Really, there
was no "narrative" to this episode - well, there was at first, with the donkeys and Derpy and the wedding plans getting messed up, but they threw that away in favor of shenanigans. It didn't
use the background ponies so much as it just had them
exist. Yes, Octavia has spoken for the first time - that's not
in and of itself interesting beyond a MOMENTARY "oh wow she talked" feeling. Okay, and then..? Nothing.
And references to entirely unrelated properties (i.e. Doctor Who, The Big Lebowski) should not take up anywhere near that much time. You make a reference, you make a joke or a sight gag or whatever, and then you move on. You don't have almost half of the episode focus on characters and dialog and situations that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with the show.
And don't really fit in, either. If you
are going to use purely referential characters this much, you've got to place them in the universe of the show with care, not just drop them in. The stuff with Doctor Hooves at the beginning did
kind of work from that perspective, though it did go on way too long (and then we continued to focus on him when he went to the bowling alley). But The Dude just... shows up. Where's the reference? Where's the joke? Who is this character? It's not enough to have a referential element just EXIST. That's not inherently funny or interesting.
Especially if someone
isn't familiar with the reference source. If someone hasn't seen the Big Lebowski or isn't a Who fan (raises hand on both points), it's just... I'm sitting there like what is even happening, who are these ponies and why should I care? Because
there was nothing funny in the bowling alley scene except for the "man" joke. BL reference
aside, that was a REALLY boring scene. Nothing much happened. It was lazy as fuck. It entirely relied ON the reference to drive it.
And later, the Doctor dons the scarf and shouts "Allons-y!" I had to ask a friend what both of those things meant. This, again, is the problem with devoting too much time to referencing things from other properties. A shout-out should be a brief little bit, like a line of dialog or two or a visual gag that's there and then it's gone. AND, it should also do one of the following:
1) be something that makes sense in context. Twilight saying "Winter is coming!" in "Tanks for the Memories" was clearly a Game of Thrones shout out. I hate Game of Thrones, I think it's an awful series, and yet I would say THAT'S how you do a good shout out. Because it was quick, it was just there, you chuckle, and then you move on. And it made sense
in-universe as something she would say at that moment, given the situation.
or
2) be set-up to be funny. Yes, if you're a huge fan of Doctor Who, maybe you get a kick out of the simple existence of these shout-outs, but really, I have to wonder, even if you are a fan, is it really that funny to just have him say "Allons-y!" for no reason? "Hey viewers, we know what Doctor Who is and can quote it! Isn't that funny?" Again, where is the joke? He just randomly shouts a thing that has no meaning in Equestria and then runs into the town hall.
I don't feel that this episode succeeded at doing either of the above when it comes to the referential stuff.
Same with all the Brony fandom shoutouts and memes and whatnot. So ButtonMash APPEARED? So the TwiCane APPEARED? So what? Their very existence is... just nothing. So they exist. Okay? And? It barely even qualifies as a shout-out, especially in the context of the gigantic nonsensical mess that was the second half of this episode (with the... whatever that was Octavia and Vinyl were riding through town and everyone+everything ending up on it).
More than reminding me in any way of other episodes of FiM, "Slice of Life" reminded me of the abysmally fan-wankish "Double Rainboom".
The exception, as noted above, was Lyra and BonBon. The "friiiiieeeends yeah!" thing and BonBon's secret agent backstory were actually amusing... at
first. But they pounded both of those jokes into the ground. Same with the Doctor and his adventures in time and space. Long before any of those bits had run their course, I basically was feeling like
this.
That allows me to segue into another problem with this episode, and really, with the season as a whole. Four episodes in a row - "Bloom and Gloom", "Tanks for the Memories", "Appleoosa's Most Wanted", and "Make New Friends but Keep Discord", all suffered from this problem to varying degrees. Taking a joke, an idea, or a bit and just beating it to
death. After the last of those four, we had Griffonstone, which was really cool and seemed like a return to form. Then there was this thing.