S01:E10 - Swarm of the Century

[twiia 1,843]

So... many... parasprites... O.o shouldn't Ponyville be completely destroyed, with Twilight's spell?

[cmarston1 5,959]

This was an alright episode.

Pinkie Pie's antics were great and the parasprites were a cool new creature.

[Altastrofae 933]

Those things are so cute I want one!

[Guest]

A pretty good episode, focused well on a lot of characters, and with a nice twist in the end aswell. I enjoyed it.

[Dawn Darkness 217]

(Entering a cetain yellow dragon's speech) This was simply miraculous, spectacular stupendous-

 

Me: [bEEP] up!

 

Erm, sorry about that. I didn't know where he came from. This episode was one of the most humorous episodes yet. It was also weird that the others didn't accept Pinkie's idea of how to get the job done. That truly was a "Swarm of the Century". 

Edited October 30, 2016 by Dawn Darkness

[Tropico 226]

it was a nice episode. I liked so much when twilight goes to zecora and she tells them that theyre doomed xD

I would like to know more about what happened to themafter the episode tho. they go to everfree forest but they still TONS of them and do not eat food but objects and wood. bthey should be multiplied and have infinite of them by now. all equestria should be eaten  _o:

[blackstarraven 142]

3 out of 5...

Problem: Pinkie's fault... 100% How you ask...

Simple: Be less vague you stupid pink pony... Actually that's a really good lesson for young teenage girls....

Actually, as side note. If would have been less vague, they would not have believed her.

BUT, then at least it would have been there fault and the lesson would have been better.

 

Up side: We get to see our Lady and Pony Savior ~Raises right hove~ "ALL FAIL GODDESS EMPRESS CELESTIA!"

[JadeSerpent 7]

Oh gosh that trumpet at the end was so cute. And then Pinkie's parade!!! Pinkie has really grown on me!

[pegapony 193]

I like this episode a lot, because I have so much to relate in real life. YES actually... Don´t belive me ? I´m very like Flyttershy and can´t abandon an animal that I like. And some times the common sense tells you that this was not the smartest move. And I like Zecoras way to tell them the future of Ponyville....

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

I liked this Episode and i was also surprised that there is an actual Episode, in which i like Pinkie Pie. Normally i find her annoying, but in this Episode, instead of screaming constantly, she sounded a bit more like an adult and i wasnt annoyed at her at all. Or maybe the german voice actor is just less irritating to me. XD

[Thrond 3,263]

I admire season 1's meta-narrative in the abstract, but actually watching some of these misunderstanding episodes gets a little tiring. This one's pretty creative, but there isn't a lot of internal logic, and I didn't find very many big laughs even though I was mostly kinda charmed. Mostly not my thing, but I wasn't actively bored like with "Bridle Gossip," if only because there's so much absurdity going on, and there's some relatively dark edges here which I enjoyed. Got a pretty good moral about stopping to listen to your friends, though; one of the less childish of these early episodes. 

Score:

Entertainment: 7/10

Characters: 7/10

Themes: 8/10

Story: 5/10

Overall: 68/100

Edited January 28, 2018 by AlexanderThrond

[Forest 35]

i liked this episode, even though the plot wasn't as strong as some of the others for me. i thought fluttershy's reaction to the parasprite's was adorable! and then twilight losing it while the town is coming apart LOL

 

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by forest

[Meushell 52]

On 6/27/2013 at 3:19 AM, PlunderSteed said:

- SERIOUSLY, Pinkie?  I will never know why the Cakes didn't tell her to GTFO when she was so blatantly wrecking their efforts to prepare food for Celestia's arrival.  *sigh* Pinkie's always been the most inconsistent character, and this scene makes that painfully clear.

- dafuq does Rarity have Dash wearing?  The powdered wig, and the hat...?

I know this is an old post, but this conveys my thought exactly on these points.

Yeah, they make an episode about taking Pinkie seriously, but first ensue the audience can’t take her seriously. There is also the issue, as others said, that she never bothers to explain herself during the episode.

The Dash outfit is why I have a hard time buying Rarity as a good designer. Half the time (at least in what I have seen), her outfits are hideous. I know they are horses, but the other half of the time shows it can be done well.

The ending was a bit strange. Wouldn’t Celestia recognize the same critters as the ones in the “parade?” Why not help her out with some advice, Twilight?

ETA: Realized I sounded all negative here. Overall, I enjoyed the episode. It was fun to watch.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Meushell

[bigbertha 414]

The issue of Pinkie not telling the rest of the mane six what the parasprites are doesn't bother me as much as it used to, but it still keeps this from being as strong as it could be. It also messes up the moral because Twilight and the others weren't wrong for not listening to Pinkie. It's not like she was telling them anything that would help the situation. Fluttershy's actually more annoying than Pinkie for keeping one of the parasprites after they were rolled out of town.

What keeps this from being a bad episode is the comedy. This is a pretty funny episode with special mentions to Twilight's mini breakdown and Celestia's appearance.

Score: 6/10

[Shy 156]

This episode was okay, but as stated above, Pinkie Pie could've just told them what a parasite is and how to stop them.

[Dabmanz 2,139]

Loved this episode I still cannot get over the bit where pinkie saves the instrument.

[bigbertha 414]

Another good episode! And it's even better! Sure the moral is flawed since Pinkie doesn't give anyone else a reason to trust her, but the episode is so much fun. This is by far the best comedy of the show so far. The climax especially is really funny. It also again makes me appreciate the facial expressions of the older seasons. There's so full of life and dynamic. Not lifeless and artificial like the newer seasons. Some of the laughs come just from the facial expressions here.

Score: 8/10

 

[kazamacat 64]

I guess it's okay. It's entertaining enough though I do get more annoyed with Pinkie on each viewing. To be honest, the other solutions weren't that bad, even if not as effective as Pinkie's plan, it's just something else would get in the way like Fluttershy keeping one or Pinkie's cymbals messed up Rainbow's tornado.

 

[Rushing cash 836]

An enjoyable episode, with great comedy, the only thing that bothered me is the fact pinkie did not try to explain what she tried to do, they didn't really need to apologize the lesson doesn't make much sense in context to the episode, but the episode itself is very entertaining and twilight freak out was great. Zecora was very helpful in this episode... I loved how brutally honest she was, my favorite part of the episode.  8\10

[Lucky Bolt 35,063]

This episode was good. We also got a taste of Twily’s feakouts. But then again...everypony was freaking out in this episode. 

[Justin_Case001 4,889]

What made this episode special was that it set up Pinkie's eccentric brilliance.  It demonstrated early on that she isn't dumb at all.  Far from it, in fact.  She's weird, off-beat, crazy, and operates on a different wavelength from everyone else, but she's actually brilliant in her own, strange way, and often picks up on things that others miss because she looks at the world in a way no one else does.  Tragically, the writers seemed to gradually forget this as the series went on, as she tended to get dumber and become more of the simple-minded comic relief as the series went along.  There were definitely some good, redeeming Pinkie moments in the later seasons, but on average I feel like the writers forgot, or never knew, what Pinkie was supposed to be.

[Cash In 22,310]

Parasprites sure are something, huh? The episode was solid and much better than I remember it being. I liked the message, but felt that it didn't have a lot of substance, since Pinkie actively didn't give the others a reason to take her seriously. The jokes were pretty good, especially towards the end. They got a few laughs from me, which is certainly a plus. I really appreciate the fact that Pinkie Pie was fleshed out, but it was done without breaking character. That is impressive, so I'll give the episode a point for that.

[Marlyfics 15]

Pinkie's role in this episode was really relatable tbh.

A lot of people are saying that it's on Pinkie for not expressing herself correctly but i think people should realize that not everyone is as good as expressing themselves in serious situations and it's not an ability to take for granted, specially if it involves kids or some type of condition that affected the way one expresses themselves, even so, I personally found reasons to listen to Pinkie, not because of the bias caused by her being relatable but because she's the only one who recognized the parasprites, the mistake of the whole gang concerning Pinkie was that they discarded her strange involvement for being the way she is, and not giving her the benefit of the doubt, stopping for a second and ask "why are you doing this pinkie?".

Pinkie not expressing herself correctly is actually benefitial to the episode contrary to popular belief, because the point it's trying to convey is that you shouldn't invalidate other people's competence because they don't appear to be smarter than you, and that if you take your time to consider what they're doing, you might find that they could be worthy of being listened to.
heck, if they had considered Pinkie for a minute, they would've noticed that only she knew about the creatures, the rest of this scenario is self-explanatory.

So yeah, what the episode is trying to say is that... there are gonna be people you're gonna underestimate, and they might not always help their situation because of the way they express themselves, but they are not to blamed about it, the best thing you can do is to give them their time and consider what they say, just like with any other person, because their ability of expressing themselves doesn't equal their level in intelligence or education.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Doritsus
(I forgot to fill this) made a typo

[Astralshy 26,639]

A good and fun episode :) I love Twilight's freak out moment in this episode

Communication is a complex process and in my opinion  it's a bit too easy to just to point to pinkie here. If I have a for example coworker do something completely weird my reaction is to ask Why? What is your plan? This resolves such issues in the beginning. But this is just my opinion :)

[JMTV99 1,353]

This episode is so underrated. It had a lot of memorable moments.