This is an abridged series. An abridged series has a number of options for an approach to a series that it's canon format doesn't have. It can be retold through caricatures and lampshaded mercilessly. It can be a menagerie of references to make up for a lack of real humor. It can be as weird, light, dark, or positively crazy as it wants. Or it can just be another lame, half-assed work of people who thought they were funny.
Fi M has a periphery demographic that can tear apart an episode minutes after it's airing, and a character a month after the season ends. As such, Jenny and Griffin make it a point to do these things, with originality and charm to match. Sweetie Belle is an adorable synthetic life form that thinks she's real, Rainbow Dash is a blind idiot who can actually be prone to needing explanation on her own anatomy ("Whoa, what are these weird thingies on my back?") and Princess Celestia reluctantly must contend with the exploits of a god mode sue otaku that she regrets having taken in as a student. What Fi W does is takes the many untested layers of Fi M, and knowledge of the fanbase itself and adds it's own brand of zany humor that proceeds to get darker as it all progresses.
There are a number of alternate character interpretations and a disturbing version of the reality presented that wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it was shown vanilla. Little hints are dropped at past events in this alternate version of Equestria that flesh out a storyline, however inconsequential it may end up for the main purpose of it, which is the humor. It gains it's own identity and voice as it goes, but the issue in it can mostly be taken with the sheer absurdity present in every single line of dialogue. People forget that Twilight Sparkle, for all intents and purposes, is a sue to some degree, or many of the morals, and episodes of Fi M proper happen to involve a number of inconsistencies and snapbacks on the parts of the writers that keep this fanbase as divided as it is.
The show separates itself without being a tryhard at being weird. And the amount of work that goes into each episode trumps many of it's would be competitors. Don't write it off unless you're looking for something more grounded. In which case just watch the show.
From the desk of Princess Twilight Acorna Sparkle:
This is an abridged series. An abridged series has a number of options for an approach to a series that it's canon format doesn't have. It can be retold through caricatures and lampshaded mercilessly. It can be a menagerie of references to make up for a lack of real humor. It can be as weird, light, dark, or positively crazy as it wants. Or it can just be another lame, half-assed work of people who thought they were funny.
Fi M has a periphery demographic that can tear apart an episode minutes after it's airing, and a character a month after the season ends. As such, Jenny and Griffin make it a point to do these things, with originality and charm to match. Sweetie Belle is an adorable synthetic life form that thinks she's real, Rainbow Dash is a blind idiot who can actually be prone to needing explanation on her own anatomy ("Whoa, what are these weird thingies on my back?") and Princess Celestia reluctantly must contend with the exploits of a god mode sue otaku that she regrets having taken in as a student. What Fi W does is takes the many untested layers of Fi M, and knowledge of the fanbase itself and adds it's own brand of zany humor that proceeds to get darker as it all progresses.
There are a number of alternate character interpretations and a disturbing version of the reality presented that wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it was shown vanilla. Little hints are dropped at past events in this alternate version of Equestria that flesh out a storyline, however inconsequential it may end up for the main purpose of it, which is the humor. It gains it's own identity and voice as it goes, but the issue in it can mostly be taken with the sheer absurdity present in every single line of dialogue. People forget that Twilight Sparkle, for all intents and purposes, is a sue to some degree, or many of the morals, and episodes of Fi M proper happen to involve a number of inconsistencies and snapbacks on the parts of the writers that keep this fanbase as divided as it is.
The show separates itself without being a tryhard at being weird. And the amount of work that goes into each episode trumps many of it's would be competitors. Don't write it off unless you're looking for something more grounded. In which case just watch the show.