I still feel the more normal setting plays to the strengths of the episode. Why start a season with an end of the world threat? As much as I love Chrysalis, she feels like a step down from Discord, who ruled all of Equestria ages ago. Rather than being super erratic on the scale of escalation like they typically are, they didn't try to pull out a show stopper to top Tirek, but instead brought along a more grounded villain who's still a proper threat. Hopefully her escape builds up to something great in the end, rather than playing their hand at the beginning like they did with Discord and Sombra (Whether you liked him or not).

Spike comedy? How quaint

New ponies.
The brief reveal in the beginning made me spill hot soup in my lap because I didn't anticipate it.

I loved this episode~

I think I'm going to wait till CobaltSky's reaction is released on YouTube to watch the new episode. Possibly...

Your call~

Huh... I was so wrapped up in my hate for dream-episodes while watching this, because I identified this one being such after Applebloom first "woke up", that I completely forgot that ponies dreaming usually means best princess gets an appearance.

It also helped a lot that this one wasn’t one of those "it was all a dream"-episodes where crazy stuff happens nonstop and in the end the protagonist just wakes up.

But Celestia didn't show up in this episode...

Exactly.

So where is best princess you speak of? I only saw worst princess show up in the end...