Fillies, gentlecolts, and foals of all ages, welcome once again to another edition of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic recap/review. It seems that this season so far is fulfilling a lot of the wishes on my wish list. We have had massive history building with Celestia and Luna, a look at the old castle they ruled in, and in the coming weeks we have some interesting storylines that are definitely ones I’ve been waiting for. But one I was definitely looking forward to was the return of Daring Do, the ponified Indiana Jones that was first introduced in season 2’s “Read it and Weep”. So was this new Daring Do adventure worth the wait? Let’s find out with “Daring Don’t”.
Meeting A.K. Yearling
We open the episode as Rainbow Dash is rather excited as it’s only four more months until the newest Daring Do adventure. Her fangirling goes on for days, as she counts each day down. When she goes to Twilight’s during a random Pinkie Pie party, Twi tells Dash that the book has been delayed for two more months. This naturally puts Dash in a panic. Twilight then mentions that she knows the location of where the author A.K. Yearling wrote the first Daring Do book, and concerned that she may need help to be less distracted from writing her book, Dash drags her friends along on the trek to A.K.’s home.
They find A.K. Yearling’s home in shambles, and Dash fears the worst… for the novel. But when Miss Yearling arrives, she’s more concerned with a giant gold ring inside one of her books. Dash continues to be pushy over getting the book done, to which Twilight has to drag her outside to cool her down. However they discover three stallions entering the house from the roof, and they confront miss Yearling with the intent of taking the ring. And it’s here where we get the big twist of the episode. A.K. Yearling IS Daring Do. I’ll get to my thoughts on this in the pros and cons section.
Dash geeks out over Daring Do
The mane six simply just watch in awe as Daring tries to hold her own against the thugs, but eventually is beaten down, and her ring is taken by the greedy Dr. Caballeron, who intends to sell the ring to Daring Do’s arch nemesis Ahuizotl, who needs the ring to create 800 years of unrelenting heat. They get away with Daring chasing after them. Twilight thinks they should help her out, but through strategic means. But Rainbow Dash decides to simply fly into action to help her hero. Dash fangirls for a bit before being encountered by Daring Do, who doesn’t want her help. The two find Caballeron and his henchmen, and Daring manages to disguise herself and buy back the ring. However, Ahuizotl attacks Daring with his cat army, and Dash’s attempt to help just gets Daring captured.
Trapped by Ahuizotl
Twilight and company find Dash heartbroken and try to cheer her up, while they try to devise a plan to save Daring Do. Dash’s spirits get picked back up because she manages to rescue Daring from another of Ahuizotl’s rather elaborate traps. The rest of the mane six battle Ahuizotl’s guards while Dash and Daring work together to remove all the rings in the temple. once they’re removed, the temple crashes to the ground, and the day is saved. The episode ends with Dash writing in the journal about how she was so caught up with how awesome Daring Do was, that she forgot how awesome she could be. She also gets the newest Daring Do book a week in advance, and it has Rainbow Dash on the cover.
There was a lot that happened in this action packed adventure, but how did it fare in the pros and cons section? Let’s get dissecting.
PRO
Daring Do is still one of the coolest concepts the show has come up with. A full on Indiana Jones parody complete with mysterious temples, evil villains, and tons of adventures. Despite the fact that the character is real, and the amount of questions that arise over that, I still think if the show was ever to spin off, this would be the perfect spinoff series.
This was an animator’s field day once again. Tons of great facial expressions, lots of great new designs, and everything looks so polished and perfect.For an episode that was going to base itself on Daring Do, there was definitely a need for improved animation, and this episode did not disappoint.
I also loved Rainbow Dash’s fangirling for the majority of the episode. Yeah, at times it got a little annoying, and even kind of dickish, but she came off so adorable for most of it, that it’s easily forgiven.
CON
There was really no point in the mane six being in this at all. Seriously, other than Twilight and Dash, the rest of the characters felt like they were added just for the hell of it. After last week’s episode managed to involve every character perfectly, seeing the mane six not used at all to their full potential is terrible. It’s really telling when a new writer in Josh Haber can write the characters better than a veteran writer in Dave Polsky.
Speaking of the mane six being added for no reason. Hey girls, how about helping Daring Do while she’s being ganged up on instead of just marking out? Seriously, if ever there was ever a fine example of how these characters were mishandled in this episode, this would definitely be it.
Pinkie Pie continues to be flanderized. Still with goofy lines and now just throwing random parties for no real reason. In fact that whole party scene in the beginning has to be the worst setup to an episode ever. Yeah, Pinkie likes to party, and she’s random. That doesn’t mean it can be used as an excuse to start the episode.
Now let’s get to the real issue with this episode, and that’s the fact that Daring Do is real, and her adventures are too. Again, this could have been a cool concept if done right. She has all these adventures against Ahuizotl in the jungles of Equestria. This monkey thing has almost destroyed the place several times, and it’s constantly under the radar of Celestia? She was aware that the Crystal Empire had returned in the middle of the arctic, but has no clue what’s going on on in the jungle?
When Daring Do was just a character in the book, it worked so much better because it felt like its own separate universe that gave it unlimited possibilities. Now that she’s a real character, a lot of that is gone, and the fact again that all of this has happened, and not once has anypony heard about these events is kind of questionable. Yeah, it’s deep in the jungle, but you’d think somepony would have known about these events. It really feels like the writers didn’t think this idea through, and hurt a lot of the potential that Daring Do had.
“Daring Don’t” had a ton of potential, and some great action moments, as well as some really adorable Rainbow Dash scenes. It’s just a shame that the episode suffers from a twist that breaks what was once a great story idea, and makes the mane six come off as bit players to some other important story. Dave Polsky has had mixed results in terms of story writers for the past few seasons, and this one may be worse than “Feeling Pinkie Keen” or “Games Ponies Play” in terms of the bottom of the barrel. In the end, I Daring Don’t recommend this one.
RATING: 4 out of 10
Next week, the Cutie Mark Crusaders have high hopes to carry the flag at the Equestria games. However, when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon mock Scootaloo’s inability to fly, this puts the little filly in a state of depression. Can Scoot finally find a way to fly? Find out in “Flight to the Finish”
Until next week, everypony!