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  1. 1. Did you like it?

    • Sunburst: *takes big spritz of fruity essence, gags as tears build* (I HATE IT! >__<)
      3
    • *Automated "Welcome to Sire's Hollow" repeats as Sunburst swings gate back and forth* Stellar Flare: "Okay, It's annoying, I get it." (I dislike it!)
      7
    • *Firelight and Stellar Flare giddily run off with big scrolls of idea* Sunburst *deadpan*: "I think I liked it better when they were fighting." (…meh…)
      9
    • Sunburst: Oh, my cutie mark is glowing. *pause* MY CUTIE MARK IS GLOWING! I know what this means! WHY AM I YELLING?!! (I like it!)
      43
    • Baker: *sobs into loaf* It's so beautiful! (I LOVE IT! <3)
      37


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I liked it. Pretty much all of the jokes were about Starlight and Sunburst being frustrated by their parents, but they were all enjoyable despite their repetitiveness. I don't know why, but watching Starlight get angry just never gets boring. I loved seeing her face cringe every time her dad called her cute names. It's somewhat cute and hilarious at the same time. Maybe the truth is that Starlight's dad was doing it to see her reactions...who knows?:mlp_icwudt:

Edited by qwerE
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My biggest problem with this episode is that the story is aimless. The modernization vs preservation thing is set up right when Starlight and Sunburst enter Sire's Hollow, but after that's resolved, the story doesn't really know what to do until the climax. So it's just a lot of scenes showing how frustrated Starlight and Sunburst are with their parents with not much else going on. If there were only a couple scenes of this, that'd be fine, but the episode goes on doing the same thing for 7 minutes. This episode feels like it was padded for time, especially because the modernization vs preservation conflict doesn't appear again after it's resolved and because that conflict is resolved very abruptly. You'd think something else related to it would happen like maybe one of the parents would've been faking the resolution and is secretly sabotaging the other or something. But no. It's gone and nobody mentions it again. In the end, not much happens in the episode. Starlight and Sunburst are sent to Sire's Hollow, they get frustrated with their parents, they yell at their parents, and they resolve things with their parents. That's it. I'm not saying that couldn't be enough for 22 minutes, but the writers obviously didn't have enough of it for 22 minutes.

One of the things they could've done is cut the modernization vs preservation story and use that time to develop the relationship between Starlight and her dad, because that is very unclear from what we know. Sunburst is easy enough to infer. He went to magic school, flunked out, and hasn't contacted his mom in a long time even though she continues to send him letters. But for Starlight, we don't know what happened to her. We don't know how/when Starlight left home, whether she's gone home after her cult was busted up, if her dad even knows about her cult, or anything. We know that Firelight is overprotective, but we don't know why. If I don't know why the conflict is even happening, it's harder to get invested.

Also, I find Starlight's dad to be creepy. Just the way he speaks, how he whispers into Starlight's ear with her being so unnerved; it's too much.

On the positive side, a lot of the jokes are funny. A lot of these come from Starlight and Sunburst being so fed up with everything. Instead of being shown through super exaggerated faces, it's expressed through a lot of one-liners and dialogue exchanges. This method is less obnoxious and much funnier to me. But it's not all verbal gags. There are some visual gags that really work thanks to them not all being reliant on facial expressions and the faces that are there being used sparingly. And the episode uses some background gags so even when the story isn't doing much, there's at least something to keep my attention.

I mentioned the dialogue contributing a lot to the humor, but it's not just the humor. The dialogue in general is really sharp here. The voice actors all deliver the lines naturally and bring a lot of personality to the lines, but credit must be given for how the dialogue flows so seamlessly and is just fun to listen to.

And as much as I ragged on the story, I will admit that it avoids being another Parental Glidance. Unlike that episode, Starlight and Sunburst are not shamed for calling their parents out and everyone reaches a compromise. Who knew such a simple fix could be so helpful.

In the end, this is a mixed episode. The story is very padded and a big dynamic in the episode is not developed at all, but the episode is a fun watch with great comedy, and thanks the great dialogue, the 2nd act didn't drag as much as it could've. It's a close call, but I do think this is a good episode overall as even with the padded and not well developed story, it's at least an enjoyable episode for the most part.

Score: 7/10

 

 

Edited by bigbertha
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