S06:E18 - Buckball Season

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

That was an awesome episode!!

 

Completely reminded me of Cam Newton. I mean, that guy's always smiling on the field. No wonder why they called him a "big little kid". 

 

Love the lesson. I mean, not all of us can be put through all of that stress. It just takes the fun out of it. I've always stood by that old saying "No matter if you win or lose, it's how you play." And even if you do lose...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiZXOAzM0fc

 

[ImpctR 155]

Pinkie and Rarity ? It is a rare combination. And it is good to see more episodes having Fluttershy, someone has read the posts   . I think Fluttershy has a lot more fans than the ones who openly admit like me. It is a rare combination of them two, I liked the Bicycle kick of Pinkie Pie, reminds me of some old soccer (we call this football)  game where players had such special moves. Very nice tornado spin of Fluttershy and there was the time to make a soccer themed episode. I liked it, I can give it 5/5, I think all went well with it. Pinkie and Fluttershy, dont remember any episodes focused on them two, they were so adorable when hugging in the baggage cabin, scared of playing the game.

 

Why Rainbow Dash and AJ didn't want to play? It looked to me they were better, or was it because they saw in the beginning Fluttershy & Pinkie were even better?

 

It's a fine episode, has the right amount of sports feeling for those two, if it were a RD episode, the impression of highly competitiveness had to be bigger, so it is a well rounded episode.

 

If I've learnt something from competitive playing, gaming at least, putting yourself under pressure would not give you more scores against your opponent, it could make things even worse. Chilling but concentrating on the game is the way to win, that is, like Snails dont think too much about it, you might do even better if you dont suffer anxiety. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by ImpctR

[FlareGun45 2,221]

With Twilight, Rarity, Spike, and Starlight absent during this episode, it's possible that this might take place at the same time as Gauntlet or Changeling!

[Scootaloo Is Best Filly 576]

This episode really spoke to me. I am a sports fan so, I really enjoyed this. It was a really good lesson too. However I don't think having fun is really the only thing that matters. Yes, fun helps. But, without a little hard work you're not gonna get as far as you need too.

 

Finding a balance between hard Work and fun is the best method. And not to over think things so Snails had the right idea. All in all, great episode.

[ranul 132]

who do you think would have been on canterlots or manehatian teams

[snowflame 189]

Also, walking out on your team is inexcuseable, so Fluttershy and Pinkie lose respect for that.

 

I disagree, look at the practice round AJ and RD made them do, they were terrible at the start even without any real pressure. In a real game they would not have improved after such a start since they would feel demoralized. They would have just failed during the game like Fluttershy said so it was better to change players before the game. If there had not been replacement players it would have been different but AJ and RD were the original players that talked them into playing just because they felt Pinkie and Fluttersy were better. Not because they weren't great players or did not want to play. So if now it seems AJ and RD are better why not change?

 

 

Pinkie and Rarity ? It is a rare combination. And it is good to see more episodes having Fluttershy, someone has read the posts   . I think Fluttershy has a lot more fans than the ones who openly admit like me. It is a rare combination of them two, I liked the Bicycle kick of Pinkie Pie, reminds me of some old soccer (we call this football)  game where players had such special moves. Very nice tornado spin of Fluttershy and there was the time to make a soccer themed episode. I liked it, I can give it 5/5, I think all went well with it. Pinkie and Fluttershy, dont remember any episodes focused on them two, they were so adorable when hugging in the baggage cabin, scared of playing the game.

 

Why Rainbow Dash and AJ didn't want to play? It looked to me they were better, or was it because they saw in the beginning Fluttershy & Pinkie were even better?

 

It's a fine episode, has the right amount of sports feeling for those two, if it were a RD episode, the impression of highly competitiveness had to be bigger, so it is a well rounded episode. 

 

 

I think you meant Flutthershy there at the beginning  Flutthershy has a great deal of fans, I feel she is very popular even if she is not talked about as much as some. And I RD and AJ just realized the other two were the better which was great since I did not anticipate the humility so easily from them.

[Gernia 690]

Pretty good episode. I like how Snails of all people was shown to have quite some talent. A bit surprising that Pinkie and Fluttershy of all ponies would be so good at something competitive (especially Fluttershy). It does touch on how some people can perform better in a competitive setting differently than others, some do well under pressure and like to focus, others need to relax and turn off the thinking and just react.

[BlinkZ 1,151]

I wonder how many times some pony would get a swift kick to the flank -- Gues it would be called.. a kiss-ass yeeeesss!

The episode was good but I dont' care much for sports and the moral was clear as day but that not bad thing. not really fair to judge it I guess.

Also found it funny how they used sutle meta humor with "oh i've never heard of buckball."  hey neither had the audience   Was kind of miffed at barbern having the smug 'I can beat your team" thing..idk got weird deep space nine vib. that one episdoe with baseball and volcans.

Edited September 3, 2016 by BlinkZ

[Dark Qiviut 22,173]

Now up to the practice game, and there's one huge problem already. The dialogue is horrible! Almost all of it is exposition that can be found in an instruction manual, and none of the lines any of the four spoke are natural in any way. It's like watching robots disguised as the ReMane Four.

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

Alright, Snails is officially cool now.

 

Now we just need one with Snips.

[Dark Qiviut 22,173]

(About halfway through.)

Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute! So, the buckball team is consisted of FS, PP, and Snails with (apparently) AJ and Dash as Pie's and Shy's backups, respectively.

 

Sorry, the conflict later is now contrived as hell. Why? Because it's impossible to take the ReMane Four's conflict seriously. For one, Snails has no backup. God forbid he gets sick or hurt to compete. Secondly, there's nothing about the Ponyville-Appleoosa rivalry now other than "because the Apples see it that way." There's no legitimate stake here other than pride. Thirdly, Fluttershy admits very early in Act 2 about wanting to have fun; the rivalry is an afterthought. Fourthly, this episode has the worst dialogue all season so far.

 

No longer enjoying this episode.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Dark Qiviut

[Wind Chaser 4,767]

The sumtotal of my thoughts on this episode:

 

"Holy buckballs, Snails grew a second brain cell!"

 

Other than seeing that guy Forrest Gump his way through the whole game and actually come up with the moral of the episode, it was overall average. I'm sure there are much more exciting ones still to come.

[Thrond 3,257]

I had some trouble with this one. It started out fine enough, if a little lightweight, but I just couldn't buy into the premise, and worse still it seems intent on telegraphing what its moral is going to be over and over and over again, as if we can't figure it out for ourselves. It got very tedious to me, but at least it has some pretty solid characterization, especially with how it communicates its moral through the characters. That really helps the ending, which in a better episode might have been a season high point. I'm kinda souring on the whole thing as I think about it, though. 

 

Reviewed this one in more detail on my offsite blog. 

 

Additional thoughts:

 

Fluttershy making weird faces when she shouted at Applejack and Rainbow Dash was the episode's clear nadir for me. Not only was the same idea being repeated yet again, the animators were also shoving these obnoxious, grotesquely exaggerated facial expressions at us which never even come close to being funny. I like the art style because it's cute, goddamit! Why would you ever put so much effort into making it ugly? 

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

(About halfway through.)

 

Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute! So, the buckball team is consisted of FS, PP, and Snails with (apparently) AJ and Dash as Pie's and Shy's backups, respectively.

 

Sorry, the conflict later is now contrived as hell. Why? Because it's impossible to take the ReMane Four's conflict seriously. For one, Snails has no backup. God forbid he gets sick or hurt to compete. Secondly, there's nothing about the Ponyville-Appleoosa rivalry now other than "because the Apples see it that way." There's no legitimate stake here other than pride. Thirdly, Fluttershy admits very early in Act 2 about wanting to have fun; the rivalry is an afterthought. Fourthly, this episode has the worst dialogue all season so far.

 

No longer enjoying this episode.

That seems to be a problem this season. None of the new writers are good at making dialogue feel natural. 

[Thrond 3,257]

I think I find this episode so irritating because a lot of what it does is outright pointless, and the ending saves it somewhat by finally getting to the point and doing so extremely well. I spent two paragraphs on my blog complaining about the premise largely because so many aspects of it are goddamn pointless. Repeating the moral every minute, too, is almost condescendingly pointless. Again, good thing the ending saves it somewhat. 

 

The script's a real garbage fire, and a lot of the dialogue ain't great, but the voice acting and relatively solid characterization goes a long way towards selling it, if just barely. The presentation has to work overtime to save the damn thing, but it just about pulls through in the end. 

[Cleverclover 1,525]

 

 

Not only was the same idea being repeated yet again, the animators were also shoving these obnoxious, grotesquely exaggerated facial expressions at us which never even come close to being funny

 

Yeah, I have to admit. This trend has recently become more and more commonplace, and it's really getting annoying at this point.   

[Batbrony 15,994]

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.

 

 

 

Seriously, look at this, it's bucking ADORABLE!!!

 

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.

 

 

Yeah, that sounds about right

 

 

Much as I loved seeing Snails, they seriously need to rectify this ASAP.  GIVE CELLY HER EPISODE!!!

 

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*

 

 

Sometimes you just need a good freakout

 

 

NOW GO OUT THERE AND SPORTS, SPORTS REAL HARD!!!

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

This ep is really fun to watch, I like sport theme episodes and this ep didnt make me disapointed. I just thought Pinkie & Fluttershy will be awful at ball-bucking, but, no, they just got pressure problems. I like Snail in this ep even he just being himself. Dialogues are not this ep's best traits but the actions make up for that, yeah, that my problems with Dungeon & Discord, better dialogues, but trying too hard to stay away from the game. The plot and moral are so basic that make ep a low-tier episode, but I dont care, this ep do something that Cart Before Ponies and Dungeon & Discord dont, the gameplay itself. Overall, clunky dialogue, basic moral/plot, a lot of "action" animation, full of wierd faces, Snail is the nice bonus, the climax is just ok, and more importantly, this ep SERVED its purpose, 8.5/10.

 

Goddamn it, another episode without Miss Glimmer, I want her just screw the friendship study and have some fun activities with her friends...

[CastletonSnob 3,025]

Just for fun, let's come up with team names for Ponyville, Appleloosa, Canterlot, and Manehattan. 

[DuskUnicorn 10]

I get what the moral is supposed to be, but as a guy who played plenty of sports through high school, I feel like it was written by people who don't understand the virtues of good coaching and practice, or maybe never played sports.  :ninja:

 

Well that was part of it.  Applejack and Dash are great players, but not such good coaches, as they didn't have the skill of picking up on what motivates individual players and using that to best advantage.

[Redhatbrony 59]

I think it is a really nice episode

but something is a little bit strange.

I can't lay my finger on it.

https://youtu.be/IKMouiHI7Jc

 

Enjoy my work.

Edited September 4, 2016 by Redhatbrony

[Chuckles4lyfe 441]

This episode was painfully average. It's funny that the best character in the episode was Snails of all ponies. His dimwitted nature wasn't played up for laughs, and he was actually the most sensible out of everyone. Who could have imagined that outcome?! I want to see more of this Snails in future episodes. Definitely gives him more to work with as a character. Now we just need Snips time in the spotlight and all will be complete  . 

 

Unfortunately, Snails was the only highlight of the episode for me. The plot is something that we've seen in other media countless times before (cracking under pressure, having fun vs. letting others down, etc...). The dialogue throughout just felt "off" to me. The section where they were explaining the rules of the game felt like they were reciting an instruction manual. They also kept repeating the lesson over and over again to the point of exhaustion. I'm glad that AJ & RD came to the conclusion themselves that not everyone performs better under pressure, but the buildup took far too long, leaving the actual Buckball game itself as an afterthought. It definitely has that "new writer" quality to it. The Times they are a Changeling and The Gift of the Maud Pie had new writers, but the dialogue felt more natural in those outings then here.

 

Like 28 Pranks Later, this episode feels like it would have been better in S1 or S2. AJ & RD already learned this lesson in the Cart before the ponies. And RD of all ponies should know that Flutters doesn't perform well under pressure (as seen in Hurricane Fluttershy back in S2).

 

And this is just a nitpick, but they could have thrown in a couple of lines as to why Twi, Rarity, and Starlight didn't compete. Them not being mentioned at all just feels weird to me. Rarity for obvious reasons probably wouldn't want to get her hooves dirty playing sports (this could have been used as a great joke). Twi being an alicorn probably would have disqualified her from competing anyways. And Starlight, well like in the previous episode, she's probably out and about with Trixie or cooped up in the castle focusing on her lessons. 

[DuskUnicorn 10]

"We were caught up in what was fun for us."

 

DIDN'T YOU 2 ALREADY LEARN THIS LESSON??

 

It seems that ponies have an acutely short term memory unless they have something specifically pointed out.

 

This applies to lessons learned, personal traits of other ponies they know, or even their own personal natures (loyalty, generosity, etc.).

 

I was thinking this back from the first season, where we had the Mane Six that had saved the town and even all of Equestria multiple times, yet even the ponies in their own small town they lived in didn't even seem to notice them, much less treat them as the heroes they were.  The Elements of Harmony, ponies.  Come on. :-)

 

Then there was quite a series of episodes where one or another of the Mane Six had to relearn something fundamental to their own nature that they already learned in a prior episode even.

 

And little things like this, where anypony knows shouting at and stressing Fluttershy isn't going to do anything productive.  Or a very recent episode starting with Dash pranking Fluttershy, yet back in season one, Griffon the Brush Off, both Pinkie and Dash herself agreed you can't prank Fluttershy because even their most harmless one would hurt her feelings.

 

So just accept that ponies have a long term memory issue and are going to repeat many of the things they learned.

 

Probably why they don't have prisons and such and generally forgive ponies if they just apologize (even if you imprisoned and enslaved the entire town), as nopony is probably going to even be thinking of it in a week from then. :-)

[Sporemane 545]

I love Buck Ball! It's interesting how they created a game based around the three different kinds of ponies. I wounder what position a Alicorn would play?

 

I can defiantly see brownies trying to play this game IRL.

[Dark Qiviut 22,173]

 

Applejack: Keep it up! Just one miss'll ruin the Apple family's buckball reputation forever!

 

Seriously, AJ? A bad miss risks ruining your family's bucking buckball rep?! This is a friendly, for God's sakes! Your only purpose to play this game is for pride, not a championship! Easily the episode's dumbest line so far.

 

(Facehoof image belongs to him.)