Good afternoon everypony, and welcome back to another edition of "Batbrony Reviews"! First of all, apologies for being a bit late, but I have a good excuse this time; as many of you know, I'm sure, it's the first weekend of college football being in full swing across the country, and I was busy watching my Michigan Wolverines stomp the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (apologies to any fans of Hawaii, though I promise you I am not making up that mascot of theirs). Without further ado, let's begin, this is "Buckball Season"!!!

So first of all, I should say that I adore that by what may or may not have been a coincidence, we had a sports episode premiering on the opening weekend of college football this year. Granted, that might have just been coincidence since sports are almost always happening, and Buckball didn't really bear any resemblance to football, but still I thought it was amusing. As for the episode itself? I thought it was good, but not flawless. My primary gripe was in how the message was delivered. It's clear that they were going for another pretty standard, kids show message; sports are about having fun, at least for some people, and you shouldn't ruin why someone else enjoys a sport. The message itself isn't bad, by no means, BUT coming from a guy who has played his fair share of sports, I thought the execution left something to be desired. I could tell they were trying to focus on the pressure which Rainbow Dash and Applejack were putting on Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and that was a good route to take. My problem was it felt like there was a little too much focus on the practice segment itself. The inadvertent result was that I believe it came across as though practicing intensely for a sport was being criticized in the episode's message. I don't think that was intentional, because the writers did appear to try to promote sports competition as being healthy in the right doses, as well as playing for your community, but that's what it felt like at times. I found myself wondering if any of these writers who worked on this episode had ever played sports before. I don't say that to be insulting, but given that we are talking about members of the entertainment industry, I felt it was a fair enough question to ask because they didn't seem to have a strong handle of how to convey practicing for a sport (and we have seen that done well in the show before, Hurricane Fluttershy has a great, even if it's deliberately cheesy, training montage for Fluttershy). I might be over-analyzing this because of my sports experiences, but there are better ways I think of conveying that pressure to succeed in sports can be too much sometimes than what they did here, and the hours I put into practicing for sports with my teammates were usually where the bulk of the best experiences were to be had and where some of my real love and appreciation of these sports was most developed. Can't get to game day without plenty of good practice with your friends and teammates. In conclusion, I get the message they were going for, it worked for the most part, but I think it was somewhat roughly executed in the middle of the episode.

Other than that I really don't have any complaints. It was a lot of fun seeing an ep featuring four members of the Mane 6, that's an unusual amount but it never felt like any of them got too little screen time. It was also lots of fun seeing all four of the Mane 6 split into pairs for the episode between Rainbow Dash/Applejack and Fluttershy/Pinkie Pie. Both pairs bounced off of each other nicely and were very natural pairs since they have similar personalities, especially for the purpose of the episode; we all know that AJ and RD love their sports activities and competition while Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are both very easy-going, and it makes sense that they would have similar attitudes concerning sports. I should also add that Fluttershy's ADORABLE handling of the buckball with her tail was seriously too cute, further proof yet again that she can make anything adorable, including sports.

The real surprise of the episode was the inclusion of Snails as a third wheel, especially separate from his normal partner-in-crime, Snips, and I have to say his inclusion delighted me to say the least! I've always maintained that those two are terribly underrated characters and I have no idea why more people don't like them, especially considering they have two excellent voice actors who seem to have a lot of fun in these roles. But maybe just giving one of them the spotlight is exactly what they needed. I think what made Snails work here was that he felt ludicrously out of place to the point that it actually worked in favor of the episode's humor. He came out of nowhere, it turned out he was freakishly good at Buckball just like Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy; in many ways, it actually felt like a possible shout out to Adam Sandler's Waterboy, I'm not even joking. But he didn't just provide laughs but actually contributed to the lesson in the end as well, a little. Overall, I'd say this was his best appearance yet and was very surprised but happy to see him get so much screen time.

Besides, however, some nice character appearances and interactions, I wouldn't say this episode left all that much of an impression, to be honest, for good or ill. The message was a bit muddled, sure, but I understood well enough what point they were getting at and thought they handled it pretty well for the most part. Buckball as a sport was surprisingly underwhelming; I think as a sport I had envisioned it being a bit of a bigger team sport than it ended up being, and if it's an Apple family tradition, I have a hard time understanding how it's supposed to by design involve a pony from each race, especially since AJ was acting as though most pegasi and unicorns in Ponyville are unfamiliar with the sport. There were some fun background pony appearances, both in the tryout scene and when we got to see Ponyville cheering on its buckball team (Derpy in particular was adorable looking in her fan-garb!). And once again, I have to emphasize that the performances of the Mane 6 characters were great here, especially Andrea as both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, she did great as both of them in this episode (special props to that great Fluttershy freakout near the end of the episode, that was great). All in all, this episode was good. Not mindblowing, but very good all the same, even if it had some flaws or didn't leave a major impression. I was thoroughly entertained and enjoyed it well enough, and that's just fine by me. That's all I've got for ya everypony, until next time, this is Batbrony signing off. I'm off! *cue dramatic exit*