Trailer Tuesdays: Arrow Season 3

Arrow comes back tomorrow, so I will be the first to admit I’m cutting this trailer review a little close. That said, I’ll also be the first to admit that I’m psyched as hell for Arrow Season 3.

Once Upon A Time Season 3 Was Less than Magical

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I have been putting this review off for as long as possible because I just have so few positive opinions about this season and I don’t want to have to recap the weird and awkward mess that was the plot. But I guess that’s what they pay me the boonbucks to do, so here we go.

Sarcasm (n): the implication that I am paid in more than Lady Geek Girl’s unending devotion.

Spoilers for the whole season below the jump.

Teen Wolf Season Three Premiere

So Teen Wolf is finally back and the first episode didn’t wait at all before jumping right into the middle of everything. Literally. The episode starts in the middle of a conflict. It opens with Isaac horrifically injured and being helped out by a previously unseen female character. The two are being chased by twin Alpha werewolves, and through some very dangerous maneuvers on a motorbike and some high voltage weaponry, the girl helps Isaac manages to take down both Alphas. The twins have a weird ability to merge into one super-powered werewolf, kind of like a chimera hybrid abomination. It was the strangest part of the episode—not including all the abnormal animal behavior, such as bad CGI deer running straight into Lydia’s car, crows suicide-bombing the school, and cats mutilating themselves to death.

And I thought this CGI was bad. The deer this episode is soooo much worse.

Oh, and did I mention that the girl helping Isaac escape the Alpha twins is badass. And PoC. I think she might be called Cora, who Wikipedia describes as: “a 17-year-old girl with ties to the Beacon Hills werewolves”. But I can’t find a picture of the actress for comparison. I hope she’s Cora, meaning that she’ll be sticking around for a while—but unfortunately, she seems to have had a very definitive death at the end of this episode, so maybe not.

Oh, yeah, spoiler alert.

My Little Pony Season 3 Review

This series did not benefit from having a thirteen-episode season, and I think that was one of the central problems. It was like the MLP writers went down a checklist of things that fans wanted and made sure to cram each into the season, but because of that everything seemed forced.

This is probably the most evident in the Trixie and Discord episodes. Both episodes had the potential to be spectacular and both wound up being throwaways. It was truly disappointing to watch as nothing really happened in either episode. It was as if fans were only supposed to focus on the fact that their favorites were present (and then get excited) and not notice how poorly both episodes were written.

As much as the season seemed to be constructed to meet a checklist, the points this season chose to focus on in a lot of cases were terrible. There were two Spike-centered episodes this season out of thirteen, and the previous season (with twenty-six episodes) also only had two Spike episodes. Overall, very little time was spent on Rarity this season (who is my favorite of the mane six) and I feel more time should have been given to the mane six instead a more minor character like Spike.

I know I’m part of the brony crowd, but there have got to be little girls that watch this show, right? And I feel this season didn’t exactly cater to its entire audience. One of the reasons MLP has earned the appeal of an older crowd was because the show did not blatantly cater to them. This season was clearly meant for the bronies, and as I’ve said in an earlier post, I think too much of that fan service can be a bad thing. In Season 3, it was just too much.

The season started with lots of potential, but it didn’t fulfill that potential. There was a lot of nothingness and throwaways. Now I’m not saying I wanted a full fanfare for every episode, but to have so many throwaway episodes in a season half its usual length is a problem. I feel that if the season was longer, more plot concepts would have been fully fleshed out and the forced-ness of the season might not have been as bad.

My Little Pony Episode Review: Time to Make da Magics!

“Magical Mystery Cure”, the season finale of My Little Pony, follows Twilight Sparkle as she accidentally switches every other pony in the mane six’s cutie marks and must try to switch them back.

Spoilericious feels after the jump.

My Little Pony Reviews: Fluttercord and… Spike and Whoevs that Mare is

Three pony episodes, three loads of blah. Spoilers below.

“Keep Calm and Flutter On” focuses on Fluttershy as she is given the task of reforming Discord. I had really high expectations for this episode, and the writers failed to deliver. Reforming Discord was just too easy; you don’t go from screwing around like he did and then deciding that friendship is magic in a blink of an eye. Neither ponies nor dragon-things change that quickly. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind this episode was great. But it would have been so much better if the episode was more drawn out to allow for character development. Oh, well, I guess the magic of friendship can replace character development.

Oh, and I ship Fluttercord now; Fluttercord is cool.

“Just for Sidekicks” focuses on Spike as he petsits, and by petsit I mean that he keeps pets in his person and stares at his jewels. As much as I’ve voiced in other posts that I don’t think he has enough character development to carry his own episode, he is so much better in this one because he was balanced out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Side-tracking a bit, the Cutie Mark Crusaders get too many episodes. They’ve been featured in two and a half out of thirteen episodes this season, when Pinkie, Twilight, Dash, Fluttershy, and Apple Jack each have gotten one and Rarity has gotten zero. I thought the mane six were called the mane six for a reason. They should rename the entire show Spike + Crusaders: Friendship is Magic at this point.

“Games Ponies Play” follows the mane six (sort of) while they escort the wrong pony around the Crystal Empire in an effort to get the pony Olympics. I cannot even begin to tell you how boring I found it. I found that random mare annoying as anything, and the real mare inspector did nothing for me. It was a major let down of an episode.

In short, we got three more unimpressive episodes in an underwhelming season. Let’s see if the season finale is any different.

My Little Pony: Some Wonderbolts, Some Apples, and a Little Too Much Spike

Happy New Year, everypony! Hope your 2013 is bigger and better than ever! And what better way to start it off than with some My Little Pony episodes that need to be covered? Let’s five!

Rejoice, my bronies and pegasisters: MLP has returned!

I intended to write this review last week after the premiere, but you know, school and stuff. Anyway, let’s talk about the premiere two-parter, “The Crystal Empire”, and last Saturday’s “Two Many Pinkie Pies”! In the former, the Mane Six have to help Shining Armor and Cadence save a city from an ancient curse, and Twilight faces an important test. In the latter, Pinkie Pie clones herself because she wants to be able to spend more time with her friends, but hijinks quite obviously ensue.

“The Crystal Empire” had big shoes to fill. Although the first season’s premiere episodes are denigrated as the worst of the series, Season Two had both the premiere with Discord and the finale with Queen Chrysalis and the Changelings, and I think this one suffered living up to it. For a series that has given us a lot of interesting and complex villains throughout the show, I found King Sombra frankly boring.