Cwanky

Hmm either Diamond Tiara or Prince Blueblood switched personalities with Applejack... Oh and Granny Smith would be dead from grief. Does that answer yer question?

Romance, even in a "kid's show," in and of itself isn't bad per say. However the way the show's set up, any major romances could cause a lot of problems. At least for right now the main interaction for the Mane 6 are between each other and Spike. Having a major romantic interest that is canon like oh say THIS GUY: Muddles up any interactions that develop between the Mane 6 characters individually and among themselves. The show is friendship is magic, and as far as we're concerned that doesn't quite extend to major long term romances. It might even complicate the show unnecessarily or worse yet, detract from major character developments. At least for now the show needs to stay far far away from romances. We haven't even seen in depth Twilight's relationships and developments with her friends yet, nor the fact that Hasbro and co opened another can of worms on how that significant relationship is further complicated by the fact that she's now a princess. Adding a romantic interest to ANY of the Mane 6 as a major character, ESPECIALLY Twilight would be like dropping an atomic bomb on the show. For now Shining Armor and Cadence and Spike and Rarity, as well as to the lesser extent Cheerilee and Big MacIntosh, can suffice as the major side romantic affairs. Spike and Rarity is acceptable by the way since its a developing casual relationship, and moreover Spike is already a major character since the show's start. I'm still surprised no one has made any weird clopfics with Cadence and Shining Armor yet....

At least for major plot episodes and sagas, yes longer episodes can really help improve the show. Fans love the songs in episodes like Magical Mystery Cure and A Canterlot Wedding Parts 1 & 2 and that's fine, but given the already truncated nature of regular episodes, we really need a breather at times between the songs. The songs while nice can at times throw off viewers and either skims over trying to "wrap up" or neglects key dialogue, plot and character interactions. For many regular episodes like Wonderbolts Academy, it would have been great to see much more character development out of both Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash, instead of some rushed antagonist plot with a sloppy moral that's hypocritically applied at the end. Still then on the other end you have episodes like Spike at Your Service and Dragonshy that are perfect in the half hour commercial length and would start to wane and develop poorly if prolonged. Some episodes don't fit nicely into either category and that's fine, but the key here is that longer episodes can and do help at times to help improve the quality of the show. Not every episode has to be longer, but at least for significant plot based pilots or finales and major events in each season they could tremendously help. Also if kids have the attention span to watch Ice Age, all the Toy Stories, Cars and Finding Nemo and accurately summarize them, which I know for a fact from my nephews they easily can and these films can exceed 1 hour, then they can watch a 1 hour episode of MLP: FiM easily. Don't give me that bull hicky.

So let's just get the record out there for our oh so perfect Equestrian pony world that so many writers and fans love to defend. And I am sure there will be at least one person that will try to defend these actions the ponies did, which is fine since we're all entitled to our opinions, but I'll raise them nonetheless. So was it not wrong that... - The ponies as shown in Hearth's Warming Eve willingly segregated themselves, basically treated Earth ponies like feudal peasants and slaves for food and manual labor, while the unicorns lived as royalty and got rich and elitist? Also the pegasi were pretty proud and elitist too being aggressive militant bullies. All 3 of the races were strongly racially divided and despised each other. In fact you could say that sentiment still persists to some degree - The fact that outsiders like Zecora are stereotyped as dangerous and evil when they know next to little about her and don't bother to reach out until the Mane 6 come along? - The fact that Canterlot is effectively an elitist wealthy society that tends to look down upon common ponyfolks - The fact that ponies have had at least several major disputes with other inhabitants like the buffalo - The fact that Equestrian society was nearly destroyed by inner conflicts from the diarchy itself with Nightmare Moon - The fact that Equestria is effectively a monarchy, no matter how benevolent or ideal it may seem - The fact that ponies denegrate "half breeds" like mules as slow witted, ugly and deplorable - The fact that sentient cattle and sheep are herded and treated more as property and seemingly have limited representation and rights - The fact that ponies in general have had a tendency to look down or conflict with other peaceful intelligent races - The fact that power mongers like King Sombra and Nightmare Moon exist - The fact that Equestrian magic is just as abusable as any technology we have, as shown with Trixie and Sombra - The fact that ironically the ponies tend to be caught up in their own bubble world and poorly understand the world outside I could go on, but the point here is that authors give ponies waaaay more credit than they deserve. Even for a kids show that's meant to show us good things about Equestria, there's plenty of flaws that are made apparent to us as well. People really need to get over this "oh humanity sucks so bad I wanna go live in Equestria and be happy." This is the exact same kind of escapism phenomenon and attitude that pervaded after folks watched Avatar. Humanity is far from perfect but we have many notable people, achievements and times, like the Age of Enlightenment, the Roman Empire and Mesopotomia, and our World War II victory IN SPITE of the attrocities. For every Hitler, Nero, and Saddam, we've also had a Lincoln, Washington, Einstein, Aristotle, and Beethoven. Appreciate the best of both worlds and remember, like it or not, this is still our home.