As usual with my reviews, it will contain spoilers. Those of you who have not watched the latest episode yet, you have been warned.
The basic premise of this episode is that, while Twilight and her friends do battle with a dangerous monster, the rest of the citizens of Ponyville prepare themselves for a wedding.
Now, before I get into the actually episode itself and what I thought of it, let me just take a moment to say how incredible that we've reached this point in the series. I mean it's a real landmark for it, one hundred episodes. All those years ago, when I first started watching this show, and thus the point when I started making regular reviews for it, I never once suspected that it would last as long as it did. Oh, I certainly liked it, and felt that it was worth writing about, but I figured at the time that it would last two, maybe three seasons at most. Thankfully, that was not the case, and this show has simply gone from strength to strength, proving everyone, including myself, wrong about just how much it has to offer us. Even at those times when you think it's gone on as long as it can, it just kept coming up with something new to reinvigorate my interest, and I will always have a love for shows that have been able to do that. These one hundred episodes, and more, have been well-earned, and I very much hope the show can go on for even longer than that in future.
Okay, enough of my gushing. Time to get to the review proper.
The episode, as the title suggests, is a look into the everyday lives of the ordinary citizens of Ponyville. Essentially, it's an episode dedicated to the background ponies, those characters who have either never spoken before or just never got that much time in the spotlight. Now, as much as I adore the main six, I will confess to really liking this as an idea. After all, if you're going to flesh out your fictional world, you can't just have the regular heroes (or heroines in this case) be the ones to get all the attention. A place like Ponyville is going to have a lot of individual stories running through it that we'll never see, and to have a chance to finally see it is an opportunity that I think the show has been long overdue for. And it's not as if such a thing is without precedent either. One of my personal favourite episodes from season two, "Hearts and Hooves Day", was entirely centred around two background characters. True, they might have been acting out of character at the time, but it did at least prove that stories centred around such minor names can work, at least in terms of how entertaining they can be.
And as for the characters themselves, you really do get a sense that this is a very tightly-knit community of already-fleshed-out characters. They ways they speak, interact with one another and act all seems believable and natural, even thought this is probably the only time we'll get to see them shown off this way. Everywhere in this episode, you see little touches that help us in the audience to tell that these are characters with whole lives of their own, and signs that there's a whole bunch of stuff always happening off-camera to make this a real town, and not just some backdrop. Things like seeing how Cranky and Matilda's relationship has progressed since season two is a wonderful way of showing, just as one example, that these stories don't just stop because the main six aren't around to see them. And speaking of the main six, it's also great to see how the ponies of Ponyville adjust and react to the various goings on of the main characters. Just as one example, the way the ponies are all so used to those adventures that they refer to "friendship problems" in such a nonchalant manner. On top of that, we actually get some examples of how the main six have actually had a somewhat negative impact on the town. Characters like Sparkler, who find themselves displaced when some pony who is better at their trade, like Twilight, comes in and steals their thunder. It kind of puts the main six in a less than perfect light, which was a genuine surprise for me.
All of these minor characters have a moment to shine and you really wish you got to see them more on the show. From the obvious Doctor Who references, to the sudden and out-of-nowhere reveal of bonbon's true identity (seriously, where did that one even COME from?), to seeing Cranky and Matilda go through all the various fears of an upcoming wedding, and even funny cameos by Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Shining. All of these ponies showed just how entertaining they were and every one of them was an absolute riot.
Time to discuss the humour now and, as you might expect from an episode like this, a lot of the jokes come from the way the various background characters work off one another. I already mentioned the casual way in which the ponies react to the various mishaps that Twilight and her friends get up to, but there's plenty more in here besides that. For instance, The way Matilda reacts in a Rarity-esque over-the-top fashion to everything going wrong around her, to the way Octavia works off a completely silent character like Vinyl. All of these things just brought a smile to my face every time. Even Derpy (Or Ditzy, whichever you want to call her) got a few funny moments in here and there. Oh, and while I'm on that subject, can we please, please, PLEASE not turn her appearance and lines here into another massive controversy? I know the scars are still fresh from the last time it happened, but can we please keep calm about it this time? Because, given how much I love this show, I don't want to see it marred by too many people overreacting to stuff.
When it comes to songs, this week we don't really have any, and that, to me, is a real shame considering what we could have had. In the past, whenever the whole town joined in on a song, we were always treated to a very nice chorus as part of the main musical number, so it's disappointing that we couldn't get something similar. However, that was more than made up for by the musical duet provided by Octavia and Vinyl. Now, in spite of their odd couple setup, the music they play is not at odd with each other as you might expect, but rather working together, blending classical and modern music together to create something truly nice to listen to. The only downside as far as I'm concerned is that it was a tad short, but then, if my complaint is wanting more, I guess that's a mark in its favour.
As for the moral of the week, this episode seems to teach a lesson that is actually quite meta as far as this show's lessons are concerned. It's a moral that stories are not just comprised of main characters, but a whole slew of others, with each having their own unique story to tell. Now, obviously, this is meant to describe and perhaps even justify the episode as a whole, but even so, it makes a good point. Some of my favourite stories have all been ones that had a strong cast outside of the main characters, as it always added a rich flavour to the worlds they were trying to make. So, while I can't really credit this episode with giving us a good moral lesson, I can at least praise it for trying to teach that main characters aren't always the be-all-end-all of a good story.
So, how did the episode fare overall? Honestly, I loved it. While an episode like this may not matter in the grand scheme of the show, with our main characters not really getting much development, nor do we get any real continuation of the main storylines, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy it immensely. The background characters were a delight to watch, there were plenty of funny moments, and the whole episode was just fun from beginning to end. It gave us perspectives we've never seen before and probably never will again, and it revelled in every single moment of it. Some may argue that this episode was just one long round of fanservice, and while that may be true, I don't think that's as bad as you may think. Yes, a lot of this is just a lot of in-jokes that the show's fans have come up with over the years, but those kinds of touches have been present in the show for a long time, thanks largely to how closely its writers and creators pay attention to those fans. This episode, at its heart, is a celebration, not just of the show managing to last as long as it has, but for the fans that have stayed with it. It's a fun little present, wrapped in a pretty bow, made for us as a big "thank you" for loving it as much as we do. Fanservice it may be, but it nevertheless remains an expertly-crafted piece of fanservice, and without a doubt the most entertaining episode of the season thus far.
The basic premise of this episode is that, while Twilight and her friends do battle with a dangerous monster, the rest of the citizens of Ponyville prepare themselves for a wedding.
Now, before I get into the actually episode itself and what I thought of it, let me just take a moment to say how incredible that we've reached this point in the series. I mean it's a real landmark for it, one hundred episodes. All those years ago, when I first started watching this show, and thus the point when I started making regular reviews for it, I never once suspected that it would last as long as it did. Oh, I certainly liked it, and felt that it was worth writing about, but I figured at the time that it would last two, maybe three seasons at most. Thankfully, that was not the case, and this show has simply gone from strength to strength, proving everyone, including myself, wrong about just how much it has to offer us. Even at those times when you think it's gone on as long as it can, it just kept coming up with something new to reinvigorate my interest, and I will always have a love for shows that have been able to do that. These one hundred episodes, and more, have been well-earned, and I very much hope the show can go on for even longer than that in future.
Okay, enough of my gushing. Time to get to the review proper.
The episode, as the title suggests, is a look into the everyday lives of the ordinary citizens of Ponyville. Essentially, it's an episode dedicated to the background ponies, those characters who have either never spoken before or just never got that much time in the spotlight. Now, as much as I adore the main six, I will confess to really liking this as an idea. After all, if you're going to flesh out your fictional world, you can't just have the regular heroes (or heroines in this case) be the ones to get all the attention. A place like Ponyville is going to have a lot of individual stories running through it that we'll never see, and to have a chance to finally see it is an opportunity that I think the show has been long overdue for. And it's not as if such a thing is without precedent either. One of my personal favourite episodes from season two, "Hearts and Hooves Day", was entirely centred around two background characters. True, they might have been acting out of character at the time, but it did at least prove that stories centred around such minor names can work, at least in terms of how entertaining they can be.
And as for the characters themselves, you really do get a sense that this is a very tightly-knit community of already-fleshed-out characters. They ways they speak, interact with one another and act all seems believable and natural, even thought this is probably the only time we'll get to see them shown off this way. Everywhere in this episode, you see little touches that help us in the audience to tell that these are characters with whole lives of their own, and signs that there's a whole bunch of stuff always happening off-camera to make this a real town, and not just some backdrop. Things like seeing how Cranky and Matilda's relationship has progressed since season two is a wonderful way of showing, just as one example, that these stories don't just stop because the main six aren't around to see them. And speaking of the main six, it's also great to see how the ponies of Ponyville adjust and react to the various goings on of the main characters. Just as one example, the way the ponies are all so used to those adventures that they refer to "friendship problems" in such a nonchalant manner. On top of that, we actually get some examples of how the main six have actually had a somewhat negative impact on the town. Characters like Sparkler, who find themselves displaced when some pony who is better at their trade, like Twilight, comes in and steals their thunder. It kind of puts the main six in a less than perfect light, which was a genuine surprise for me.
All of these minor characters have a moment to shine and you really wish you got to see them more on the show. From the obvious Doctor Who references, to the sudden and out-of-nowhere reveal of bonbon's true identity (seriously, where did that one even COME from?), to seeing Cranky and Matilda go through all the various fears of an upcoming wedding, and even funny cameos by Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Shining. All of these ponies showed just how entertaining they were and every one of them was an absolute riot.
Time to discuss the humour now and, as you might expect from an episode like this, a lot of the jokes come from the way the various background characters work off one another. I already mentioned the casual way in which the ponies react to the various mishaps that Twilight and her friends get up to, but there's plenty more in here besides that. For instance, The way Matilda reacts in a Rarity-esque over-the-top fashion to everything going wrong around her, to the way Octavia works off a completely silent character like Vinyl. All of these things just brought a smile to my face every time. Even Derpy (Or Ditzy, whichever you want to call her) got a few funny moments in here and there. Oh, and while I'm on that subject, can we please, please, PLEASE not turn her appearance and lines here into another massive controversy? I know the scars are still fresh from the last time it happened, but can we please keep calm about it this time? Because, given how much I love this show, I don't want to see it marred by too many people overreacting to stuff.
When it comes to songs, this week we don't really have any, and that, to me, is a real shame considering what we could have had. In the past, whenever the whole town joined in on a song, we were always treated to a very nice chorus as part of the main musical number, so it's disappointing that we couldn't get something similar. However, that was more than made up for by the musical duet provided by Octavia and Vinyl. Now, in spite of their odd couple setup, the music they play is not at odd with each other as you might expect, but rather working together, blending classical and modern music together to create something truly nice to listen to. The only downside as far as I'm concerned is that it was a tad short, but then, if my complaint is wanting more, I guess that's a mark in its favour.
As for the moral of the week, this episode seems to teach a lesson that is actually quite meta as far as this show's lessons are concerned. It's a moral that stories are not just comprised of main characters, but a whole slew of others, with each having their own unique story to tell. Now, obviously, this is meant to describe and perhaps even justify the episode as a whole, but even so, it makes a good point. Some of my favourite stories have all been ones that had a strong cast outside of the main characters, as it always added a rich flavour to the worlds they were trying to make. So, while I can't really credit this episode with giving us a good moral lesson, I can at least praise it for trying to teach that main characters aren't always the be-all-end-all of a good story.
So, how did the episode fare overall? Honestly, I loved it. While an episode like this may not matter in the grand scheme of the show, with our main characters not really getting much development, nor do we get any real continuation of the main storylines, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy it immensely. The background characters were a delight to watch, there were plenty of funny moments, and the whole episode was just fun from beginning to end. It gave us perspectives we've never seen before and probably never will again, and it revelled in every single moment of it. Some may argue that this episode was just one long round of fanservice, and while that may be true, I don't think that's as bad as you may think. Yes, a lot of this is just a lot of in-jokes that the show's fans have come up with over the years, but those kinds of touches have been present in the show for a long time, thanks largely to how closely its writers and creators pay attention to those fans. This episode, at its heart, is a celebration, not just of the show managing to last as long as it has, but for the fans that have stayed with it. It's a fun little present, wrapped in a pretty bow, made for us as a big "thank you" for loving it as much as we do. Fanservice it may be, but it nevertheless remains an expertly-crafted piece of fanservice, and without a doubt the most entertaining episode of the season thus far.
