To be honest, I was pretty excited about this season's finale in the first place. I saw the Promo material Hasbro released in the past and the idea of time travel has some true potential. But that is one of the two the major flaws this season finale has for me.
So, what happens in those two episodes? basically, Starlight Glimmer uses the time travel spell of Star Swirl the Bearded to prevent the first Sonic Rainboom that created the Mane 6s connection from happening, never becoming the friends we know. Twilight is sent to different time lines by the spell where one of the major villains wasn't defeated, starting with Sombra.
This first alternate time line was my favorite, too, because it got the most screen time, I liked the steam punk setting and Twilight had some good interaction with Applejack. And here comes in the first flaw: Except for this one, all the other time lines felt rushed to me. There was barely dialogue between Twilight and the alternate versions of her friends. I missed a meeting of Twilight and another version of herself in particular. In fact, the last few time lines we see barely get more than 20 seconds of screen time. Yet the Sonic Rainboom was prevented, the other Mane 6s Cutie Marks stay the same (as you can see in Zecoras village), so they got them eventually, too. In my opinion, the show producers should have stayed to 2, maybe 3 different time lines and should have given the Mane 6 more interaction. The way they handled it, most of the time lines felt pointless and like filler material. So much wasted potential...
After every visited time line, Twilight returns to Rainbow Dash's race in Cloudsdale to prevent Starlight Glimmer from her actions. But she outsmarted her and is every time a step ahead of Twilight every time. In one scene, they even have a cool magic duel which concludes... tied? What the heck? Twilight is an Alicorn Princess now. No unicorn should have the magical abilities to keep up with her. As a result, Twilight looks like a complete fool.
And now to the second major flaw, the conclusion of those 2 episodes. Twilight shows Starlight Glimmer one of the alternate time lines (basically the Equestrian Wastelands), and in return, we see the past of Starlight Glimmer that explains her motivations. She lost her only friend when he got his Cutie Mark and was afraid to make new friends in the future out of fear something similar could happen again. But using a spell to travel in time preventing the Sonic Rainboom? Come on, the Mane 6 have half a dozen windows in Canterlot Castle. Their actions prohibited so much danger from Equestria, everyone should now this is a really bad idea. So in my eyes, this is hardly enough motivation for her to be a good villain. She is pale for me. Eventually, Starlight Glimmer turns around, they watch the Sonic Rainboom together and travel back to the original presence.
While I can understand she turns around (Starlight is very smart, after all), I don't get why the Mane 6 let her join the group so we basically have the Mane 7 now. That should have been Season 6's task. It simply is too much of a character's development, brought too fast.
In the end, I rate this season's finale between 6.5 and 7. While time travel has some true potential (and we saw some cool alternate time lines, especially the first one), there were simply too many of them so they felt rushed. The conclusion with Starlight Glimmer's turnaround and friendship making is nice, but too much development for a pale character like her in such a short time. Last but not least, Twilight looks like a complete fool in the Cloudsdale scenes.
Poitive: + Timetravel! + Interesting different time lines + A magic duel between Twilight and Starlight Glimmer + Zecora's actions
Negative: - Too many visited time lines... - ...with a lot of unanswered questions (e.g. in the first time line, what happened to Nightmare Moon and Discord?) - Starlight Glimmers rushed character development -Twilight being a dork
Rating: 6.8/10
P.S.: I don't know if it was intentional, but Spike's line "Well, that didn't work" is a great reference to a very good story written by a fan. My favorite moment of this finale! http://www.fimfiction.net/story/67362/hard-reset
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