Had heard mixed opinions personally on Season 9's sixteenth episode "A Trivial Pursuit". There were people calling it enormously entertaining, deliciously wild and creatively animated. Others were disappointed and felt like Twilight's development had gone backwards rather than forwards, heavily criticised that aspect even. Can see both sides here, this is the sort of episode that will entertain a good deal of fans but infuriate others.
Personally liked "A Trivial Pursuit" a good deal, while not loving it quite as much as the previous reviewers (do mostly agree with what they have said though). While there were instances later on where it is not hard to see why somebody would dislike Twilight in the episode, on the most part "A Trivial Pursuit" is in the former category of being a lot of fun and found a good deal to admire about it. Not one of the best episodes of Season 9 or of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic', but far from being one of the worst on both counts.
"A Trivial Pursuit" has so many good things. The animation is vividly colourful, rich in detail and often imaginative. Twilight's deliciously wild facial and body expressions when she gets increasingly worked up stand out in this regard, goodness the animators were clearly having fun with her. The music has the usual liveliness and atmosphere. The amount of fun and energy that went into the animation is evident in the voice acting as well, Tara Strong plays Twilight to beyond the rafters in the best of ways. Everybody is without fault, but Twilight does hurt, wildness and anger so well and equally as much as she does regal dignity, authority and nuance so well.
Furthermore, the writing is filled with zany humour and at its funniest it is hilarious. Almost all of it centering around Twilight getting freaked out by many things, both trivial and not so much. Applejack and Rainbow Dash also have fun moments in a tiff of their own, Ashleigh Ball excels in bringing out the contrast of the two different personalities. Pinkie Pie is both a lot of fun and easy to feel sorry for and her chemistry with Twilight is amusing and heartfelt on the whole apart from one point that did bring down the episode a bit. The lesson is a good one and well delivered and the story serves well as the slice of life sort of episode that the show did very well in when it did them.
However, it is easy to see where those that criticised Twilight's behaviour are coming from, though it is nowhere near as bad as what the previous episode did with Rainbow Dash. Her freaking out did become disproportionate, and her treatment of Pinkie Pie out of the blue for no reason at one point did honestly leave a bad taste in the mouth (that was too far).
While on the most part very entertaining, some of the humour is also a little overdone, with too much focus on the "Twilighting", and on occasions repetiitve.
In conclusion, good but to me it wasn't quite great. 7/10.