Okay, this is going to be pretty massive, so just bear with me for a moment here:
- : I think this episode is the most jerkish Dash has been because it's the only one where she actually endangered others by stopping to do her catch phrase before doing the rescue; if the Mare Do Well hadn't shown up, somepony could have gotten hurt because of it. In Fall Weather Friends, the cheating didn't stand to hurt anypony, and in the race in the previous episode was purely voluntary. Yes, the gorge was dangerous, but the animals only had themselves to blame if they chose to take part.
- : I think Discord is a more effective villain than NM because he's actually successful to a degree; pretty much all of NMM's onscreen villainy failed. As for NMM's effect on the status quo: That's only because it was the pilot episode. It has to set the tone for the rest of the season.
- : Coming off of that point, regarding the whole Growing the Beard thing: It's not that people dislike the pilot, it's just that the later episodes are more character driven because they don't spent half their time introducing the cast. We get to see them just being themselves rather than watching the episode trying to summarize their characterization so quickly.
- : In response to the whole "Ponyville is OOC" thing, Pacific State wanted me to post his thoughts on the matter:
You think the New York of Marvel Comics feels anything like the real place? No, for the purpose of the story, we were in comicbook world. RD was basically Superman with the attitude of Darkwing Duck, and the Mare Do Well was Batman with Darkwing's design and a bit of the Phantom, who happened to the Legacy Character and whose mask was donned by many.
As for the rescue plots, the dam is from
Green Lantern, the baby is from
Power Rangers (it was the episode where Bulk and Skull started their
Heel Face Turn), the cart (WHY DO PONIES RIDE IN A CART?) was from Superman (except it was a Jumbo jet, but ponies don't have that... yet) and the construction site collapsing was
Spider-Man.
Plus, the events in this episode could have been spaced over months. It's just that each episode has one theme and as little continuity as possible and thus you don't get a series of subplots taking place simultaneously.
I think he's on to something with the superhero references, but I'm still not sold on the idea. Ponyville has been portrayed in a certain manner for pretty much the entire show, and this episode disregards a lot of it. I don't think being a
Shout Out to something else really justifies changing the setting so much (if Twilight suddenly started acting like Tony Stark, it would still be OOC, regardless of whether it was an
Iron Man reference), but if his list of
ShoutOuts is accurate, it makes a bit more sense.
I feel like there was something else I was going to give my 2 cents on, but I can't remember what it was. Oh well, time for lunch.
Huh, was there the Derpy in CMC?
This is the first time an episode annoyed me. So Rainbow Dash is the one who gave everyone their Cutie Marks?!
I'll have to call bullshit on this one.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Where's CROWFALL?! I miss him
