Monday, January 30, 2017

Cartoon Corner- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 3)

Originally posted at the DL April 2015

So short season is short.  I get the sense in this one they were essentially trying to change the format of the show from one-shots that acknowledge continuity to ongoing continuity-driven storytelling, so the shortness of the season was them finding a balance they liked.  Or they had to steal the budget of this season for the first Equestria Girls.  One of the two.

So most of the season is spent following up logical extensions of stuff they'd had in previous episodes but never really followed up on.  Luna's return as a Princess, Rainbow's aspiration to join the Wonderbolts, and of course the culmination of Twilight's studies.  On the whole probably one of the stronger seasons, although there is a disproportionate amount of pouting which is a little off.  

Best Episode: Well, I should probably cite Sleepless in Ponyville or Keep Calm and Flutter On, but nah.  Magic Duel.  Trixie is basically the best and her torments of various extras and the like were pretty entertaining.  It's also one of the rarer cases where Twilight being clever seems like more than her just having an inexplicably encyclopedic knowledge of a library full of encyclopedias, but her actually thinking of what her opponent is doing and how to gt them to defeat themselves.

Also yes basically I watched Turnabout Storm and Trixie is one of my favorite MLP characters.  

Weakest Episode: One Bad Apple.  That this season also has Sleepless in Ponyville makes just how stock and crummy a CMC episode this is stand out.  Also hurts that... well, most CMC episodes are extra special Aesop driven, and the one for this episode is nonsensical.  Like, yesss, sure, they made Babs feel put out because of their over the topness, but setting up Babs to embarrass herself is not some outrageous disproportionate act of evil on their part.
It also highlights the recurring weakness of most CMC episodes, how the BLUE FUCK are Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon able to get away with a fraction of the shit they do?  Unlike a modern setting, there is actual,l active adult supervision of children in Equestria, seeing them able to so overtly and terribly savage other kids with seeming impunity is distractingly unlikely.

Grade: 7/10.  On the one hand there's quite a few good episodes, but on the other I find the season sorta hard to remember a lot of specifics from without a wiki assist.  I think mostly the big episode for the season is just kinda okay so while it has strong slice of life bits it lacks big epic "hells yeaaaaaaahhh" moments.

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