- Released: September 26, 2022
- Total amount of seasons: 1
- Seasons watched: 1
- Rating: 2.5/5
Synopsis
My Thoughts
Here's one I was for sure looking forward to reviewing, regardless of whether it'd be good or not. I've covered all nine seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the preceding series set in the same universe, before, having missed out only on a few specials and spinoffs (which I may still cover at a later date).
So here's the new show and...honestly before I went into this I had no idea how to review it. The first "chapter" in this series is a special with the same title as the series title (which I'll review at a later date as its own entity), yet the second "chapter", this season, is a bunch of shorter episodes. So I'm kind of confused on how they're going to release this series. Multiple specials? Multiple shorter episodes? Or, my worst fear because it'll make covering them in my current system rather hard, a mix of both? We'll see. For now my plans are to review the shorter episode releases as part of the series and the specials as separate specials under my Movie Thoughts label.
Plot time: taking place after the movie and first special, Sunny Starscout, Hitch Trailblazer, Izzy Moonbow, Pipp Petals and Zipp Storm now all live in the small town of Maretime Bay where they face small daily interpersonal conflicts. In the background, however, a villainous alicorn named Opaline is plotting her revenge on Twilight Sparkle and the other ponies. She sends her (somewhat unwilling) minion Misty to do her dirty work and infiltrate Sunny's friend group, which proves slightly difficult for the mare.
Honestly, this show is a bit difficult to review because a lot of people seem to want different things out of this show. Some want it to feel very close to Friendship is Magic because it is a continuation, others want it to be their own thing and less pander-y to the older fans. I personally want it to be the latter, but I do get where the other side is coming from. Since it is technically a spinoff/sequel series to Friendship is Magic it does have some pretty big shoes to fill. While I wasn't very fond of that show's later seasons, I still wouldn't call them outright bad or anything sans maybe a few separate episodes. My main issues with the show at that point was just that it got too lore-heavy and seemed to learn more into spreading friendship to other races and stuff like that. I don't know, it didn't feel like the same show we started out with back in 2010, which was about small interpersonal conflict and character development rather than building a giant world with a lot of lore.
So this show definitely feels like its own identity while also continuing G4's legacy. Same world, but there's quite a few things slightly different (not just the animation style and medium, also stuff like lore seems to be slightly altered, at least for now). But the show does have its own take on things and it doesn't "feel" like G4, at least to me. But not in the best way possible. This show feels a lot more juvenile than G4, which is honestly fine since it is a children's show. However, I can also see how it can turn off some fans (especially older ones) since Friendship is Magic was really more of a family-oriented show rather than a kids-only show. Its main target audience was still children, but it was made in a way that made it easy to be enjoyed by older fans as well.
And this show being more juvenile doesn't have to be bad, but the writing just so far feels very weak. The plots feel weirdly paced and structured, the characters sometimes act a great deal less mature than in the preceding movie/special and the show just didn't feel all that "fun" to me despite being for kids.
The concept is fine: these ponies having small slice-of-life conflict while a bigger threat is building in the background and recurring each episode. That's a fine structure and has worked for many cartoons in the past. But I just wasn't enthused with this execution.
The characters are honestly fine to me, but I don't find them to be all that memorable or defined. Friendship is Magic had a very clearly defined cast. Each character had their own personality, but also quirks and hopes and dreams they were working towards. None of these characters really seem to have that...yet. Sunny is kind of the only exception with her goal being to let earth ponies hone their magic, but aside from that there's not really a greater goal each character wants to work towards. They seem perfectly content where they are and with what they're currently doing, which doesn't make them that interesting to me.
Sunny herself, despite being the main character, also kind of just gets pushed out of the limelight pretty soon. She appears in quite a few episodes, but she only has a handful of standout moments. It's fine for the other characters to have their own stories, of course, but Sunny seems to be our Twilight Sparkle for this series yet she's just...not all that major. She's got alicorn powers but even that isn't touched upon really aside from one episode. There's also a message they're given by a hologram of Twilight Sparkle at one point in the story, but Zipp seems to be the only one really working towards trying to figure out what it is.
As for the villains, they're...eh. Okay, Opaline is pretty much as boring a villain as you can imagine. We do get a backstory for her, but whether or not it's true remains to be seen. But aside from the rare fact that she's an alicorn, she's really basically every other cartoon villain you can imagine. All big talk, dark looks and evil laughs, yet continuously sends a bumbling henchpony to do her dirty work, which so far hasn't really succeeded except for planting the alicorn mirror. Also, I personally don't consider Opaline's design good. Her being an alicorn is fine, but her mane to her color palette just...doesn't look that great or threatening. Compare that to Nightmare Moon, an alicorn villain from Friendship is Magic, and one design is very clearly superior for a villain.
Misty, Opaline's minion, I did find likable, but mostly because of the potential she has. She's a pretty likable character, being raised by Opaline and groomed to do her every bidding. Misty's heart clearly isn't in being evil, however, as she seems to secretly want to have some friends and feel very insecure and lonely after all the mean remarks Opaline keeps making about her. Honestly, she's just the best element out of the show so far. And the character that seems to have the biggest potential for growth and development.
The visuals of the show are mostly fine. The CGI animation isn't what it was in the movie but it still looks pretty okay, though there's a few shots where manes do glitch out or certain movements are just a bit too stiff and awkward to look natural. But not all that bad considering it's 3D animation on a TV-show budget.
Now for one element I really didn't like about the show: the baby dragon Sparky. Friendship is Magic had a baby dragon character, Spike, however he was actually a character. Like the main cast, Spike went through development, had hopes and dreams and his own unique interests and traits. He was kind of sarcastic and snarky but at the same time also a hopeless romantic and just had a lot to him. Sparky does not.
Sparky honestly at this point is just a blank slate character. He has no personality, he doesn't speak (only makes those baby noises that are very clearly made by a grown man, which makes me rather uncomfortable) and the only unique thing about him is that his fire has magical properties. And I mean, I get that he's a baby dragon, younger than Spike even, but they also do nothing here to make me care about Sparky. Sure, Hitch cares about him and the viewer is meant to like the dragon because of this, but I just...didn't care. I'm not saying that I hate all baby characters like this, just that so far there's too little to this character to make me care about him. Honestly, I kind of wish there was a time skip so we got to see Sparky at Spike's age. That way he'd be able to talk and at least probably be slightly more interesting, even if he still wouldn't have a strong personality in that case.
Also, that aside, I'm kind of bothered by Sparky being born with wings when Friendship is Magic makes it very clear that dragons grow their wings as they go through puberty. I don't need every lore from the preceding show to be 100% followed since Make Your Mark is also semi-trying to be its own thing, but this is like...really something that was the focus of an entire episode in the show. There's other unexplained things in G5, such as why the ponies have cutie marks and Discord is still alive despite magic being gone for many years, but those can at least be left up to interpretation. Meanwhile we had an entire episode explaining how dragons get their wings so it just feels like blatant disregarding of this lore at this point.
But that aside, this show is just...not that great. I'm sure young children will enjoy it fine, but I don't like it much so far aside from Misty. I don't mind the more juvenile tone, but I do mind the episodes feeling somewhat weakly structured, the characters not feeling as well-thought out and the look of the show just being average. It's fine and I'm sure there's people who'll enjoy it, but for now it didn't exactly sell me on season one.
I probably will cover season two of this show to see if they improve at the very least. If I don't like that one much, either, I may not review onward from there, but that remains to be seen. I do plan on covering the Make Your Mark introductory special still, however.
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