"A Trivial Pursuit" FiM Episode

[Al-1701]

Theirs only ten episodes left after this.  There are ten episodes left after this.  There are ten whole episodes left after this. 

Spoiler

The rules to this game reminds of Starfleet Battles.  How Twilight plays also brings back some less than pleasant memories.  Speaking of space, I wanted an asteroid to fall on this building about halfway through this episode.

Twilight was insufferable, Pinkie Pie was off her meds, and everyone in general was just unlikable.  Even Maud couldn't save this trainwreck.

[Zapper]

I thought the episode was hilarious because everyone was unlikeable.
I couldn't help but side with Twilight, tho. Pinkie should become Element of Annoyance.

I still maintain that some of the S9 episodes feel like they should have been in earlier seasons. This one included.

[AvianWing]

I still maintain that some of the S9 episodes feel like they should have been in earlier seasons. This one included.

Agreed, it makes me wonder if the decision to end on S9 was a rather hasty one.

[Leave a Whisper]

I thought the episode was hilarious because everyone was unlikeable.
I couldn't help but side with Twilight, tho. Pinkie should become Element of Annoyance.

I still maintain that some of the S9 episodes feel like they should have been in earlier seasons. This one included.

You mean she's not already? 

[otocolobus_manul]

I like that we skipped 2 4 6 Great. I had a whole rant ready to post, but I think just not acknowledging it whatsoever is better.

I was excited when I saw we were getting another Twilight/Pinkie episode, since the only other one was a mess. And then this one fell into the exact same trap: Twilight is only in the wrong because the writers say she's in the wrong, and Pinkie gets off scott free for being an inconsiderate friend. Honestly, the only episode that portrayed these 2 correctly was Trade Ya. Also, if they were so determined to write another episode about this duo, why COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN A MAP EPISODE?!

[Al-1701]

Really, they're all inconsiderate, but Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are by far the worst.  And yet they're the most popular (or at least Hasbro things so).  I want early G3 Rainbow Gabor back.

[Sunset]

I’ve been pretty “meh” about FIM for a while now.  I find this episode much more palatable when I think about who it was intended for.  I can just imagine Twilight as a 7-8 year old on family game night being partnered with her 3-4 year old sibling.

[Dragonflitter]

It's so weird how contrary this season has been so far! I would consider some of these episodes to be the best of entire series. Watching the villains grudgingly learn to work together? Awesome. An episode that focused on Celestia and Luna hanging out together, like fans have been asking for for years? Great! And 'Student Counsel' was a plot that hit right to my heart. I can never say no to friends for fear of hurting them. Seeing Sunburst appear at the end, I literally cheered out loud. Perfect ending!

Even when I didn't particularly like an episode, like 'Common Ground' (I'm not a fan of Quibblepants), I had to admire the plot of a step-parent trying overly hard to push themselves into a step-child's life. I think it had an admiral message for both younger viewers and old.

But then we swing in the complete opposite direction and have episodes this season that make NO SENSE to me. They spend one entire episode setting up a moral about how children can still be friends with each other, even if one of them has to move away (which I think is an important message kids should see), and then they take it all back at the very last second and give up the entire message of the episode? And then... a parody of Ocean's Eleven!? WHY? 

I like that we skipped 2 4 6 Great. I had a whole rant ready to post, but I think just not acknowledging it whatsoever is better.

And this!! Who thought this would make a good season 9 episode!? I might have bought that plot as an early episode to the series, but not at THIS POINT. These characters are so far beyond this by now! 


Well I have to say, this episode went into the latter category, for me. I can't imagine why this episode was even created, except to make jokes at the expense of characterization. Surely there was some loose ends from previous seasons they could be wrapping up in this last season, rather than rehashing the old "Twilight is super-obsessive and Pinkie Pie is super-wacky" tired cliches.

I would say, for me, I still enjoy FiM a lot, and I think there's more episodes this season that I like than ones I don't like, but this one was a thumb's down for me. I just don't enjoy watching all these characters that I like and admire behave so bratty to each other, and then it's all swept under the rug with a two second apology at the end.

(I gotta admit, although I'm not usually a fan of sticking Muffin Pony into episodes to do some sort of foolery to get fan reaction, I did get a chuckle out of the last five seconds of this episode, watching her try to open the door to the trivia place.  )

Post Merge: August 18, 2019, 11:27:37 PM

I'm kinda amused though that most people here seem to be siding with Twilight over Pinkie, though.  To each their own, but I think Twilight was entirely in the wrong this time. Pinkie was actively trying to help her team, and Twilight was being a total brat.

If I was hanging out with a group of friends in real life and one of them was purposely trying to ruin everyone's game night by nitpicking and pulling up technical rules just to hurt the other teams, I would have been pretty PO'd at that friend.

[Al-1701]

I think people's problem is Pinkie Pie was acting like she was off her meds to make her seem as impossible to work with as possible.  She's not THAT aloof.

And never play Starfleet Battles, just don't.

[Lady Frostbite]

Holy. Hell. I hated Twilight before, but I REALLY want to know why Celestia thinks this idiot is the person to lead Equestria. I am starting to wonder if Twilight ever got any positive enforcement other than ruthless knowledge duels. First her sparring with Shining Armour that lasted their entire childhood, now this?

I FELT for Pinkie here; I've been the unwanted teammate that my teammate wanted to get rid of so they could pair up with their BFF or just because they didn't want me near them (wrong clique, actually enthused about a game, etc.). I really hated Twilight's guts for intentionally freezing her out and being so two-faced as to outright lie to her about it. And why did no-one bring up Pinkie leaving the 'playing field' unessessarily?

I swear Mud Briar was made to punish bronies for making Maud their waifu.

I think S9 can be summed up as 'the season where DHX goes ham on facial expressions and does whatever because who cares'. Celestia being afraid of chickens. Luna not knowing what sunblock us. Shining Armour stopping Cadence from defending Flurry Heart. The Royal Sisters deciding to retire to let Twilight rule.

What is even going on. If 2,4,6,Greaaat was fuel for Dash haters - and I admit, I don't like Dash - then this ep along with Twilight's Seven is just another cannister of gas for Twilight haters. Good Gods, do I hate this pony. If anyone is off their meds, it's Celestia for thinking this vindictive, pedantic, manipulative, sociopathic, hauty idiot can be Princess of All.

[Zapper]

They spend one entire episode setting up a moral about how children can still be friends with each other, even if one of them has to move away (which I think is an important message kids should see), and then they take it all back at the very last second and give up the entire message of the episode?

This has already happened in season 1 with Ticket Master. A recycled plot from MLP Tales in which a pony can't decide which friend to take as plus one, so in the end she gives it all up. Her friends also realize they don't want to go if not all of them can so they all stay home together.

In Ticket Master Twilight can't decide and so is rewarded by Celestia with more tickets and the moral is gone. You don't need to sacrifice for your friends, in the end you just get what you want
The same happened in Last Crusade. You don't have to sacrifice anything, you just get what you want in the end.

I think FiM can only ever be as good as the writers (and of course Hasbro) want it to be.
Hasbro says "no death" so RD's tortoise goes into hibernation anf never returns. And the Apple parents are just heavily hinted at being "gone" forever.
Hasbro says the character tropes need to stay intact so the ponies never really learn their lessons for real.
And depending on the writers the character tropes can be upped to the max. This way we get Twilight and Pinkie who seem insane for comedic effect.

Remember when they trief that with Fluttershy? I am so glad they stopped her Hulk ways. I hated it so much when early season Fluttershy would just start screaming and being angry.

To be fair, I think the non M6 episodes have been really good, too!
I love the villain eps and the Trixie/Starlight one. I will miss Starlight, Trixie and Sunburst. They should be brought back somehow (and I need a Sunburst brushable with his little goat beard).

I enjoyed that Sunburst was sabotaging Twilight in the end. He was only learning from the Princess of Friendship

Post Merge: August 19, 2019, 04:21:10 AM

f anyone is off their meds, it's Celestia for thinking this vindictive, pedantic, manipulative, sociopathic, hauty idiot can be Princess of All

Massive Twilight spoiler for future episode:

Spoiler

I mean it.

Spoiler

Twilight will become a great leader who doesn't freak out anymore in an upcoming ep. Discord even lampshades it by saying something about character development.
Twilight says that the trivia night was an exception and that she has matured and in the end Celestia is super proud of her and says she has proven to be a great leader.

I did not make this up. It all happens in just a few eps from this one

[Dragonflitter]

OMG Lady Frostbite I love your Avatar. Luna with the Swan of Death(tm). 

I FELT for Pinkie here; I've been the unwanted teammate that my teammate wanted to get rid of so they could pair up with their BFF or just because they didn't want me near them (wrong clique, actually enthused about a game, etc.). I really hated Twilight's guts for intentionally freezing her out and being so two-faced as to outright lie to her about it. And why did no-one bring up Pinkie leaving the 'playing field' unessessarily?

Ugh I felt the same way! And I could almost see it as being a good moral of the episode, but they don't even really address it! Twilight offers a two second apology at the end and that's it. No one even brings up the fact that she's being a brat and using technicalities to attack the other teams and ruin everyone's fun evening. When she got Sunburst disqualified because Cranky was sleeping, it was for absolutely no reason! Sunburst wasn't even a threat at that point, he had like 3 points and all the other teams had much higher. She was strictly doing it to be mean.

I swear Mud Briar was made to punish bronies for making Maud their waifu.

Have you ever watched an old black-and-white movie from the 50's or whatever and you could tell one character was doing some sort of parody of something, but you didn't know what because the reference has been lost to time? This is what I feel like whenever Mud Briar is on the screen. Someday in the far future kids are going to be watching old episodes of MLP and some adult is going to have to explain that Mud Briar is a parody of a character from an adult sitcom that was airing at the same time MLP was. That they felt needed to be in a cartoon about colorful ponies. For some reason. 

This has already happened in season 1 with Ticket Master. A recycled plot from MLP Tales in which a pony can't decide which friend to take as plus one, so in the end she gives it all up. Her friends also realize they don't want to go if not all of them can so they all stay home together.

In Ticket Master Twilight can't decide and so is rewarded by Celestia with more tickets and the moral is gone. You don't need to sacrifice for your friends, in the end you just get what you want
The same happened in Last Crusade. You don't have to sacrifice anything, you just get what you want in the end.

Very true! But that is what is so confounding about it! The writers of this show have really evolved since the show started. You can disagree with me, but I think a lot of episodes done in later seasons have really mature and thoughtful plotlines, and I can tell the writers have come a long way from when this series started. Episodes where you can really tell the writers were trying to think of good stories to tell kids, and also entertaining stories that adults enjoy as well.

Between Last Crusade, 2 4 6 Great, and Trivial Pursuit, it feels like someone wrote episodes after only watching the first couple seasons. The writing level is on par with a show that is just getting started and still trying to find its footing. Definitely not what I've come to expect from a show that is nine years in and trying to wrap everything up.

(I don't even understand why they didn't want Scootaloo to move. I mean, this is the end of the series, it wouldn't have messed up future storylines with the CMC to have one of them live in another town. And I would have really liked to see them address some different things kids in real life can do to communicate with each other, but with a FiM world spin! Like maybe the CMC set up a message system with Gabby the courier, who brings notes between the two towns daily. Certainly when your childhood friend moves away from you, these days, it's different than when I was a kid and your only choice was sometimes to talk to them on the phone once in a while.)

[StarSwirl05]

Spoiler

I really didn't like the ep. The characters were all obnoxious and they were playing an equally obnoxious game. Plus, REALLY? An apple question for not only someone playing but from the hostess.

[Ragamuffin]

I haven't been watching any recent eps, and everyone doesn't seem to like any of them. They're "eh" at best and painful to watch at worst. I really wanted to watch season 9 all the way through since it's the end of the series but no one has had anything nice to say.

Just reading the synopsis, I wonder why they went this route? Every other season has been big on adventure and whatever, but this one is VERY season one, but apparently more annoying. Very slice-of-life. Maybe the writers wanted to just have fun with the characters one last time but... I don't know.

I wanna know about Celestia and Luna and I feel like we're not gonna get that. We could have at least gotten backstory on them, why they're alicorns and how they got their powers or SOMETHING but uh, Rainbow Dash is angry about not coaching and Twilight and Pinkie play Trivia! Whatever!

I guess they could go over an origin story in the comics but I'm pretty sure it's been stated that the cartoon and the comics are two different canons. All that's left is the final two episodes...

Spoiler

A lot of the following episodes have been leaked ahead of time, but again, I haven't seen them out of lack of interest. Just reading the description I know exactly how they're gonna play out.

From the looks of it, just reading the final episodes are:

Spoiler

17. Twilight freaks out, again, but everything is actually okay in the end.
18. Fluttershy and Angel swap bodies and they probably find a new appreciation for each other.
19. Spike episode
20. Starlight freaks out, again, but everything is actually okay in the end.
21. Rainbow Dash Daring Do episode. RBD probably learns something about how fandom works... fanfiction?
22. CMC episode. They probably are like "we're gonna enjoy being kids while we can". It's literally in the title.
23. ???
24. Big Mac episode, people are speculating a wedding/proposal?
25/26: Finale

Gee, how exciting... We've seen most of these already, the only ones that are potentially interesting are the Angel episode and maybe the CMC one. The Big Mac episode could be big but I feel like we might've had something like that already. Rainbow Roadtrip had a proposal scene (that IMO isn't as sweet as everyone says it is. Yeah Sunny and Petunia are cute I guess but it felt like they were just friends crushing on each other and not an established couple. It felt out of nowhere.) Daring Do episodes I think are pretty predictable too.

As we all know, the finale is gonna end with everyone becoming an alicorn princess.

[Zapper]

The writers of this show have really evolved since the show started.

They changed a lot of writers, too. Ticket Master was written by Lauren Fausticorn herself

I just had an epiphany. Why the heck didn't Twilight choose Spike as her plus one? Did Celestia not count him as a real person? Was he considered Twilight's extention?

Spoiler

20. Starlight freaks out, again, but everything is actually okay in the end.
21. Rainbow Dash Daring Do episode. RBD probably learns something about how fandom works... fanfiction?

Spoiler

You are wrong about Twilight freaking out In fact, she has a rapid heelturn character evolution and never freaks out ever again. Discord lampshades how badly written it is. Celestia is more convinced Twilight will be a perfect ruler.

20. Starlight is made headmare of the school. Then she is pressured by Trixie to make her second in command due to their friendship but Trixie is not qualified but shows other good qualities when it comes to the students. In the end Starlight has to talk it out with her, makes Sunburst her secondary and Trixie the counsellor. Trixie is ok with not getting the position and everyone is happy.

21. The entire Daring Do thing is wrapped up. In the end nobody is hunting for treasure anymore, Daring and Caballeron become friends and the new author is the creature thingie who turns out just tried to protect the artifacts.

Haven't seen the others but I sure hope they all become alicorns because that would make the Alicorn!Twilight drama from way back even more delicious Imagine the people who hated alicorn Twilight suddenly having to hate all the Mane Six? Turning their backs on the fandom and taking their crazy with them? Loving that concept.