Monday, December 30, 2013

Episode Talk: S4E7, Bats!

Today's post was going to be my next fanfic review.  I had the header all typed up, even.  It was going to say, "I don't have anything to say about the newest episode, because I couldn't think of a single thing I liked about it."

But dangit, I do want to say a few things about it.  Also, I eventually realized there was one thing that I liked about the episode (one thing specific to this episode, that is--any praise which could apply to every episode of MLP I'm taking as a given).  So, click down below the break if you want some slightly after-the-fact Bats!-themed venting.




-Okay, let's start with the part I liked: Pinkie Pie.  She's a tough character to write well--the line between "goofy" and "annoying" is a thin one, and sometimes seemingly nonexistent--but I thought this was one of her better episodes in terms of balancing silliness with not being a distraction.  The drill gag was a little much for me, but other than that she was the one thing about this episode that got me to grin.

-Okay, I grinned at Spike lampshading his uselessness, too, but then I retracted it when I thought about the comic-book episode which this one follows.  You know, the one all about Spike not being completely useless.  Was this episode originally intended to occur before it, or was this just a case of poor planning/poor synergy between scriptwriters?

-Speaking of poor synergy with other episodes: Bats! was full of shoutouts, callbacks, and continuity... and basically all of it was wrong.  The most obvious being that The Stare™ is now something Fluttershy can do on command, but which she only uses for emergencies--both in flat contradiction to previous canon.  Then there's Dash going from would-be cider enthusiast to painfully addicted cider junkie (InquisitorM mentioned once that, having previously been unaware that non-alcoholic cider was a thing (crazy Brits), the Super Cider Squeezy 6000 episode looked rather different to him than the writers probably intended.  I can only wonder what he made of this one), Applebuck season vs. Applebucking day, Fluttershy's back to being a doormat (I say this every time we get a "Fluttershy is a doormat" episode, but how many times can she learn the same dang lesson before it starts to stick?), etc.  This speaks to either a distressing lack of interest on the show writer's part, or a disturbingly low assessment of the audience.  And I'm not talking about us "periphery demographic"-types, either: this show is aimed at eight year old girls, and apparently Merriwether Williams doesn't think they know or care what happened in the show less than a year ago.  There's a big difference between having little or limited continuity (which the show does semi-regularly, and which, while annoying for fanfic writers and show theorists generally, is perfectly acceptable for this kind of show) and going out of your way to bring something up, only to ignore it anyway.

-That song was awful.  It was clearly too low for the primary voices involved, resulting in an inappropriate-to-the-song's-tone breathiness and a just-plain inappropriate lack of precision (Ingram's been writing music for these people for three years; shouldn't he have a better idea of their vocal ranges by now?), and lacked any sort of direction.  I think the main problems wer the (lack of) endings for musical phrases, and poor rhythm-word synergy; contrast this song with the conceptually similar Find a Pet, which has strong phrase endings (emphasized by musical flourishes) and matches word stress to diction extremely well.  This song was an interminable muddle, with stressed words often seeming almost random.

-I HATE POINTLESS STINGER ENDINGS.  I HATE THEM.  I HATE THEM SO VERY, VERY MUCH.  Let's be honest, there's better than a 99% chance that Fluttershy's still being part(?) vampony will never be mentioned again, in which case the choice of closing scene was... arg, I don't even have words for it.  It's just cheap shock pablum, not even shocking anymore because it's so overdone, the only effect of which is to negate or at least mitigate any resolution and to damage continuity with future episodes because it's never again addressed.  And, on the off-chance that this is mentioned again, I have exactly zero faith based on this episode that this subsequent appearance will justify the narrative harm caused by the stinger ending.

-God, I hate pointless stinger endings so much!  This kind of garbage is why I watch so little TV!  If this was a fanfic I'd downvote it and probably leave a nasty comment just because of the ending.  Okay, not just because of the ending... but damn, if there was ever a time when these endings worked on shows with more than zero continuity, it's long since past.  This is the sort of junk I expect from a SyFy original movie.

-I understand they're trying to create a conflict, but how can Fluttershy possibly fail economics and ecology so hard?  I mean, it's like an episode of Captain Planet, only instead of the villain being so ridiculous that you can enjoy it for the camp, the "feed the pest species your primary crop and... its numbers will magically decline and you'll somehow be even better off than if you just drove them off?" strategy is contrasted with what's actually a quite reasonable counterproposal.

-This is by far the low point of season four (so far) for me.  I can take comfort in the fact that at least the moral wasn't awful, but literally everything else (except Pinkie) was a disappointment.  The characters were flat and one-dimensional, the conflict arbitrary and poorly resolved, the song an utter waste of the talents of everyone involved, the pacing abysmal, and God dammit I hate pointless stinger endings!

38 comments:

  1. Thanks Chris, I needed that!

    As for Dash, the cider thing wasn't even that noticeable next to all the characters being, well, shit. I mean, they generally weren't very likeable, which seems to be the exact opposite of what you want in the show and what drew me to it in the first place. This is why I railed against season three so much: the characters slowly became less and less nuanced and more and more caricatures.

    Magical Mystery Cure took the cake in a big way with the cutie-mark swapping debacle, and season four just seems to have given up any pretence and just used mono-themed derivatives of the main six so push hollow, ill-conceived plots as lazily as possible.

    Honestly, my interest in the show is at almost non-existent (ponies in general is a slightly different matter). If I didn't have too much free time for my own good, I'm not even sure I'd continue watching. The Spike continuity breach in Castle-mania alone was enough to wind me up, but to immediately parody it afterwards just smacks of the studio not actually caring anymore. When I feel that, I stop caring too.

    -M

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  2. Wow, strange, I couldn't disagree more. I loved the episode and found continuity to be very strong.
    - I loved this song, while I had hated the song in May the Best Pet Win. This one had great visuals and direction, and a militant tone which different than the usual MLP fare. The song about the pets was a laundry list of animals, unfocused and unmemorable. (Seriously I can't remember a single line from that song)
    - Fluttershy's stare being done at will is something that's already been treated inconsistently (e.g. she had threatened Discord to use her stare on him).
    - Applebucking day vs Applebucking season? Seriously, that's a complain? That's like complaining for people using both the terms "Christmas day" and "Christmas season"
    - Rainbow Dash had already been presented drooling like a moron for cider, (tongue hanging out and all) in Super Cider Squeezy 6000. I'd say that if you saw her being more extreme in her attitude here than there, then you've just forgotten how extreme her love of cider was presented as back then.
    - I think that as long as the opposite side isn't presented as horrible villains (and Applejack & friends certainly weren't) we should be lenient about the the treatment of ecology messages in a cartoon world where all animals can actually be talked to and reasoned with.

    All in all I found the episode to be awesome -- a character conflict where everyone was in-character and every side was presented as reasonable and prepared to make sacrifices for the greater good. After "Flight to the Finish" it's my second favourite episode of the season, which makes me more optimistic about the season than the boring Castle-mane-ia or the likewise meaningless Power Ponies did...

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    1. Re. continuity problems: if "Applebuck day" vs. "Applebuck season" had been the only such issue, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But when it's part of a pattern of not just ignoring continuity, but going out of one's way to trample it, that bothers me.

      Still, typing that bit up made me feel uncomfortably killjoyish. The last thing I want is to be the guy who throws a fit because they changed somepony's walk cycle or some other asinine thing.

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    2. Nah, I strongly disliked this episode too, for all the same reasons you did, though I feel the song worked how it was supposed to of being all weird and creepy.

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  3. The continuity thing irritates me to no end, just for how much it's cherry-picked in this episode. You have direct call-outs to numerous episodes all in a row, and then gross ignorance of lessons and facts learned in a few others -- Lesson Zero, Swarm of the Century, STARE FUCKING MASTER -- that are skipped over entirely for plot conveniences. And the worst part is, they could have been brought to bear and still have made this an episode. But hey, Merriweather Williams screws up again, who knew?

    You're right about Pinkie, though (AND THE SONG OH MY GOD WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS SONG). As much as I like Flutterbat, her existence can't save this episode from being a pile of garbage. Not to mention she already existed in the fandom, albeit more as a thing than a Thing, so we don't really even benefit from having her brought to the fore.

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  4. I would try to post my own comments on the episode, but it doesn't matter. The whole blog essentially decided the show was going downhill by the end of the second season and nothing has changed that. And the more I try to draft my own counterargument to that, the more I realize that it might just be that I'm the idiot. Perhaps the whole show does suck now and I can't accept that. Perhaps I should just give up on it like everyone else has.

    I need a drink.

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    1. Up to this point, I was actually feeling pretty positive about season four; it's had its blah episodes, sure, but that was true every season. I'm hoping (and expecting, really) that the next episode will be better.

      Also, I saw your blog post which mentioned the "Merriwether effect." For my part, I know that when I found out she'd written the episode, I said to myself "Oh, that makes sense," and now I wonder if knowing that she was the scriptwriter hasn't reinforced, at the least, my negative perceptions.

      Then again, I did enjoy the Hearth's Warming episode, so maybe I should just be focusing on not painting someone with over-broad brush strokes.

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    2. It's pretty simple:

      Next is the Rarity episode.

      Polsky wrote it.

      It's make or break time.

      I'm going to need vodka, I think.

      -M

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    3. I was looking forward to the Rarity episode (well, I hope it's not THE Rarity episode this season) until I found out Polsky wrote it.

      Granted, Daring Don't was probably his best episode but still, ehhhhhhPolsky...

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    4. Polsky's writing the Rarity episode?

      I'm going to need a drink and a gun. I think it's time to punch out. There's nothing worth living for anymore.

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    5. "The whole blog essentially decided the show was going downhill by the end of the second season and nothing has changed that."

      Not true. While I haven't liked all the changes (that freakin' lighting!), overall I've really been enjoying this season. Then again, we have established that I have poor taste (plus, I have a history of not giving up on shows until well after they've dropped in quality - I think it took me eight seasons to finally admit Family Guy had become one of the worst shows on television), so maybe we're both idiots

      You guys all suck. Polsky's awesome. Over a Barrel's best episode

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    6. Right on, professor! I agree completely.
      Brohoof!

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    7. Well, I wouldn't call Over a Barrel one of the best episodes, but the beginning is great. It's not a bad episode, it just feels emotional strange to have this simulated cowboys and indians thing going on. I could definitely do without the pie fight at the end.

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    8. I still say OaB was the worst episode of season 1, but it's really only if you think about the implications. If you don't, it's got one of the best opening sequences ever, a comedically bad song (a trait it shares with Show Stoppers), Pinkie in a can-can dress, and enough horrible puns to choke at least two camels. It's overall a pretty decent episode, depending on how much you can stand puns, so long as you don't think about the historical inaccuracies and revisionism that the writers no doubt did not intend.

      The long and short being that although I consider it the worst of its season, I do not hate it with the burning passion I have reserved for certain others seasons' worst.

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    9. Hmmm. That's tough. I'm sitting here trying to calculate out the worst episode of season one. Over a Barrel does have the uncomfortable thing with the revisionist history, but it also has some really great moments.

      Personally, I think A Bird in the Hoof and Owls Well That Ends Well are both worse episodes if we take out the emotional weirdness of the cowboys and indians thing. I find them both to be kind of bland, though I don't particularly dislike them. Spike's episodes is probably what I consider the bottom of season one.

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    10. I don't get why cowboys and indians (not sure if that "i" should be capitalized, considering they aren't from India) should be such an issue for people. Lots of classic cartoons have episodes about that sort of thing, and an expert was brought in to make sure Over a Barrel wasn't offensive to Native Americans

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    11. Yes, but those are classic cartoons. They have to be seen as a product of their times.

      I don't particularly think that anything in Over a Barrel is offensive in and of itself. It's just an outdated idea that is a touchy subject for some people. Just the idea that you would need to bring in an expert to make sure your episode isn't offensive should be warning enough that it's probably not a subject you should be tackling, but it's not really something I think people need to get up in arms about. The episode is okay besides the weirdness, and the target audience of four to eight year old girls don't really have that same feeling of unease, so it works perfectly well for them.

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    12. I'm gonna have to ask you for a source on that "expert" thing, Oats.

      The issue is not, for me anyway, the depiction of "cowboys and Indians". It's the conclusion I draw from the narrative that all the settlers and natives had to do was learn to get along in order to resolve their conflict. It's worse when you consider that the pies are analogous to alcohol, given how much the buffalo want them, and looking at the rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related deaths on reservations in the current day... Well, that's pretty damned offensive, if you ask me.

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    13. Also, I count Owl's Well near the bottom of season 1 as well, for assassination of a character who barely had any character to assassinate. I remember being really excited to get a Spike episode; given that it was his only one that season, you'd think they could have taken a better route than making him a cheesy villain.

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    14. An EXPERT says it's not racist. Wow! How could I have possibly been offended? It must be MY fault.

      Nu pay pas lolma iisaw'uy, you motherfucker.

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  5. I felt this episode was more of a mixed bag than outright terrible or brilliant. I disagree with you regarding the song -- this is one of the few songs since season two that actually felt like it was part of the narrative rather than sounding like something intended to be played on the radio a la Bab Seed, Hearts as Strong as Horses & most everything from MMC.

    That's not to say I think it's brilliant either: "There's another side to this/And if I did not defend them, then I would be remiss" is a pointless line written only to satisfy the rhyme and "Will ya look at the state my trees are in" would've been better as "Will ya look at the state my orchard's in". But even if it may have been badly in need of an editing sweep, I didn't feel like it was a diversion away from the episode like I did with so many other songs.

    I'm not sure why you think Fluttershy was a pushover here. A Pushover!Fluttershy wouldn't have even argued in the first place, and even if a lot of her points felt pulled out of her ass -- "the animals that I have never met before and don't know how to talk too are actually beneficial for your orchard, Applejack!" -- she continued to argue for the bats even after every other member of the mane six turned against her.

    I agree with everything else, though: Pinkie felt back on form, the conflict felt mishandled (which was a shame because, on paper, it sounds interesting -- I almost get the feeling that Merriwether was given that conflict as the prompt and then paid lip service to it long enough that she could turn Fluttershy into a bat), and Spike didn't really seem to do anything for the entire episode other than make a joke about how he wasn't useful.

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    1. Absolutely agreed on the orchard bit. That line drove me positively batty as soon as I heard it :D

      Yeah, I know how bad that was; no, I'm not apologizing

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  6. I've raged about this episode for days now, so I'll just say that I agree and that I think this is probably the worst one they've made. Besides Pinkie, there is almost nothing at all to like about this episode. At least with The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well we had a few jokes that worked. If Pinkie hadn't have been in this, it would have been grim.


    One thing that I would like to point out as a marker of Merriwether's laziness is the title. It's indicative of how she views the product. Most of the episodes have a cute, punny title, though not all of them. This one is called Bats! I remember that coming up and thinking, "I-It's just called Bats!? That's it?" It's not important in and of itself, but it shows where her mind is. She's so disinterested in this stuff that she just threw the absolutely most basic title on the episode and called it a day. That's how I see almost all of her episodes. She just kinda wrote whatever was on the top of her head in roughly two hours and then went out on the desk to relax for the rest of the day.

    Look, I'm sure she's a busy woman. I know she does writing for other shows, as well. However, she seems to be the only writer they have that thinks of this as a typical kids show, rather than a family show. Her episodes leave me wondering if she has the same mentality as Joel Schumacher after he nearly destroyed the Batman franchise with his "Lol, whatever! They're comic book movies, so they don't have to be good!" BS rationales.

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  7. I think "Bats!" is also a punny title, as the actual real-world exclamation is "Rats!" (http://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Slang/R/Rats__1467.htm)

    People are being absurd over this whole episode. I think they just have one major aesthetic that was violated for them (they didn't want to see Fluttershy as a vampire) and everything else are just excuses they're trying to pile onto the thing, instead of heartfelt real objections.

    This is called the 'horn' effect -- because one thing made you not like the episode in general, you're biased against *everything* in the episode, even elements where the episode did significantly better than most of the rest of the series has ever done.

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    1. I haven't seen a single person say they didn't like Fluttershy becoming a vampire fruit-bat-pony.

      I don't think your dismissal is remotely fair or reasoned.

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    2. It was a reaction I saw explicitly in some comments at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWfAPuMyG-4 (e.g. "Why does everyone like "Bats!" so much, especially after what they did to Fluttershy. I hate Flutterbat, it is like one of my worse nightmares come to life.").

      But now that I went back and saw those comments again, I saw that several anti-vamp comments had all come from the same person, so I probably severely overestimated how prevalent the hatred of vampire-Fluttershy was among the people who disliked the ep.

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    3. I can appreciate that. Personally, I thought it was one of the few interesting bits, even if I had some issues with the execution of it.

      No, if I was going to get aggravated about 'you did X to best pony' kind of stuff I'd be ranting a lot more about how the main six have been turnnd into half-blind, selfish, emotionally crippled simpletons just to make the plots work.

      I have ranted a bit, but believe me I could rant more :P

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    4. Fluttershy being changed into a bat is probably the LEAST offensive thing about that episode. I don't think too many that are actually giving critques about the episode are too bent out of shape about that. There are probably plenty of people commenting that are, but not people that are going point by point breakdowns of the episode's problems.

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  8. Agreed on all points, Chris. I found the whole thing very blah and lazily ignoring tons of what came before it. While I appreciate a song that drives the plot (not enough of them do that), the music itself was very lackluster. Much of the exposition was forced, and the characters all seemed played to their stereotypical extremes. Not to mention it's one of the worst for filling space with repetition.

    I'm pretty pleased with the current season so far. Even for episodes I thought were weak in a narrative sense were still fun for me. Hopefully, this is just a speed bump.

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  9. I thought this one was pleasantly watchable and fun, but ultimately forgettable. So, just like literally every episode from season 4. Hopefully some of this season's later episodes will have the sort of depth that the first seasons often had, but if not, then I'll still enjoy watching things like this.

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  10. Wowzers. I do believe that this is the first time that I've seen Chris bust out the caps lock. And to think those stinger endings have been so prevalent this season. I don't like them either.

    One thing that really boils my broccoli just as much is them shoehorning the mane 6 in there when they're not all needed. It was really terrible in Daring Don't. Bats! was not as terrible, but still pretty bad. This time they roped Spike into it too. Seriously! Why Spike!?

    Here's a way I think It could've been set up much better:
    Granny Smith and Apple Bloom are off scoping the competition, but Big Mac stays with Applejack to help with Applebucking Day. (Speaking of, how can there be an Applebucking Day take 2? It really would've worked better as "The start of Applebuck season," Also, why does it take so long to scope out the competition? but I digress). AJ notices bat problem. AJ calls in Fluttershy due to her animal expertise. Fluttershy says leave them be. AJ says something like "I brought you here to help me, not oppose me." They argue about it for a bit, then both try to convince Big Mac to back them up. Big Mac remains characteristically silent the whole time until eventually saying "...I got a better idea." Big Mac fetches Twilight Sparkle who brings a couple books to the orchard to devise her fix-all spell. (That double scene change bothers me. All of them go for a quick jaunt to the library and then all of them go back? It just don't seem right.) They convince Fluttershy to use her stare. "We might need some help rounding up these bats." Says AJ. They bring in Rainbow Dash to do that. Yadda yadda yadda. Twilight suggests a stake out. (Rarity and Pinkie Pie can be written in here because "we need all the help we can get." They didn't have any significant lines up to this point anyway. But not Spike. Seriously! Why Spike!? Personally, I still wouldn't bring any of them though. Another option: Big Mac could be written out because "Big Mac, guard the main gate. Nothing gets in or out.") Yadda yadda yadda. They discover Flutterbat. "Rainbow Dash, bring her down here so we can reverse the spell!" (Seriously. Even ignoring all the times Twilight grabbed Fluttershy with her magic, The Dash was right there! It looked like she didn't even try.) Rainbow Dash flies up to Flutterbat. Flutterbat dips out. Cool chase scene ensues (instead of them faffing about for two solid minutes). Flutterbat flies with surprising agility, using the trees, apple/seed projectiles, and even the other vampire bats to elude Dash. Their chase brings them whizzing past the giant apple causing a gust of wind that blows off the tarp. Flutterbat gets all wide-eyed and dives for the apple. AJ's all, "NOOOO!" But it's too late, Flutterbat sucks it dry. Doing that however, slows her down enough for Dash to tackle her. AJ mourns the loss of the giant apple for a second then gets back to the matter at hand. (really, I see no reason why they had to use that apple as bait when a bushel of smaller apples was shown to work just as well.) Dash is having trouble holding Flutterbat down. "A little help here?" she says. "I got her" Says Big Mac as he slides in to pin her down. (Shipping fuel, I know, but I think it works well. Optionally, AJ can do it with a rope if Big Mac is written out). They hold her down long enough for Twilight to reverse the spell. Celebration ensues. NO WAIT! better idea: AJ is still mourning the loss of her giant apple. Fluttershy walks up and says, "Did I really do that? I'm sorry." AJ responds with "Sigh... It ain't your fault, sugarcube. None of this woulda happened if I had just went with your idea in the first place. Yadda yadda learned my lesson. Yadda yadda glad you're back." Then celebration ensues. Ending happens WITHOUT the stinger.

    Yeah, I like the sound of that episode.

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    1. Speaking of, how can there be an Applebucking Day take 2?

      Ahh, I never thought of that. Further fuel to the "Why is it called Applebucking Day?" argument.

      Obviously, you should be writing for the show. :V

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  11. So, I was thinking about this at work. Considering the continuity issues and the pointless stinger ending (which I don't mind in small doses, though I'll agree they've been abusing it), what if this episode's just considered non-canon? The writers probably aren't concerned with that issue, and I doubt they'll ever reference or build off these events, so there's no reason we can't just ignore it. Hell, that may've even been the point for all I know! Why not? I guess it'd be a waste of time for those who only care about canon, but at least it's not ruining anything, and the rest of us can enjoy our little Flutterbat diversion. Actually, can we just do that with all of Merriwether's episodes?

    I believe I've already expressed my opinion on Find a Pet, so it should come as no surprise that I didn't care for the new song. The marching bit was kinda cool, I guess, but the whole thing had that through-written, Webberesque feel that I hate. Honestly, I'm surprised we've gotten as many good songs as we have, considering the process for writing them

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  12. On a completely unrelated note, I'm always learning some new word when I read your blog posts, Chris. I'mma start keeping track of them.

    Word of the day: Pablum.

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  13. Phew! And there was me thinking after Flight to the Finish that I'd been infected with the ability to critically analyse these episodes. But nope. Looks like I'm back to disagreeing with everyone and arguing in favour of things that all the smart people seem to hate. It's good to be me.

    Seriously though, I did like this episode. I took no issue with the continuity for basically all the same reasons Aris listed, I actually really liked the song for its Danny Elfman-esque sound despite the technical problems that you noticed, and I've got no problems with the stinger either.

    Specifically because while you believe that it's just damaging the continuity of future episodes and such, I really don't believe that it's all pointless. With just the sheer quantity of stinger endings we've had this season in such a short time, I refuse to believe that it's not building up to something. These have a narrative purpose. I'm certain of it. If I'm wrong, you can all feel free to come back and tell me to eat my own hat, and I'll freely admit that all the stingers are just as pointless and stupid as you say they are. Right now though, I'm going to say to wait and see.

    Funny too that you think that Fluttershy is so stupid when she talks about how the bats can help though. I've seen other critics do in-depth reviews of this episode and have almost the exact same opinion, except about Applejack. Personally, I blame the fact that we don't actually know all the details about this bat situation and exactly how big the Apple family's orchards are, but I really don't want to start an argument based on headcanons.

    And FINE! YES! I LIKE THIS EPISODE BECAUSE IT HAD FLUTTERSHY AS A VAMPIRE! I'M ENTERTAINED BY STUPID THINGS! LEAVE ME ALONE!

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  14. I liked it. I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

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    1. Boo! DPV111 is one of those Likers! Well you'll never defeat us haters!
      LAUNCH THE HATE GRENADES!

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