My experiences with "nostalgia goggles" types:

Memories of Season 2: "I love this new episode so much, and I just know

that they'll handle everything fine and I'll just have wonderful ponies! They only make what they think is good, and don't worry about the fans while still appreciating them. This show keeps getting better and better!"

Actual Season 2: "LAUREN FAUST IS GONE RUINED FOREVER. Lesson Zero? PANDERING. RUINED FOREVER. OMG LUNA APPEARS MORE PANDERING. MERRIWETHER WILLIAMS SUCKS BAD IDEA NEW WRITERS SUCK. OMG DERPY PANDERING. OMG NO DERPY THEY HATE US. OMG WEDDING THIS IS ALL CORPORATE. SEASON 1 WAS WAY BETTER I HATE THIS SEASON IT LOST THE SOUL MAN."

Friendship reports are a great way to take what happened at the beginning of the episode through the very end. The way the conflict is spilled out gives us what might happen at the start. Then the characters weave from one moment to another, either increasing the conflict or coming up with one method to resolving the conflicts at hand. The friendship report is the cherry on top. Sometimes they're not needed, but they can really hone everything together if done right. The only one where the friendship report went bad is Feeling Pinkie Keen because it's so incomplete. It didn't ruin the episode, but it weakened it somewhat.

But the rest of your credibility went out the door immediately afterwards via sarcasm and fallacies, bludgeoning your "defens

Friendship reports are a great way to take what happened at the beginning of the episode through the very end. The way the conflict is spilled out gives us what might happen at the start. Then the characters weave from one moment to another, either increasing the conflict or coming up with one method to resolving the conflicts at hand. The friendship report is the cherry on top. Sometimes they're not needed, but they can really hone everything together if done right. The only one where the friendship report went bad is Feeling Pinkie Keen because it's so incomplete. It didn't ruin the episode, but it weakened it somewhat.

 

But the rest of your credibility went out the door immediately afterwards via sarcasm and fallacies, bludgeoning your "defense."

 

Keep Calm and Flutter On did a rather decent job redeeming Discord, but to say it did a fantastic job on it is complete hyperbole. There was a lot of information packed in it, but because of the twenty-minute time frame, everything whizzed by so quickly. To quote what I wrote in one of your topics several weeks ago:

 

 

You took the metaphorical title way too literally here. "Friendship Is Magic" translates to having the psychological ability to break through barriers in order to be friends with one another. The Mane Six all have extremely varying personalities, making all of them supporters and foils to each other depending on the episodes' conflicts. The same goes for Discord. Fluttershy was able to take advantage of Discord's manipulation by showing respect and patience, beating him at his own game.

 

The second you pulled that strawman, your segment lost credibility, and your opinion worsened with your needless sarcasm.

 

Season three has a lot of strong points, but it makes no sense to call it thoroughly great. The first nine episodes, counting TCE as two separate parts, are strong with little to no issues. TCEII is by far the weakest, but it's still strong enough to hold up. But following Apple Family Reunion, the quality really slipped. Spike at Your Service and Just for Sidekicks aren't good one bit, and Games Ponies Play was even worse because the Mane Six was out of character and got unrealistically rewarded for their idiocy. Magical Mystery Cure is also a bad episode, but it's the least of the four bad episodes because it did so many other things right.

 

In Secret of My Excess, Spike comprehended his inherited greed. Just for Sidekicks contradicted it by having him knowingly manipulate his friends in order to prepare his jewel cake. If this was balanced out with his desire to help out the others throughout the episode instead of the last few minutes, it would've made his motives in character. He learned his lesson from SoME and furthered understood the importance of trust and life in Dragon Quest, and Spike in JfS would've comprehended this. He may be a kid dragon, but his advanced intellect helps him understands the concept of trust and expectations. He's NOT someone who'll go out and sever it willy-nilly just for the sake of baking his cake.

 

Also, the fact that you used Owl's Well that Ends Well discredits your opinion further. It's one of the most disliked episodes of season one because of how poorly written Spike, Twilight, and the plot were.

 

You completely miss the point here again.

 

In The Best Night ever, the Mane Six put a lot of pressure on themselves to make their night the best it can be. They prepared their best and wanted to do whatever they can to make their night go right. All of the character development from the pilot through Party of One led to this episode, from Fluttershy being more self-confident to Applejack wishing to improve her business to Twilight Sparkle wanting to personally talk with Celestia about the progress she made as a student, and so on. They had very high expectations that culminated into The Best Night Ever.

 

Fluttershy put a lot of pressure on her shoulders. She was a caretaker for animals, who adored her and trusted her. This was a completely alien feeling for Fluttershy, who never had animals shun her before. She wants to communicate with them, but the animals don't trust her nor want to even try to communicate with her. She grew flustered and didn't know what to do, hence her frustration. It broke her out of that reserved shell that was slowly ebbing itself out from her throughout the season. The humor was the consequence of her frustration and understanding her foreign fluster.

 

Despite the occasional dip in quality, Lauren Faust hasn't been necessarily needed. She gave the team the foundation and trusted them to perform at their best. But if she were to ever return, I and pretty much everyone in the fandom knows that she definitely comprehends what makes a great quality cartoon. She worked with Craig McCracken on The Powerpuff Girls and was also heavily involved in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Those two cartoons, combined with the original My Little Pony series that she watched as a kid, influenced her to resurrect this franchise. She knows what makes a product objectively good and hired the team to help her.

 

Season one was very strong.

 

She left during the production of season two, but the team helped out and made season two better than season one.

 

Season three was the only one where her lack of influence hindered production, but I have a feeling the team will be fine knowing that season four will have a much better budget and not have to worry about cutting every corner to meet the sixty-five-episode demand.

 

Also, great quality animation doesn't do diddly-squat if your script sucks. I can pull off the greatest CGI out there, but if the script is objectively terrible, then it's all for naught. Shrek the Third is a great example of great CGI, but all for naught because the script is abominable!

 

Overall, your whole defense is extremely weak and full of semantics. Your sarcasm didn't enhance your logic, either; in fact, it destroyed it. In order to display a much thoroughly better quality opinion, you really need to clean the holes in your logic up. Otherwise, expect to be dissected piece by piece.

1. If you're not completely in love with Keep Calm And Flutter On, that's perfectly fine. I'm just defending an episode I like.

2. In this universe Friendship is literally magic. Of course I took the "metaphorical" title literally. It's supposed to be taken literally.

3. No matter how pressured Fluttershy felt in Best Night Ever, her behavior was still not believable.

4. The Nostalgia Goggles argument was out of frustration that everyone points to Season 3's flaws, and never point to Season 1's flaws and call it "superior." 

5. I was never trying to use logic. I was trying to use my opinions, just like you used yours.

To Flutterbass and DQ, I just wanted to say that I found the exchange of ideas here to be very thought provoking and enjoyable.  I never thought season 3 was that bad personally and thanks to this discussion, I feel more justified in liking it than I did before. 

While I can see both points of view on all the other items, I do take DQ's side on point three.  Fluttershy's behavior is quite understandable.  As far as we know, she has never been rejected by animals like that before.  The pain of rejection is something that strikes at the very heart of her being as she was teased, bullied, and, yes, rejected by her peers in flight camp.  All three forms of her outbursts, Flutterbitch, Fluttercry, and Flutterrage stem directly from the emotional scars she bears.  While some of her reactions seem out of character, on the whole, the series has been pretty consistent with her mental issues. 

1. If you're not completely in love with Keep Calm And Flutter On, that's perfectly fine. I'm just defending an episode I like.

I like the episode a lot, too, but I won't be blind and say the episode is amazing. KCaFO is good, but extremely weak, and the big issue was how much information was crammed in one narrow space just to have everything resolved. Expanding the episode into two parts would've definitely resolved this issue more because the writers would have more time expanding the process and making Discord's redemption as believable as they can. Plus, it would give Polsky no excuse to write Celestia half-assed "logic" behind why she wanted to "reform" Discord.

2. In this universe Friendship is literally magic. Of course I took the "metaphorical" title literally. It's supposed to be taken literally.

No, it's not to be taken literally. The "magic" isn't physical, tangible, or mental magic. It's about meshing personalities and resolving conflicts via friendship. The Mane Six became together via the Elements of Harmony, but it's their personalities and closeness with each other that truly make the bond "magic."

3. No matter how pressured Fluttershy felt in Best Night Ever, her behavior was still not believable.

Fluttershy's reaction is one hundred percent believable. She's shy and never had the feeling of rejection from animals before. Wingnut above me gave a pretty good analysis detailing this and connecting her feeling of rejection to her experience in Hurricane Fluttershy.

4. The Nostalgia Goggles argument was out of frustration that everyone points to Season 3's flaws, and never point to Season 1's flaws and call it "superior."

With this, your "argument" went down the tubes. "Nostalgia goggles" is such an inane strawman, and the fact you continued to pull this card indicates nothing more except that you have no solid defense behind your logic. Season one may have four bad episodes and not be perfect, but as a whole, it's extremely solid. Season three had seven great episodes, one good one, and one decent one. But it also had three AWFUL episodes and one poor one. With the smaller season, the good and bad episodes carry a lot more weight, and that's what happened here.

5. I was never trying to use logic. I was trying to use my opinions, just like you used yours.

An opinion doesn't absolve you from having your opinion criticized nor your integrity shot down, and the fact you handwaved the idea that logic isn't necessary when expressing your opinion trivializes your entire "defense" in this blog. If you're going to express an opinion, back yourself up with solid logic and reasoning. You didn't do that one iota here, and it makes your opinion ill-informed. And with people like myself, you WON'T have your opinion respected. If your argument has holes and fallacies, your opinion will be challenged, criticized, and dissected at each and every corner. And that's exactly the case here.

Spike at Your Service and Just for Sidekicks aren't good one bit, and Games Ponies Play was even worse because the Mane Six was out of character and got unrealistically rewarded for their idiocy. 

I liked Just For Sidekicks and Owl's Well That Ends Well a lot...

I can name more that I personally dislike from Season 1 than Season 3 (Spike At Your Service, Games Ponies Play, and Magic Duel vs Swarm Of The Century, Dragonshy, Feeling Pinkie Keen, Over A Barrel, and A Bird In The Hoof). Season 1 didn't go into the extremes of badness of the other seasons (except Feeling Pinkie Keen and its obnoxious sense of humor), but it also had fewer really stellar episodes in my eyes, which is why it remains my least favorite season.

Of course, considering that The Mysterious Mare Do Well is my favorite Rainbow Dash episode, feel free to discount my opinion.