S04:E04 - Daring Don't

[RainbowTashie 378]

The author of the Daring Do books looks like Daring Do! Check it out on MLP Wiki.

dat coincidence though. dun dun DUUUNNN!

[Poetic Stone 1,040]

I loved this episode it was great, I understand so ponies did'nt like it, but to me it was super cool.

[CC_Maud_Pie 6,431]

The episode was okay for the most part but the idea of a universe in Daring Do suddenly existing without any hints of it existing in Equestria seems kinda ponyillogical to me.

[yeet 2,027]

I think the episodes as pretty good. Though if I remember it wash bit cringe worthy when rainbows dash was fanboying lots.

[Hypernova_Melody 4]

This episode was pretty cool having rainbow dash and the mane six actually meeting daring doo and going on an adventure with her. But i thought rainbow dash was kind of getting in the way and just plain being a 'Fan Girl' to her. It was kind of silly BUT it was very cool to see more of daring doo.

[Chaton 3,765]

New Synopsis: "Rainbow Dash has a Fangasm when she meets the author of her favorite book series"

[Dust and Memories 557]

This episode surprised me in several ways.

The largest?

 

RD, the athlete and adventurer, obsessing with supreme geek Twi about a book.

 

Magical, I tell ya.

[Chewbroccali 32]

I like how they showed that RD kind of had trouble keeping an aloof disposition. It showed that she isn't always the coolest person in the room and she doesn't always act that way. It showed more of the inner workings of a pony who can sometimes be kind of a jerk

[Superstars111 79]

Overall, this wasn't one of my favorite episodes. I'm really just not very big on Daring Do and Rainbow Dash, so most of it was that, but there were a few things aside from that that messed with my head. One being that this whole world exists. When somepony writes about something irl, there are always some ponies who obsess over it and learn everything about it. You'd think that if this stuff was publisized, somepony would have figured out by now that this is real, especially if where A.K. Yearling lives isn't a secret.

Another thing that really got on my nerves was at the very end, after the last hug with A.K. Yearling. Rainbow Dash writes, "Just had the coolest adventure with the coolest pony ever." When she finishes her entry, she hears a knock at the door, and recieving a package, exclaims that she got the new book a week before anypony else. The same book that wasn't supposed to be published for another six months. The book that hadn't been finished yet when she left earlier that day. Even if she'd waited a day or two to write the entry, she wouldn't have waited six months.

[JonasDarkmane 19,785]

I liked the episode, it was fun to see that Daring Doo was a actual thing in their world

[Chibibrony 6]

Who else thinks that Rainbow Dash has a romantic crush on Daring Do

[Graystrip 551]

 

 

 

Title: Daring Don't

Air Date: December 7th, 2013

Synopsis: When the latest book in the Daring Do series is delayed, Rainbow Dash and her friends decide to offer their help to the book’s author so that she can finish it.

 

---

Look everypony, DHX invested in leak-proof packaging after last weeks' mishap.

Time for everyone's daring adventure storybook pony to return, hmm? More Dashie episodes are always a good thing And with books, no less.

 

mlfw1548_large.jpg

 

 

Loved the theme, how great reading books are.  I love books too.  However, because of my ADD, I'll start a book and then want to start a different one at the same time.  There are so many books in my house and at the library that I've started but never finished.  Well, except for "The Never Ending Story". I love that one so much I've read it a thousand times =^.^=

I liked the episode, it was fun to see that Daring Doo was a actual thing in their world

Me too =^.^= Reminds me of "Joan Wilder" in "Romancing the Stone". Except their heroic rescue was more like "falling with grace". Walking in a native village "just pretend we're from Natural Geographic". Not as much heroic action as Daring Do, but it was funny. 

This was an awesome episode. We got to see Daring Do for real this time and the Mane 6 got to adventure with her. One of my favorite episodes and one of the first I watched.

I agree.  I would love it if they had made more episodes with her.  Daring Do has such an interesting back story, that the story ideas would have been endless. 

very good episode, I enjoy continuity & I really don't understand why people don't like it.

I can see why. Not much action with the other ponies. So, if you're a fan of Daring Do or Rainbow Dash, it'll be a great episode.  However, if you were hoping to see the other ponies, you might be disappointed.  Twilight did a little play-on with Rainbow when reminiscing about Daring Do's stories, and that was interesting. 

I loved how different this episode was compared with the others.  Sometimes I see myself in Rainbow Dash, when waiting for the Harry Potter books.  I loved how they had Pinkie Pie paint red lines on the ground, similar to the red lines they shown on the map - very Pinkie of her. The exchanges that Twilight and Rainbow Dash had was cool, and the look the others gave them while trying to follow them was hilarious.  The story line did remind me a lot of Indiana Jones.  Even the evil creatures were similar to the villains in Indiana Jones: The Arch of the Covenant.  Then having a scene how Daring Do really did need help was cute, too.  Yes, I would give it two thumbs up. 

 

And yes, there was even a cute scene with Futtershy at the beginning. As she was flying with Rainbow Dash, holding her tail, and looking down, "Oh, Rainbow, I don't know". Cuteness to the infinity =^.^=

[powerpuff-tsubasa 448]

kinda of an interesting episode where rainbow and friends travel to other side of equestria to meet her idol. i first thought her idol was being nasty to her, then later she wasn't that bad. just a wee bit antisocial

[SephiVA 9]

Another one of my favorites..though it shocked me how violent it got..I wonder how many parents got angry and threw a fit (lol). I loved seeing Daring Do and was surprised by the continued call backs to Harry Potter. (AK Yearling. HA lol) but overall..I still got an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft vibe here...but loved the twist with how she was really like and how Rainbow Dash had to handle said situation. Overall, a decent episode that I definitely enjoyed!

[cmarston1 5,959]

Despite what a lot people have said about this episode, I really loved it.

It's one of my favorite season 4 episodes.

I found it to be really fun and had great action.

[Luigi 7,869]

Are these ponies in this unfinished jigsaw puzzle I found the same henchmen from Daring Don't?

 

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

I liked this Episode, it had good action, i just find it a bit stupid, that we started with her latest Adventure and had almost no backstory to everything. Except for the few scenes from that Rainbow Dash Hospital scene.

[Megas 27,624]

Honestly watching this episode again I had a blast, and if anything it gets way more hate than it deserves

[Thrond 3,263]

I adore the adventure here. All of the action scenes are great, the whole pulp narrative with Caballeron and Ahuizotl and such is incredibly fun, and I don't care what anyone says, Daring Do being real is totally awesome. Her general insistence on working alone, as well as the aggressive attitude she adopts throughout basically the whole adventure, is just delightful. All of that carries me through this, but a number of things bothered me on this viewing, mostly related to Rainbow Dash's behaviour. The moral isn't necessarily bad, but Rainbow's general ineptitude here is a weird way of conveying it, and not really all that fun to watch. I love her enthusiasm, but it kept getting in the way of her judgment to the point that she frequently became annoying here. She displays an uncharacteristic lack of situational awareness and common sense, and while that is explained by the narrative, it's not always entertaining, and for a while seems to disprove the moral the episode's going for: if she's just gonna get in the way, maybe she should just go home. Maybe if the scene where they actually discuss that scene had a better argument, I would have enjoyed this episode a bit more; as is, it didn't entirely convince me. 

Also, as much as I'd like to just shut my brain off and enjoy the pulp tropes, I do have some boring social criticisms of this episode, specifically as regards its Aztec motif. Ahuizotl just isn't all that fleshed out, and his motivation isn't all that clearly explained, so it kinda comes off like some weird "savage mysticism" type thing, which is a touch culturally insensitive, especially when you get into his entirely unexplained followers. The cultural motif has an exotic flavour which feels kinda insidious to me, but then again, it's not entirely clear who Ahuizotl is or what the society he comes from is like. There's a conversation between Rainbow and Twilight which blathers incoherently about the plot of the books, but that just brings up funky ideas of dark magic which are even more reminiscent of old racist stereotypes. I guess it's just a comedic take on a bunch of pulp adventure tropes, but those pulp adventures are not known for progressive representational politics. Sorry, I know this stuff is a drag, but I just wish the show paid more attention to this kind of stuff. 

Also, they straight-up say "four corners of Tenochtitlan." So Daring just needs to scour some big city? 

Score:
Entertainment: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Themes: 6/10
Story: 6/10
Overall: 65/100

[bigbertha 414]

I found this episode to be really boring. The action scenes were a little fun, but most of it felt very uninteresting to me. I can see others liking this episode more, but nothing here really stuck out to me.

Score: 5/10

[Meushell 52]

I wasn’t wild about Daring Do being real, but I’m liking it more now. It paints a bigger picture of the world, and we have more heroes than we see.

My only real issue was the Mane 6 doing nothing while Daring Do was being attacked. I can see being surprised into immobility, but the fight went on way too long for them to just stand there the entire time. The incompetence stays a bit too long with Rainbow Dash, even with fan girlism being the reason.

While it’s neat that Rainbow Dash is in the book, wouldn’t that give away to everyone that Daring Do is real? Rainbow Dash isn’t the type to keep quiet about her adventures.

[qwerE 96]

Daring Do and Rainbow Dash! There's not much to talk about this episode. Just an ordinary okay episode.

[bigbertha 414]

I don't like this episode. My main issue is how annoying Rainbow is here. Nothing about the episode convinces me that Rainbow is right in trying to butt into Daring Do's work. All she does is be a nuisance. And Daring Do only needs to be rescued at the end because Rainbow was the reason Daring Do got captured. Daring Do says she works alone and nothing in the episode proves that she would be better off with someone else. She handled everything else before this episode alone and she could've handled this situation alone if Rainbow didn't screw everything up.

There's another issue too in how pointless Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie are. All they do is contribute to the big fight at the end, but that's not enough since they do nothing in the rest of the episode and don't even have good reasons for going with Rainbow and Twilight. 

The actual adventure with Daring Do and Caballeron feels like retreading old ground, just worse with Rainbow being annoying. Cabillaron isn't particularly interesting or fun to watch and he feels way too similar to Ahuizotl. Twilight and Rainbow say that Caballeron wanted to partner with Daring Do, but that aspect which could've made his character stand out is completely abandoned after that exchange. 

I kinda like the end fight with all of the mane six, but it's not that good and is pretty short. This episode feels like a sequel to Read it and Weep, but without improving anything.

Score: 3/10

Edited January 22, 2019 by bigbertha

[Astralshy 26,623]

A good and fun episode to watch.

I really like that RD's interests in the adventures of Daring Doo was not forgotten but build on instead. The name "A.K. Yearling" made me laugh. I was also very happy to see these typewriters again A lot of fun moments in here.

[Hadrien 950]

This is the episode where Rainbow Dash learns not to stalk and harass your heroes. It's also where we learn that Daring Do is real, and that all her adventures are real. Kind of like if Indiana Jones was a real person. Feels kind of weird honestly, but I think it was the best they could've done to help Rainbow Dash learn things about herself. Our little Dashie does have kind of a hero complex, so getting to meet, and get dissed, by her own hero is a good way for her to learn that she matters. Interestingly, I think this episode could've also worked with Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash, the same lesson would've been learned, but not by the same pony. The little adventure to get the idol back was fine, but mostly just a way for the plot to move forward.

7+0.5/10, bonus point for my favourite rainbow mare.