![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well since I mentioned this place was a wasteland earlier, let us fix that! As you can see on the side I have done another pony sort that isn't characters but episodes! Yes I already have a tier-list, but which episode is truly my favourite and most disliked ? All that and more, right here on Spotto's not-a-wasteland blog!
It is odd indeed that my most favourite episode (yes I have finally decided) is one I never actually covered through a review here. For whatever reason I just didn't do it, perhaps at the time I was in too much of an awe, or maybe there was simply nothing to say about it beyond anything short of astounding. Sleepless in Ponyville was an episode any Scootaloo fan dreamed of. If I was asked how I wanted to see her episode pan out beforehand, I wouldn't have expected so much honestly. A decent slice-of-life episode expanding on her character and touching upon some conflict that might serve as a good moral at the end of the episode was all I was asking for, but they delivered far more than that. Some complaints over the episode is how it seems to complete Scootaloo's character arc sort of like how AJ seems to be done with her developing and her episodes don't really extend her further. While I disagree, the only way this will not actually be true is if there are more Scootaloo episodes later on, perhaps in season four, to expand upon the events of this episode.
I see it more of an opportunity really. A lot of people interpret the end as if RD has officially adopted Scootaloo as her sister and happy endings can only result. On the contrary, Lauren Faust's statement that RD would be a terrible older sister is right, since throughout the whole episode she never picked up upon all the clues of Scootaloo's strange behaviour. It was only AJ, who we all know is the ideal big sister at this point, who had any sense of concern. So to me this episode was more like a first step and I see future episodes involving both characters running into further conflict due to each other's attitudes and personalities. Whether or not that will actually happen is still to be seen however, but if this is the end of all that is Scootaloo, and her further appearances will only be as a member of the CMC, well I would be disappointed but not unhappy. This episode was just too good.
As for number two...it took a long while for Pinkie Pie to emerge as my favourite character. For all of season one I never had a favourite character and if you forced me to choose, I'd choose the yellow one in my icon right now. It was only as I continued to watch during the first few episodes of season two did I realize Pinkie was well, pretty damn awesome. This is odd because Pinkie's role in the first five or so episodes isn't that huge. She had probably the least entertaining corruption in the Discord episodes and only had the chocolate-milk gag to carry her, and she was the only non-insane pony in Lesson Zero. Everyone seemed to hate Pinkie in Luna Eclipsed and she was non-existent in the next episode, so why? Well at the moment it still took a while for Party of One to sink in, to really understand Pinkie's issues. In the Return of Harmony, her lack of attention was a perfect way to showcase how changed she was because well, it was the total opposite of what she actually is. In Lesson Zero, I must've been the only person in the whole world who absolutely loved her balloons in a basket moment, where she simply looks at the camera and smiles. There was seriously no point to that.
Finally in Luna Eclipsed she was pretty much the cause of all the problems, yet at the end she was simply acting scared like normal people would be on a Halloween-esque holiday, and didn't factor in the Moon Princess' own feelings... a flaw, if you will. In any case, these few episodes, as little as Pinkie's screentime was, gave me good reason to love her. She lightened up every dire situation, yet could simplify the chaos, but she's not without her own shortcomings. It's part of the reaosn why I absolutely love the fan-song Balloons in my Basket and how I find it so terribly underrated. (I daresay I like it better as a Pinkie song over Smile Smile Smile, but whatever) Anywho, when I went to revisit Party of One, I realized how flawless it truly was...and to this day, only Party of One and Sleepless in Ponyville have absolutely no flaws in my mind.
Righto, too many paragraphs for just the top two episodes. As for the rest you just need to see my reviews for the answer as why they're so high up. Luna Eclipsed is at the cusp of greatness and not as-greatness because whenever I think about that episode, really only that one scene pops out as the best-of-the-best. You have never realized true entertainment if you haven't seen that scene live in a stream with three thousand other people. Quite possibly the most enjoyable moment I've had as a fan of the show. I know the actual humour itself is simplistic at best, what with it just being cartoon slapstick, but how it was delivered, timed, animated, everything was so very perfectly done that I could not help but to crack up. And when you've seen countless movies and shows that exempt the pretty, pure angelic character from cartoon violence, seeing it done to Fluttershy so very unapologetically is the funniest thing that could happen. M. A. Larson may struggle to write Fluttershy but he is by no means gives that her any sense of mercy. :D
The rest is pretty standard...as for why the last episodes are well, the last... Ticket Master was an uninteresting episode using a concept I had seen before. The Crystal Empire was not the actiony-awesome adventured-filled première I was hoping for but a prolonged Twilight episode with a setting and villain that literally popped out of nowhere with little development. (Songs were decent though) I generally do not care for CMC-episodes where the main conflict is actually trying to find their cutie-mark, since it seems to just be a rehash of that same plot over and over again thus any of those episodes being down here. Pinkie Pie was pretty dumb in the mystery episode, somewhat dumb in the clone episodes while her friends were disappointing, and Dragon Quest ruined any point of actual dragon lore by replacing it with annoying teenage stereotypes. Apple Family Reunion was boring; Boast Busters was generally bad all around; Owl's Well That Ends Well was even more boring; The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well had the most jackass of friends possible; Spike at Your Service caused Spike to lose a hundred IQ points; and Games Ponies Play was cringe-worthy levels of bad in terms of predictability and Pinkie as a whole.
I hope the episode with the games themselves is better than any Crystal Empire episode so far. :\
I can rant about any episode on this list besides the first two really. Such as how easily Discord reformed or how Dragonshy didn't age well as an episode, or how several of these episodes are rushed. But yeah, that's my episode ranking! This has been Spotto.
It is odd indeed that my most favourite episode (yes I have finally decided) is one I never actually covered through a review here. For whatever reason I just didn't do it, perhaps at the time I was in too much of an awe, or maybe there was simply nothing to say about it beyond anything short of astounding. Sleepless in Ponyville was an episode any Scootaloo fan dreamed of. If I was asked how I wanted to see her episode pan out beforehand, I wouldn't have expected so much honestly. A decent slice-of-life episode expanding on her character and touching upon some conflict that might serve as a good moral at the end of the episode was all I was asking for, but they delivered far more than that. Some complaints over the episode is how it seems to complete Scootaloo's character arc sort of like how AJ seems to be done with her developing and her episodes don't really extend her further. While I disagree, the only way this will not actually be true is if there are more Scootaloo episodes later on, perhaps in season four, to expand upon the events of this episode.I see it more of an opportunity really. A lot of people interpret the end as if RD has officially adopted Scootaloo as her sister and happy endings can only result. On the contrary, Lauren Faust's statement that RD would be a terrible older sister is right, since throughout the whole episode she never picked up upon all the clues of Scootaloo's strange behaviour. It was only AJ, who we all know is the ideal big sister at this point, who had any sense of concern. So to me this episode was more like a first step and I see future episodes involving both characters running into further conflict due to each other's attitudes and personalities. Whether or not that will actually happen is still to be seen however, but if this is the end of all that is Scootaloo, and her further appearances will only be as a member of the CMC, well I would be disappointed but not unhappy. This episode was just too good.
As for number two...it took a long while for Pinkie Pie to emerge as my favourite character. For all of season one I never had a favourite character and if you forced me to choose, I'd choose the yellow one in my icon right now. It was only as I continued to watch during the first few episodes of season two did I realize Pinkie was well, pretty damn awesome. This is odd because Pinkie's role in the first five or so episodes isn't that huge. She had probably the least entertaining corruption in the Discord episodes and only had the chocolate-milk gag to carry her, and she was the only non-insane pony in Lesson Zero. Everyone seemed to hate Pinkie in Luna Eclipsed and she was non-existent in the next episode, so why? Well at the moment it still took a while for Party of One to sink in, to really understand Pinkie's issues. In the Return of Harmony, her lack of attention was a perfect way to showcase how changed she was because well, it was the total opposite of what she actually is. In Lesson Zero, I must've been the only person in the whole world who absolutely loved her balloons in a basket moment, where she simply looks at the camera and smiles. There was seriously no point to that.
Finally in Luna Eclipsed she was pretty much the cause of all the problems, yet at the end she was simply acting scared like normal people would be on a Halloween-esque holiday, and didn't factor in the Moon Princess' own feelings... a flaw, if you will. In any case, these few episodes, as little as Pinkie's screentime was, gave me good reason to love her. She lightened up every dire situation, yet could simplify the chaos, but she's not without her own shortcomings. It's part of the reaosn why I absolutely love the fan-song Balloons in my Basket and how I find it so terribly underrated. (I daresay I like it better as a Pinkie song over Smile Smile Smile, but whatever) Anywho, when I went to revisit Party of One, I realized how flawless it truly was...and to this day, only Party of One and Sleepless in Ponyville have absolutely no flaws in my mind.
Righto, too many paragraphs for just the top two episodes. As for the rest you just need to see my reviews for the answer as why they're so high up. Luna Eclipsed is at the cusp of greatness and not as-greatness because whenever I think about that episode, really only that one scene pops out as the best-of-the-best. You have never realized true entertainment if you haven't seen that scene live in a stream with three thousand other people. Quite possibly the most enjoyable moment I've had as a fan of the show. I know the actual humour itself is simplistic at best, what with it just being cartoon slapstick, but how it was delivered, timed, animated, everything was so very perfectly done that I could not help but to crack up. And when you've seen countless movies and shows that exempt the pretty, pure angelic character from cartoon violence, seeing it done to Fluttershy so very unapologetically is the funniest thing that could happen. M. A. Larson may struggle to write Fluttershy but he is by no means gives that her any sense of mercy. :D
The rest is pretty standard...as for why the last episodes are well, the last... Ticket Master was an uninteresting episode using a concept I had seen before. The Crystal Empire was not the actiony-awesome adventured-filled première I was hoping for but a prolonged Twilight episode with a setting and villain that literally popped out of nowhere with little development. (Songs were decent though) I generally do not care for CMC-episodes where the main conflict is actually trying to find their cutie-mark, since it seems to just be a rehash of that same plot over and over again thus any of those episodes being down here. Pinkie Pie was pretty dumb in the mystery episode, somewhat dumb in the clone episodes while her friends were disappointing, and Dragon Quest ruined any point of actual dragon lore by replacing it with annoying teenage stereotypes. Apple Family Reunion was boring; Boast Busters was generally bad all around; Owl's Well That Ends Well was even more boring; The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well had the most jackass of friends possible; Spike at Your Service caused Spike to lose a hundred IQ points; and Games Ponies Play was cringe-worthy levels of bad in terms of predictability and Pinkie as a whole.
I hope the episode with the games themselves is better than any Crystal Empire episode so far. :\
I can rant about any episode on this list besides the first two really. Such as how easily Discord reformed or how Dragonshy didn't age well as an episode, or how several of these episodes are rushed. But yeah, that's my episode ranking! This has been Spotto.
