Talk:The Times They Are A Changeling/@comment-10390252-20160820161620

Wow, I'm actually very impressed! It was a pretty nice deconstruction of prejudice and how it blinds us to the unexpected and unusual that doesn't fit into racial stereotypes.

Spike was very well written in this episode as something other than a butt monkey; we get a very believable mix of fears and courage that really felt authentically Spike. We even had the first ever real Spike solo song which, IMO, was the first really top-tier Season 6 song too!

The writers have definitely chosen to continue the momentum of Gauntlet of Fire and start treating Spike as something other than the Comedy Sidekick.

Thorax was nicely characterised too. There were lots of little subtleties about him that challenge the fan stereotype of his species (which, of course, was the point).

Let's not forget the world-building about the Changelings and their Kingdom. Unless Thorax is some kind of mutant (which doesn't seem to be the case from the way he described his hopes for hive-mates at the end), Drones are fully-independent individuals capable of love. Queens are indeed the sole breeders of their kind and Changelings have a larval rather than foal developmental stage. Interestingly, it seems that Chrysalis is an attentive mother and tries to give all her drones a little of her attention.

If I have one complaint it is that they didn't fix the 'love turns me feral' problem that Thorax has. The simplest way to do that would have been to use Flurry Heart's pure innocence as a deus ex machina; it isn't as if it wasn't pretty clearly lampshaded in The Crystalling.

So, one of the best of Season 6 so far. Not as good as Saddle Row Review or Gauntlet of Fire but definitely no. 3 behind them, IMO.

BenRG's Rating: 8/10