Not as good as the S2 premier, but5 it was a fun solid episode.
Yeah. The villain wasn't that interesting, but it had a lot of good character moments.
Even more than uninteresting, he was basically a non-presence. He just sort of happened, in the sense that he was there and he was evil and then he was stopped.
I'm a bit torn on the openers, and it will actually depend on where the season goes from here that really decides how it will hold up. Because on the one hand, it's a big adventure episode that introduces a brand new, totally unknown land and stakes in the first scene, then has it all wrapped up and moved on from 40 minutes later. It's attempting for a grand scope, but it all just feels slight, mostly because it's trying to pack a lot in (and spends most of the first episode on party-planning). It feels like it wants way too much, and as a result it doesn't really deliver or have any real heft behind it.
On the other hand, as you said, there are a number of excellent character moments. I liked that the whole cast was given stuff to do for the party, and constantly featured doing. Pinkie pretty much killed it with everything (especially the Fluttersuit. Ditto Fluttershy's reaction to it seconds later), and as overpowered as Twilight is, her powers are always a treat to watch. That gravity bit was fantastic. Speaking more dramatically, while Twilight's "worst fear" was fairly predictable, I admit Spike's rather got to me (the quick shot of his tears went a long way).
Finally, the brief line about taking Twilight to the "next level of your studies" line and that black book Luna takes out at the very end definitely raise some intriguing questions, and touches back on what I said before about where this season decides to go having a factor in how the premier stands the test of time. If they really decide to do an actual arc with Twilight (or at least have it come up a few more times), that will definitely be something cool. It's quite obvious Twilight is the most gifted non-royal magical user in Equestria (all the other unicorns have basic levitation as the max of their abilities, it seems), and it's about time they really started to address that. Even if her super powerness keeps driving the fic writers up the walls finding ways to justify weakening her.
Anywho, I liked it, but I didn't love it (and a good bit of excitement came from the "Yes! New ponies!" aspect of it all). The next few episodes, from what quick flashes I saw of them in the commercials, look pretty interesting though (especially the one next Saturday). Going to be fascinating season, for sure
