Ever After High (Dragon Games): Shatter the Mirror

Written by Daniel – It’s episode one of Series 4 ‘Dragon Games’ of Ever After High. We open with Raven helping all her fellow students out with her new found powers (from the end of series 3) going to visit her mum (Evil Queen) who’s imprisoned in the mirror realm. Meanwhile Apple also gets an update from her mum through Ever After High’s own video call service. Both Apple and Raven have had enough of their parents expectations.

We’ve got dragons. We’ve got new costumes. We’ve got some new characters. And naturally we have a whole lot more toys. The episode opens with Raven on her way to visit her Mother, in a sequence which feels oddly reminiscent of Clarice meeting Hannibal for the first time in Silence of the Lambs. Raven is told not to touch the glass of the mirror and not to spend too long with her, in fear of how Evil Queen might manipulate Raven; and of course this is Priestley what Evil Queen attempts to to do. She questions Ravens powers, she desires Raven to become the evil woman she is, and most of all longs to be released form prison. Evil Queen’s taunts very nearly work as Raven looses her temper and her magic smashes brick work, but before things get out of hand Raven’s trusty dragon Nevermore stops Raven from getting out of control. There Raven declares how she won’t allow herself to become like her mother, and leaves her.

Ever After High (Way Too Wonderland): A Royal Flush

Written by Daniel – We have finally arrived at The Queen of Hearts Birthday Tea Party. Or at least Courtney Jester has! Our heroes; Raven, Apple, Liz, Madeline, Briar, and Kitty have gotten lost due to the White Rabbits shoddy sense of direction. The longer it takes them, the more time Courtney has to track down the Cheshire Cat and the storybook of legends, because if she gets hold of that, she’ll write Liz out, and write herself into Wonderland royalty.

It’s the final episode of series 3 of Ever After High, and as I reflect on the series, I can’t help but think that it would have hugely benefited from being released as a film (in much the same way that series two was simply an extended episode). Unlike series one which was composed of distinctly different stories (with a running motif of the Story Book of Legends), this four part series has been a continuous story, each episode following on directly form the last – it could have been marketed as ’24’ for fairy tale princesses. Had I watched this episode as part of a Ever After High marathon, I think it would have been fun and satisfying. Having watched the episode a fortnight after the last one, it just wasn’t very satisfying and seemed to pack too much into such a short space of time, which may have been redeemed had it been spread out over two episodes.  I think it is the result of this fast pace which actually made me feel for our villain Courtney Jester. 

“Doctor Who: Smile” vs. Neoliberalism

Written by Tom
Utopias, Captialist Realism, Colonialism and more in the Doctor Who episode ‘Smile’.

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[Previously: “Doctor Who: The Pilot” vs. Heteronormativity]

One of the great joys of Doctor Who to me is how it’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to storytelling allows the myriad of images it crams into every episode to spark off each other in fascinating and deliciously over-signified ways. That’s what I love about ‘Smile’: the way that it’s bricollage of images and concepts come together to create a mad-house which practically bristles with half-formed radical ideas. Sure, the end result is one of the most staggeringly incoherent episodes that NuWho has ever done. It’s narrative structure, built on constantly reversing what we think the plotline is, only serves to fracture the thorough-threads from one idea to the next, making it hard to figure out what they’re actually supposed to be; this means that it never gets the chance to properly merge its ideas and images into any one central point, leaving the episode filled with gaps which serve to nullify and weaken many of episode’s overall implications. Then again, the presence of these gaps and the lack of path through them only gives us the space to travel through the episode ourselves and come up with our own counter-narratives to the show itself, whether what we see is intended by the show or not. So let’s do that: a stroll through one of Doctor Who‘s most over-signified episodes in years, pulling at its ideas until they eventually break apart.

Let’s start with the theme that Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the episode’s writer, definitely meant to put in here: Utopia. According to interviews, the inspiration behind ‘Smile’ came when Cottrell-Boyce was thinking about Utopias and, more accurately, noticed that utopias didn’t really pop up in sci-fi anymore while dystopias were all the range. As such, he decided to write an episode about an utopia, coming up with this episode’s hyper-modern colony base designed to be the perfect place for future humans to live.

Anyone who’s read Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism will be aware of the reasons why Utopias are currently out of vogue.

Ever After High (Way Too Wonderland): Shuffle the Deck

Written by Daniel – Thoughts on S3Ep.3 of Ever After High, ‘Shuffle the Deck’, in which Courtney Jester puts the Ever After High girls on trial for unruly behaviour in a mockery of the judicial system. Time is getting ever closer to The Queen of Heart’s tea party, will the girls be able to escape to stop the assassination plot on the queen?

Of all the things to follow the cliff hanger of the previous episode, I did not expect the Ever After High girls to ever be put through a judicial trial. But, for whatever reason, this is what happens. So where are we? Well the Ever After Girls have landed in Wonderland and need to get to the Queen of Hearts tea party to prevent an assassination attempt by Courtney Jester. Unfortunately the girls are trapped in the grounds of Wonderland High, and the the Student Body Principle, who’s also the Vice Principle, who’s also the Principle (it’s a matter of principle) also happens to be Courtney Jester, and she’s going to do everything she can from preventing the girls form leaving the school to warn the Queen. Courtney’s solution is to put them in indefinite detention, but in order to do so, the girls first have to go on trial in front of the school and plead their innocence to a bias jury.

Ever After High (Way Too Wonderland): Jester’s Wild

Written by Daniel – Episode 2 of series 3 ‘Way Too Wonderland’ of Ever After High unfolds like a strange dream of being back at school, and having to endure the schedule and rules of school once again, only nothing makes sense. Classes are just strange elaborate series of events with apparently no rules or respect for reality – and no one around you is ever going to help. When will we wake up from this nightmare!

We’ve got a few new characters into the mix, namely: The White Rabbit, the handsome Chase Redford (The Red Knight); and Courtly Jester (daughter of the Jester playing card). Courtney as far as I can tell is Ever After High‘s equivalent of DC’s Harley Quinn. The character has a classic jester appearance merged with stereotypical punk iconography, and for what it’s worth, I really like the design and find the character an intriguing one, as I shall go into further detail later in the post (the one flaw with the character is the voice work – she has this awful English accent, which I think they chose to fit in with the punk aesthetics, unfortunately it’s just not good). The episode shows Apple, Raven, Madeline, Kitty, Briar and Liz having to go through Wonderland’s annual school day, and if they are going to warn Liz’s mother The Queen of Hearts of a plot to kill her in time for tea, they need to graduate form school (keeping track? good). 

Ever After High (Way Too Wonderland): Card Tricks

Written by Daniel – It’s the first episode ‘Card Tricks’ of Series 3 to Ever After High. This series has been dubbed ‘Way Too Wonderland’, as the characters begin their investigations into the Wonderland Curse: asking why did Raven’s mother (Evil Queen) closed the bridge between Wonderland and Ever After High? What are the headmasters are really hiding form the students when it comes to the Story Book of Legends? And just where is the Storybook of Legends hiding?

The episode opens at breakfast time in Ever After High, and Apple has an announcement to make, concerning a new project to document Wonderland, it’s magic and its people, for the school paper. Apple calls upon the help of her fellow students, though the turn out is much smaller than she’d hoped: The students which come to her aid include; Raven, Madeline, Liz of Hearts, Bunny, Alistair, Briar, Kitty and new characters; Faybelle (a dark fairy – who quickly leaves frustrated by the goodhearted group) and Darling Charming (sister to Damien and Daring?). At their first meeting, Brooke, the impatient young narrator, interrupts the events to warn Madeline that The Queen of Hearts (Liz’s mother) is in danger, someone intends to steal her crown – today!! Leaving it up to the rag-tag bunch of kids to find a way into Wonderland and save Liz’s mother, before it’s too late.

Ever After High – True Hearts Day

Written By Dan – Ever After High ep. 3 ‘True Hears Day’. It’s spring in Ever After High, and True Hearts Day is fast approaching. But what is true hearts day? After Cupid reads about the old tradition it in an dusty book in the library, she decides she’s going to host a party to celebrate the old tradition. But why would Headmaster Grimm be so against the idea?

It’s Ever After High‘s valentines day episode. It’s a little odd for the end of episode 2 to initiate an outspoken conflict between the rebels and the royals with an love episode, though it’s this kind of risk which makes me like the show. The episode explores the romances between the rebels and the royals; the effects of their relationships upon the conflict. A particular focus is once again placed on Hunter and Ashlynn (introduced here), and Raven and Dexter and Cupid (introduced here). New to the cast is Duchess Swan (daughter of Swan Queen) and Sparrow Hood (son of Robin Hood), Duchess plans to expose Hunter and Ashlynn’s relationship, by exposing Ashlynn, Duchess reckons that she can take her position as a Royal. Meanwhile Dexter is asking for Cupids help to ask Raven out again. 

Ever After High – Welcome to Ever After (part 4)

Written By Dan – Ever After High ep. 2 ‘Welcome to Ever After’ on Netflix is presented as a series of shorts/chapters, which act as a prequel to the events of ep. 1 ‘Legacy Day’. This is part 4 of my review, in which I will be looking at the final part of the episode. Which recaps the events of Legacy Day in episode 1 and then proceeds to follow the events on the day after Legacy Day and how the divisions within the school have become centre stage.

Ever After High ep. 2 concludes with a recap of the events of Legacy Day seen in episode one, so I shan’t go into any detail here, if you want to know my thoughts on the events of Legacy Day read my thoughts on ep. 1 here. In this final part of my analysis of ep. 2 I’ll be taking a look at the final two chapters; The Day Ever After; and, Replacing Raven. So without further ado, here goes…