I think I would have liked this episode a lot more if this wasn't a thing.
If you disregard the fandom nods, the episode's main failing was that it was just too disjointed to have any kind of coherence. 20 minutes is way too short a time to waste jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint, established new characters every single time. Had they an hour to pull this off and worked on only 2-3 background ponies, things would have felt much more cohesive. As is it felt more like a series of shorts than a coherent episode.
My main issue was that I really didn't care much for any of the characters. I'm sure the episode would have a lot more impact on me if the episode had focused on character development rather than a couple of random happenings. This is probably different for people who are more invested in background ponies cause the characters are already there and aren't just blank slates.
I guess it was a fun episode, albeit weird and awfully paced.



