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| "What do you mean? Let what go?" |
S6E16: "The Times They Are a Changeling"
20 Aug 2016
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.2
Thoughts: Thorax's debut was the first episode credited to Chris Wyatt and Kevin Burke. While the whole "changeling reformation" mini-arc is not exactly considered one of the show's greats, this first instalment is pretty nice and was fairly widely praised at the time. I was a bit surprised to discover I'd given it four stars, not three, back in 2016. Setup is fine, though Spike showing off is really wearing thin by now, and we only even meet Thorax at the end of act one. Once he saves Spike, things get interesting. It helps that Thorax is relatable, and in a way I wish this had been the end point: reformation, but without the Technicolor makeover. Pleasant characterisation of most of the others, and I appreciated Shiny being so harsh initially for understandable personal reasons. Spike's song is lovely musically, even if the lyrics are not the most interesting. I think four stars may have been a slight overreaction to the underwhelming last two episodes: Starlight is fairly pointless here and the inconsistent pacing (slow act one, hurried act three) doesn't much help, so I'll nudge it down to three – but it's still a high three. S6 seemed to be getting back on track at this point, and good Spike eps are never unwelcome.
Choice quote: Spike: "Okay... rock, how do I know you're really a rock?"
New rating: ★★★
Next
time, I'll be rewatching "Dungeons & Discords", an episode of which I have reasonably fond memories. I really hope I still feel that way after my rewatch.
Having not seen this episode in full in at least a few years, on the back of growing dissatisfied with the direction taken with the changelings, this one had been curdling in my brain for a while now. Alas, finally revisiting it didn't do it a lot of favours.
ReplyDeleteThat the episode has three "Story By" credits and two "Written By" credits, all of them new to this season (and only Mike Vogel not coming on board with this episode), certainly points to one issue here, which is that the exposition is really clunky. Perhaps assuming the viewer doesn't remember a thing about changelings, it goes way overboard, repeating points more times than is needed in every scene, and having characters ramble on about points well drilled in (this most leapt out at me during Thorax’s introduction, but the scenes up to that point are sloppy on that front too, as are many thereafter), all in words that have minimal flair to them. The same could be said for the "Celebrity Spike" angle, reiterated even more than it being a key plot point requires, even for the target demographic.
Perhaps as a result, all the big points of character movement and growth, ironically for a changeling episode, feel short-changed. Spike pledging to help Throax in the first place feels like a crucial reason for siding with him was left out (not a script cut, alas), or that any emphasis on Spike always feeling a little isolated from ponies making for some connecting tissue should have been used. More noticeably, Twilight's bit at the end about how Spike set the true example and she learnt a lot from this feels like a largely cut subplot that would resonate off of her having doubts on what Spike was doing all episode (writers, it takes more then having the moral in your opening and closing scene in two otherwise-peripheral characters to make it land). But no, can't have Twilight showing fault…! So instead, all that is highlighted by guards, Shining and Cadance. Which, yeah, they should be doubtful, but we don't need it reiterated over and over.
And then we have the oft-told observation that Thorax is kind of just a blandly-voiced guy, only interesting for what happens to him. And while the worst of changeling cheapening was yet to come, that they can turn into any animal and even inanimate objects really just makes them plot metamorphs, as opposed to being dark mirrors of ponies (I do like how spindly Thorax's disguise is, showing how starved he is). Even as beautiful as Spike's singing is. And the reasoning for everyone turning, even with that song (which loses a lot of power as part of the episode relative to in isolation), just does not fly. Even here, the blind acceptance just rings as stupid, especially as they show no signs of asking/demanding intel or anything.
Oh, poor, poor Spike: even post-“Gauntlet of Fire”, your characterisation is no less wobbly than before; it’s hard to get a bead on his character interiority here, and more often then not, he’s a plot vehicle. Poor guy.
Other thoughts: when watching this, with the way the episode kept dancing around the option of Spike feeding Thorax by sharing love with him, I couldn’t tell if they were trying to imply he couldn’t because he’s not a pony (which would fit with the old fandom theories that they can only morph into ponies and their powers only work to and from them), or the writers were just being sloppy. Given Chrysalis absorbed love from that Ophiotaurus in Season 9, evidently not. I did like the changeling hunger hissing thing though.
There is actually a fair amount of ambition here, both in exploring privilege in a subtle, not ham-fisted way and in bringing in a changeling to the cast, but it's just so dumbed-down and easy and simple and doesn't speak well of the characters or lore. Outside of the rock moment, this didn't actively irritate the way changelings largely do once they became a bag of skittles (at this point, many other avenues were still open), but the writing is so infantile and repetitive that it almost has the feeling of a preachy after-school special. And not a good one either.
Heh, unlike last week I'm not just found to say, ""You know what? I've had a rethink. I like Thorax -- though I like Ocellus as well, for that matter. I don't find Spike too bad when he's not showing off (which admittedly he is for too long) and even back when I was new to the fandom it wasn't settled opinion that changelings could only become ponies. So this time around I won't be changing my mind to agree with you. I'm comfortable with the three -star rating.
DeleteNot just *going* to say. Gah, doing this on a phone is annoying.
DeleteAnother episode that I never found good to begin with, and most of my problems boil down to "A Changeling Can Change", which is right up there with "The Pony I Want to Be" as one of the worst songs in the show's history. They sound good out of context, but it's only when you listen to them in context that the problems arise.
ReplyDeleteThe intended message of The Times They Are a Changeling is that "not everyone of the same species is bad", which would be fine on its own, except that the song outright states, "a changeling can change". How, in the name of Celestia, does this correlate to Thorax wanting to be accepted by ponykind?! This episode outright states that he never wanted to harm anyone, and yet the song completely goes against this by suggesting that he went through a redemption arc! Even if they actually went that direction, it would likely have been sloppy, but at least it would've connected with the song!
This song tries so hard to be taken seriously, it's actually pathetic. Do political conflicts end with a song convincing the opposition to sway the singer's direction? No! That's what it feels like here, and I keep wondering why I'm the only one who thinks this.
Not only are good Spike eps welcome, they're extremely hard to come by.
ReplyDeleteHaving done a changeling "redemption" plot in a story some time before this episode aired, it was of particular interest for me not only in the events, but also for what it foreshadowed. Unfortunately, the important (and very true) lesson that not all individuals are caricatures of their native culture was directly contradicted by a future episode. The after-the-fact attempted fix via Thorax's brother did not land well or convincingly.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, it's a shame that they didn't give Thorax any character traits beyond being an angstmuffin. That was one thing MLP did so well early on; clear and dynamic characters, with strong interests and flaws!
I do wonder if this was meant to be part of a mini-arc for Spike this season. Think about it: in this, "Gauntlet of Fire", and to a lesser extent "Dungeons and Discords", Spike ends up in a high-risk situation and spends a good chunk of his time reaching out to a member of another species, one who doesn't have much wide experience of friendship themselves and could benefit from being brought into the broader pony circle (Ember becoming penpals with Twilight, Thorax having no hive to go back to, Discord having too narrow a range of friends).
ReplyDeleteAlso, "Thorax" means the chest area, usually of an insect, and therefore where you'd find the heart. I don't know if that meaning was intended, but I think it works subtly well in hindsight.
I suspect that mini-arc idea is a bit too clever to be the reality this late in the series, but I really like it nevertheless. :)
Delete