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S7E24: "Uncommon Bond"
21 Oct 2017
My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.4
Thoughts: Kevin Lappin wrote three episodes of FiM, all of them for this season. The okay "Honest Apple" and the entertaining "To Change a Changeling" were the first two, and "Uncommon Bond" rounds off the trio. Here, though, he shares the credit with Josh Haber. Anyway, something I'd forgotten was that Sunburst isn't actually all that likeable to start with, oblivious to how he's making Starlight feel as he fancolts about Twilight. There's more fun once Trixie and later Maud appear, but even so. Once again Glimmy is cavalier about breaking rules (the Mirror Pool seal) and once again she has staggering magical ability which never did end up getting properly explained. This time, the age spell on herself and Sunburst.¹ She does, as Twi says, have a tendency to overdo. There's a very nice message in this episode about how friendships can change as ponies grow older but not necessarily have to end. That's an important and satisfying moral, even if the surrounding ep is a bit too hither-and-thither for it to shine out properly. I'm going to leave its three-star rating intact.
¹ Also, did you consider the consent issues, Starlight? Hmm? Perhaps we need to talk about this...
Choice quote: Starlight: "This shop looked a lot smaller from the outside."
New rating: ★★★
Almost done with Season Seven now! Almost, but not quite, for next time it'll be what follows on from that ominous moment at the end of this episode: the first part of the S7 finale, "Shadow Play". I adored this when I first saw it, but I can't help feeling it might not have aged entirely gracefully. Let's see.
We're almost at the end of the season, and the last episode before the finale is simply underwhelming. Not Secrets and Pies levels of awful, but the one word I could best describe this episode with would be "uninteresting".
ReplyDeleteI've never found Sunburst to be an interesting character to begin with, and this episode (and one to come for next season) did very little to make care more for him either. At best, he's overshadowed by his co-stars, and at worst, he's utterly useless. In fact, I barely remember anything meaningful he did in season six; that says a lot, doesn't it? He may as well be a background pony.
I'm trying to find words to describe this episode, but I barely remember anything beyond setting up the finale. If it wasn't for that, I'd say Uncommon Bond would be utterly skippable and very little would be lost. I guess I just find it bad in a non-specific way.
having a hard time coming up with anything other than "this one was okay"
ReplyDeleteI did like the life-sized board game with dragon costumes at least
I should have expected it, but this deflated from my memories of being a pleasant diversion to a mildly pleasant diversion for the typical Season Seven niggles: a protracted first act that has a fair share of circular dialogue and over-explaining, a truncated third act that wraps up quick enough for the realisation to feel kinda hollow and ill-equipped to properly resolve the admittedly nuanced and realistic issue it's painted for itself, and the general sense that either a shorter length or more witty, clever writing would make it more lively. And, afresh to this one, using montages liberally to the point they tire (two whole years before that really did in "The Point of no Return").
ReplyDeleteReally, while I don't know how much we can credit the writing of this to Josh Haber (when the Story Editor shares a co-writing credit with a regular, that typically means they only came in for later drafts), if feels every inch an episode of his: when they aren't involving attempts at wacky cartoon antics, they just come across as sleepy and disinterested, and while they are entertaining things aplenty here, the only parts that seem to have woken him up in the writing are the bits about Starlight's personality and overdoing it. Which do produce some properly funny bits, though also, even with her having more common sense by this point in the show, still her making and executing a spell like that and the characters never addressing the consensual issues around it. And also the Mirror Pool, I suppose.
Still, possibly because I am an insular nerd like Sunburst myself, I totally bought his obliviousness to how he was making Starlight feel, so it fell realistic and a plus to me. This also shows once again how useful in the writing Trixie can be when the episode isn't about her, and I welcomed the further insight into what makes Starlight and Maud tick. Valuable moral for adults too (easily the most in quite a while), Sunburst's interactions with Twilight are adorkable, and a few moments excepted, Starlight's plight is relatable and believable enough that I do feel the pangs for her too.
So, a bit of a Season Seven day at the office on the rewatch for this one, but the bones being solid and workable means I consider it to be fine enough. Which, yeah, FiM deserves better, but the closer you go to the end, the more you take what you can get.
I adored this when I first saw it, but I can't help feeling it might not have aged entirely gracefully. Let's see.
I was never a fan of it myself (and would have watched it first only two months after it aired, at the end of my initial binge of the show), and I'm always surprised when I look back and see so many positive reactions. I guess a combination of euphoria at the delectable lore made people overlook how nonsensical and retconning it was, plus the shallowness of so many characters. Also, they had no way of knowing how all the bits and characters here would barely be used again, and how the writing of Season Eight would go. And possibly dissatisfaction with the movie made people more charitable towards it.
Just spitballing of course, and I won't presume to speak for others, so I'll save the remaining thoughts for next time.
I never was too interested in Sunburst until the episode where his mother was trying to run his life. Other than that, I never found him sympathetic. This one was okay, and as much as I like Starlight always seeming like she's on the edge of becoming unhinged, it was a bit much here.
ReplyDeleteDue to some retrospective quirk of mine, I actually watched this episode before "The Crystalling", and it gave me a pleasant first impression of Sunburst's dorky side that raised my hopes a bit too high for the Season Six two-parter.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the episode's... underwhelmingly "eh", as a whole, for me personally. But I will give it credit that Sunburst comes off as charmingly geeky here, so yeah: credit where it's due.