My Little Repeats 71: "Power Ponies"

Green Lan—er, Rarity's little moments in this are always worth watching

S4E06: "Power Ponies"
Written by Meghan McCarthy, Charlotte Fullerton and Betsy McGowen
21 Dec 2013

My original rating: 6.5/10 (=★★★)
IMDb score: 7.5

The one with the Hairspray Ray of Doom

Thoughts: The only ep with Betsy McGowen as a writer, albeit sharing the spotlight with two regulars. I wasn't a huge fan of this first time around, and I still fret that it's not especially Pony. At this point, before "Rarity Takes Manehattan", Maretropolis was the first really modern city setting we'd ever seen the ponies in, and it felt odd. After all, Equestria didn't have cities like that (or so we thought) so a comic with them in was more science fiction than superhero fantasy. Still, I quite enjoy the characters and their superpowers. Everyone talks about Flutterhulk Saddle Rager, but I actually find her "You hurt a firefly, therefore I will destroy you" bit rather irritating, given she didn't get angry when her close friends were being threatened with death ("You shall live just long enough..."). On which note, I do have a soft spot for the amusingly over-the-top Mane-iac, actually. I don't much care for the more recent dark'n'brooding superheroes (or indeed supervillains) and this 1960s-style stuff is much more to my personal taste. Poor Spike/Humdrum, though: he just can't catch a break in this show sometimes – until, of course, he's inspired by Twilight pointing out how much the Mane Six trust him to come through and he ends up saving the day. So, quite an entertaining episode, yes – but it doesn't always feel much like a My Little Pony episode. And that, in the end, means it can't do better than the moderate three-star rating I gave it the first time around.

Choice quote: Rarity: "We're breaking for tea and biscuits!" Oh, excellent. Custard creams, I hope!

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "Bats!" Apparently this is not an episode that the whole fandom regards terribly fondly, but I have a soft spot for it. At least, I had. Whether I still do, we shall find out.

Episode review: "Power Ponies" (S4E06)

Where's Humdrum? Well, someone has to press the shutter

And so another week passes, and that means another episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic to review. This one has been eagerly anticipated ever since its earliest preview (in the SDCC animatic sequence), though some fans felt it would either be amazing or terrible with little middle ground. This was the first episode whose writing credits were shared between three writers: Meghan McCarthy, Charlotte Fullerton and a newcomer in Betsy McGowen. I had reservations about that, but did the result allay my fears? After the break, Power Readers!