p.s. RIP
Generation B
I'm not sure how to feel about this episode. The good news is that the emotional core is spot-on. Like the map episodes, we have a town in trouble, and the solution is to help people reconnect with each other. Tried and true formula.
The new characters are also pretty fun. They're different from typical ponies without being really over-the-top. They also have some wild cutie marks.
I think pacing is tricky for these EqG-length episodes. The first EqG movie tried to cram too much into 66 minutes, and all their problems wound up solved by pulling out magic coincidences. On the other hand, because it's three times the length of a normal episode, we expect more from the story.
One thing that sticks out is the lack of an A/B plot structure. An example is "The Crystal Empire": While Twilight needs to hunt for the Crystal Heart, the others help the townsponies by putting together a festival to lift their spirits. In this episode, Twilight is trying to fix the rainbow generator, but that's ultimately a red herring that takes her out of the action for the whole episode. Adding a more balanced A/B plot might have helped with my impression of the episode being slow-paced... and that feeling might fade when the digital copy drops, and we don't have
the longest commercial breaks ever.
I think on balance, I liked this one. General criticisms: The jokes were a little bland ("I can't see!"), and the "song" explaining Hope Hollow's problem was more of a rambling monologue with backing music. But I was frustrated when the movie made the main characters extremely zany just to irritate Twilight, and here they feel much more like the team we expect them to be at this point in the show's life. I give it a B and a "wish we could have more of these where the newer writers had more time to earn their sea legs."
By the way, just need a transfer student for a bingo.