Episode Talk: S6E13, Stranger Than Fan Fiction

The hiatus is over!  Let us celebrate by talking about the show itself, rather than fan-derivatives thereof!  Head down below for... well, not really a review, but a few personal impressions from Stranger Than Fan Fiction.




-Since I heard about this episode, I've been kind of dreading it.  I didn't like the decision to make Yearling literally be Do, so I wasn't terribly on-board with the premise here to begin with.  Add to that that I haven't much cared for the more meta-themed episodes of the past, and my expectations were low.  To my surprise, though, I ended up liking this one quite a bit.



-A lot of my appreciation comes down to Quibble Pants.  "True fan parody" was not something I expected to turn out well, and while I couldn't help but feel that I was being mocked for much of the episode (I mean, I don't deny the existence of, say, Twilicorn, but that doesn't mean I didn't prefer her as a unicorn, or feel like they could have handled the ascension a thousand times better).  And yet... well, okay, I did feel mocked for significant portions.  But hell, I've got a thick skin; I can handle a little ribbing, as long as it's funny.  And Quibble's felt more like friendly fun-poking which comes from a place of understanding, rather than mean-spiritedness borne of incomprehension.  Big difference, humourousness-wise.



-That said, I wasn't big on the "Quibble can't figure out what's real" running gag.  It was fine as a jumping-off point, but I would have been happy with him getting it a lot faster.



-Another minus?  No Carrot Top!  Oh well, in lieu of best pony, have some best produce.

When the carrot roller-dogs are selling for eight bits a root, you would assume Carrot Top must be making a tidy profit on those sales, right?  Wrong!  Almost all of that markup goes to the concessionaires and venue; in fact, since those carrots were bought by a wholesaler before being repackaged to the convention center, Carrot Top actually pulls in less than half a bit per pound of roller-dogs sold.  Pity the farmer: of all the people who are involved in getting your food from dirt to digestion, they certainly put in the most work, and turn the least profit.

-Those pillows, though.  I don't even.



-It's been a while since I saw Daring Don't, but does Daring have the same voice in both episodes?  I ask because I really liked her voice acting in this episode, and I was probably too distracted by all the things I disliked about Daring Don't to really notice the voicing then.  Anyway, yeah: between her and Patton Oswald (and Dash, of course, whose actual voicing I probably like best of the main six), with an assist from Mr. Ambiguous Accent, this was a really solid episode, auditorially.



-Here's the question I haven't seen asked enough in the last few days: why is there a significant tonal difference between the original Do trilogy and the later installments?  It's not just something Quibble made up, or something minuscule enough that nobody but a quibbler would notice: Dash is the one who notes the salient differences between the original trilogy and the prequels later installments.  So why did Do stop being a puzzle-solver after three goes-round (and note that she is, in fact, solving less puzzles; in the episode itself, she can't even manage a seven-picture game of One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other)?  I have a theory: no publishing company wanted to give her "teen juvenilia pablum" a green light, so she got a ghostwriter to help her punch up her books and get them accepted for publication.  Said ghostwriter (totally Twilight Velvet, let's bring that headcanon back, people!) "smartened up" her pulp action by re-imagining the protagonist as a quick-thinking outfoxer of villains, rather than just a straightforward flank-kicker.  Once the first three novels took off, though, Do gained protection from editors, and was able to start pushing out her own, unfiltered work.



-All in all, this was a much better episode than I expected.  Maybe it was just a result of low expectations, but this was a very pleasing kick-off to the back nine (fourteen) of the season.