's the nugget of a good intention with the CMCs not questioning their older sisters, for maybe a scene or two, but not stretched over a whole episode. Ditto for the older sisters not realising how swept up they're getting; having them be called out on it after a scene would have been fine. But instead, we have them ignoring dozens of moments of the CMCs actually telling them "no, let's do it this way" (while the script tries to pretend, after the pileup, that they never spoke up, dividing the blame between the CMCs and the older sisters), and it's annoying, and repetitive, and predictable, and a total drag, bringing down the episode's other strengths.
Rarely before has there been an MLP episode that should, by all right, be bundles of fun, with a concept like this, and which is totally done in by the obligation to have a moral, personal conflict. At least, with the choice of this one. I'll always remember the fun song and concept of a carting episode, but it's not remotely surprising this one has been a minor punching bag for the writing problems that started plaguing this era of the show for the past six years and change, and from which it most likely won't ever escape. As well it shouldn't.
Agreed on all points. Not only was it bad characterization, but the plot wasn't good either. There's nothing to draw my interest beyond the one bit of Derpy.
ReplyDeleteThe cart wreck this episode really is the episode in a nutshell. I mean, frustrating and flat characterization aside, they try to balance that out by saying there’s a message about adults not always being right and that speaking up to them is hard. That’s a great message, but the CMC did speak up…multiple times…so what’s the actual message? Adults are stupid and obnoxious? Not sure what the idea was here. I don’t think this the worst episode of the show but it might be the most sloppy.
ReplyDeleteYep, this is one I try to pretend doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone's pretty much nailed what's wrong with this ep. The only thing I'll add is: wouldn't it have been an interesting set of pair-ups, had the CMC's actually swapped sisters and worked with each other's? Feels like a major missed opportunity.
ReplyDelete