Silanda

Metal Gear Discord, return of The Smooze, Trollestia, sock puppet alternate dimension, camera shaking Pinkie, Maud cracking a joke, and Tree Hugger sounding like a stoner. Best episode of the season so far!

Meh. Worst episode of the series so far. It wasn't exactly bad but it just wasn't very interesting to me and was lacking in memorable moments. It would make sense if this episode was written to push a new toy line.

I liked this one, it was the best episode focusing on Fluttershy since Putting Your Hoof Down and I even enjoyed Pinkie Pie in it. She was bordering on being Creepie Pie, what with the walking up the wall and her sinisterly grinning face popping up and down at the turkey call. Her "You kinda sounded like a dude" got a LoL from me too.

I can only speak for myself but the simple problem I have with Sombra is that, unlike the other villains, he's utterly boring: he's a simple "boo, hiss, evil" villain with absolutely no signs of depth or character whatsoever. Discord, Nightmare Moon/Luna, and Chrysalis each have character. Sombra by comparison is a mere plot device.

Personally I think it's simply season 3's weakness leads people to hold this opinion. Don't get me wrong, season 3 wasn't bad but it was a little lackluster compared to 1+2. Being half the length was bad for starters, but then we had the first two examples of blatant interference from the toy arm of Hasbro (Crystal Empire + Princess Twilight), neither of which were pulled off that well. We had a great antagonist in Discord being effectively neutered (now fixed), the presence of too many mediocre episodes, and eventually everyone's waxing nostalgic about how great the first two seasons were.

I hope so. I just find it a little strange that he's been made so low profile this season. Unlike Celestia or Luna, for example, Spike lives with Twilight, making his absence a bit glaring.

Seriously. Does anyone else miss the guy? He had a big role in Power Ponies and, er, that's pretty much it. For example: he was technically in "Three's a Crowd" but had about one line, and that's pretty representative of his role this season as a whole. Someone tell me if I'm imagining things but he seems to have been turned into a complete non-entity.

Both can pull books/scrolls from the bottom of a stack, both are partial to eating gingerbread houses, and both have curly manes. Yup, I think the hint that they are related is pretty strong.

Daring Don't. Rainbow Dash was too much of a fangirl, the pacing felt off to me, and making Daring Do a real character was predictable and possibly undermined the whole message of Read it and Weep.

I'm neutral about them to be honest. They commissioned the series in the first place, I can give them a bit of a break over the Fighting is Magic thing as they really couldn't ignore the exposure it was getting, and I give them credit for allowing licensed MLP stuff aimed at us. However, their decisions with regards to the toy line can be somewhat over-conservative even in respect to the main target audience. Products such as the talking toys with the vapid speech demonstrate a distinct disconnect between the goals of the showrunners and the toy designers, and perhaps a fear to produce any toys that aren't as stereotypically girly as possible.

The art style has evolved but it's been doing that ever so slowly since season one. It's not just a season four thing.

I liked it but with reservations. Overall this episode was decent but for me it was probably the weakest of the season so far. The danger of action episodes in 25 minute long shows is that the pacing can feel rushed, and in my opinion it did here. Since it had to go at such a pace for most of the episode there was pretty much zero character development: we know nothing more about Daring Do than we did before other than she's not just a character in a book. I really find it hard to criticize the show for this kind of thing considering the primary target audience, but usually FiM episodes don't bother me in this regard but for some reason this one did. Now, despite the episode being fluff I was impressed by the artwork. So far I'm liking the effort that has been put into new facial animations so far this season. Good job, keep it up!

Overall I loved it. I don't think it was a better opener than "The Return of Harmony" but it has gone a long way towards dispelling my fears for the quality of this season, especially with the hint of a season long story arc.