Thrond

Chrysalis has become my favourite through sheer perseverance. Doubling down on her hotheaded incompetence is the absolute best thing they could have done with her; it was always there, but until season 8 I wasn't entirely sure how much of that was deliberate. I really do consider her silliness to be the perfect fit for the show. Cozy Glow, Discord, and the Dazzlings are similar in that sense. I don't remember all of the low-level villains, but I found Flim and Flam the most consistently entertaining. Trixie is my favourite character of the bunch, but mostly for what happened after she became friendlier.

Seasons 3 and 4 did still resemble seasons 1 and 2, but I do think the attempts to explore more serious subject matter may have pushed the show in the wrong direction. The format of episodes like "Rarity Takes Manehattan," which is based on challenging the main characters' values, is such that each of them seems to end right back where it started; I don't always feel like we're getting new things from the characters, even in episodes I would consider among the show's best. And on top of that a lot of episodes felt kinda gimmicky to me in both seasons, especially in season 3; I find that fun to an extent, but it gives the weird sense of those episodes being filler in a show without much of an overarching storyline. I disagree that season 3 rehashed the previous seasons - to me it seems very experimental while keeping the feel of seasons 1 and 2. It's just that a lot of those experiments didn't quite pay off. I do still like season 4, but in some ways it felt to me like the show stagnating before it went completely off the rails in season 5. Numerically there are fewer episodes I like, and when I look at those I didn't like, they either have dumb gimmicks ("Power Ponies," "Simple Ways") or try too hard to force a specific narrative ("Bats," "Rainbow Falls," "Somepony to Watch Over Me"). And in episodes like "Flight to the Finish," I notice the things that the show doesn't explore more than the things it does, which would essentially remain the case until season 8 suddenly became a lot more direct. It's still good, and it's certainly more ambitious, but I think the cracks were already starting to show. Maybe what My Little Pony did best in seasons 1-3 wasn't sustainable, but the show never really come up with anything I thought was a suitable replacement. I think I heard that even Faust's involvement in season 2 was increasingly limited as that season continued production. And that might explain why the show's transformation into whatever it was in season 5 was a gradual process rather than an immediate shift, but it makes that decline all the more inexplicable.

I don't think seasons 8 and 9 are that much like season 7; to me it seems that they're both much looser, and season 8 specifically is a lot more imaginative than the seasons surrounding it. The general decline in the mane six certainly carries over, but that got started at least as far back as season 5, if you ask me.

I agree with everything @Them's Seeing Ponies said, though the deepening approach to characterization that I most enjoyed started as early as late season 1, when episodes like “Party of One” started focusing more aggressively on a single character’s insecurities. Episodes like that became less frequent as the show went on, and later examples sometimes seem kinda awkward. I will say though that, despite that season’s messiness, the style of humour in season 6 just does it for me. Season 7 almost made me stop watching. Anyway I think we know each other’s perspectives now. Ironically, I felt that season 8 had a sense of growth that the previous several seasons hadn’t. It made me actively frustrated that a show which was demonstrably moving forward in certain areas was also becoming even messier.

I think you have the wrong thread.

I think what the show was doing in those first two seasons was appealing in its own right. I liked the mythology being used as a lightweight, fairy tale-esque context for stories that aren't actually that much less silly than the slice-of-life episodes, which you see in the first two season premieres and then again in seasons 6 and (to a lesser extent) 8. Season 2 specifically adds a bit more depth to the show while keeping all of its charms; it had everything that made season 1 good and more, so it was easy to assume the show would only get better. Part of the excitement is that season 2 was just ending when I got into the show, but when I watch the show again, it seems like what it was in those first two seasons could easily have improved and sustained itself for a while longer. The finale definitely showed some signs of the problems to come, though. Admittedly I was mostly brought on board by out-of-context clips on YouTube, but I will say that the mythology helped break my expectations of what this show would be. It wasn't what kept me onboard, though, especially after season 3.

Ironically that's how I felt about season 6, though in retrospect I don't like it that much more than season 4. To me season 7 was the year where, more often than not, I would tune into My Little Pony and have to work overtime to get anything out of it. I think more than half of that season is subpar. To each their own, I guess.

S1: "The Show Stoppers" S2: "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" S3: "Magical Mystery Cure" S4: "Princess Twilight Sparkle" (both parts) S5: "What About Discord?" S6: "No Second Prances" S7: "Hard to Say Anything" S8: "Non-Compete Clause" S9: "Dragon Dropped"

It's probably my #11. Tremendous stuff.

Sure, but I mostly just mean the fact that she has to juggle the animal sanctuary with the school, which leaves me wondering what her schedule looks like. It's easier to ignore that in most other episodes. In any case that didn't ruin that episode for me. Honestly, I graded most of seasons 7-9 on a curve; of those 78 episodes, I'd say that only 6 or 7 are really on par with the show's best. But I thought "Molt Down" had its charms, and I enjoyed how direct it was.

Probably nothing, but season 7 was my least favourite in the whole show. I don't think my opinions are objective facts about the show's quality, and I don't begrudge you for liking season 7, but I don't get it. To me the "low-key character stuff" often seemed like it was going through the motions in that season, even in some episodes I didn't mind; a lot of episodes in that season have a somewhat ambitious moral but almost no character nuance that doesn't actively confirm that moral, and therefore not a lot of drama. It seems to me that season 7's creative energy was mainly focused on moralizing and ambitious concepts. I found it very dull. More power to everyone who likes it, which is apparently everyone other than myself.

It presents that issue in a way that I think is difficult to relate to and generally unappealing, while offering little real insight to what inspires any of the characters. But admittedly I don't find the CMC's efforts to get ahead of Diamond Tiara very appealing. My main gripe with this one is that the sheer quantity of responsibilities Fluttershy seems to have absolutely would not have been in a season 1-3 episode. The world of this show became very convoluted by the end. I honestly think it explored that issue in a way that is true to the characters, and I found its writing quite witty and entertaining. I honestly think it's one of the episodes which justifies the season 7-9 checklist approach to an extent, because the earlier seasons would never have approached that topic so directly. It's very refreshing, and I think that it has both humour and character details which live up to the show's past. I would not be complaining if My Little Pony had always been like that in its last several seasons.

I felt that sometimes the more ambitious approach of later seasons paid off; "Too Many Pinkie Pies," "Twilight Time," and "She Talks to Angel" all strike me as conceptually unsound in some way or another, whereas that Spike getting wings episode - "Molt Down" - seemed to me like a pretty sincere attempt to explore puberty, even if it still showed some of the checklist approach that plagued the show in its latter half. They would have needed to find a new direction for the show at some point, but they could have done that while staying true to the show's strengths. The thing for me is that, around season 2, I think the show was starting to be genuinely great. I think the attempt to double down on more ambitious topics and fantasy mythology exposed a lot of the show's weaknesses while taking focus away from many of its strengths. If the people behind the show were more interested in keeping it grounded and focusing on low-key character comedy, I think we might all be singing a very different tune. I think season 8 did have some focus in the form of the school, though it wasn't exploited to nearly the extent that it needed to be. I also thought that season had some lingering emphasis on the mythology and on ambitious morals. In season 9 I think all the energy went towards the big seasonal arc. It's just that neither of those seasons had much concern for quality control, so the filler was wildly uneven and often completely baffling, which in turn suggests how little affinity several of the writers had for these characters. I do think the show needed to change at some point, but the way it changed seemed to me like an attempt to ignore the show's problems.

...I like the Spike getting wings episode a lot more than some of the highlights you mentioned, ironically.

Yeah, I agree; I think the pranks are actually kinda funny and that the zombie part has a cool atmosphere. Also I actually like "Newbie Dash," which I think is a lot more sympathetic towards Rainbow Dash than people realize.

I first got into this show when the second season was ending. At that point, I sincerely thought that this show was genuinely great and on track to become better. And then it wasn't. I probably wouldn't have watched it all the way through if it didn't consistently offer up satisfying stories, but after those first two seasons those stories became a lot fewer and further between. There are a lot of ways in which the show became more sophisticated and ambitious as it went on, but I think it also increasingly lost sight of what had made it special in the first place, and became blind to its own limitations. The way I see it, the first season was good, the second season was great, and after that... well, the fourth and sixth seasons were solid. I would really hesitate to call it a great show overall. At a certain point, I think the show's ambition led to a sort of rigidity; as the main characters became more and more established, it seemed like many of the writers had less and less affinity for them, to the point that they regularly became simple accessories to moralistic storylines. Plus a lot of the ambitious developments of the later seasons just don't seem to have been thought through very well, and I really do think the increased focus on fantasy adventure was fundamentally misguided. This show has always been inconsistent in quality so all of that is an oversimplification, but I think it's very easy to say that the creative energy of the final season was applied in very different places than the first season, and I don't think it was an improvement. And if nothing else, I can say for certain that I simply did not like the show nearly as much in the final three seasons as I did in the first three. I don't particularly care about "wasted potential" because I don't think the show even succeeded in sustaining what it had.

I think the show itself was more of a niche thing, though I wonder how much of an impact it had on the target audience. I think it was less significant this decade than it was in the 80s, simply because colourful pony toys aren't a novelty anymore. I would say the "brony" phenomenon was the most obvious bit of mainstream crossover, for better and for worse.

"Feeling Pinkie Keen" - I think people have turned around on this one by now; it's just the poorly-conveyed moral that is a problem. Aside from that I find this to be one of the funniest episodes in the show. I like all the elaborate slapstick. "Putting Your Hoof Down" - I see why people might be turned off by Fluttershy randomly becoming mean or by how unfair this is to Iron Will, but I just find "New Fluttershy" delightful. "Dragon Quest" - I always feel like people miss the forest for the trees with this one. It's as imaginative and energetic as the best episodes of its season, and I find the lesson Spike learns here - that his identity comes from ponies rather than dragons, and that's okay - genuinely heartwarming. What he should be doesn't matter; he just needs to be himself. "Daring Don't" - I always thought it was fun that Daring Do turned out to be real. "Leap of Faith" - I feel like, when talking about season 4, this episode tends to be overlooked by people who consider it "boring." But I would argue that it's way more emotionally complex than similar episodes that season, and I think it has more than its fair share of delightful silliness. And I never got sick of the Flim Flam Brothers. "Equestria Games" - As someone who isn't interested in sports, I'm a little surprised that so many people were disappointed by this not being a generic sports comedy. Personally I think this is the most mature of the Spike episodes, because it's laser-focused on his anxieties. I guess I could do without some of the secondhand embarrassment, though, even if it is important to showing Spike's insecurity. "The Hooffields & the McColts" - I can't be the only person who thinks this episode is really funny. "The Crystalling" and "To Where and Back Again" - These both seem obviously excellent to me to the point that I'm not entirely sure why they're so widely disliked. "Flutter Brutter" - I'm pretty sure I like this for the exact same reason that many people hate it. Zephyr feels almost like an Archer character to me. Hilarious. "Spice Up Your Life" - Sue me, I think this is charming, and I don't think Rarity's characterization is that off-base. I mean, she's just trying to help. "Triple Threat" - I think Spike is sympathetic in this, and there's a lot of great funny moments. Ember eating Twilight's castle is glorious. "Secrets and Pies" - This season was really dry so the creative absurdity here seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time. And I don't know how anyone can resist such silliness as Pinkie Pie imagining Rainbow Dash as an evil being dedicated to destroying pies. "Father Knows Beast" - I'll admit that this does a better job than "Dragon Quest" of examining Spike's family situation. I find his longing for the dragon parents he never knew to be heartbreaking, and Twilight's obvious sadness about the things she can't help Spike with is really poignant as well. I honestly find this to be one of the show's most emotional episodes, even with all its imperfections. "Uprooted" - Kind of a bland rehash of stuff the show has done before, but this comes closer to the show's early charms than a lot of episodes that are more universally beloved. "The Point of No Return" and "Going to Seed" - Again, I think these are obviously great and don't fully understand why people shrug them off. "The Last Crusade" - I never really agreed with people's conviction that Scootaloo must be an orphan, so I'm just happy to finally have her family situation clarified, especially in such detail. This is not a particularly great episode, but I found the main conflict here sympathetic, and that's enough for me. "Between Dark and Dawn" - I think people have become convinced that Celestia and Luna should act a certain way, even if it basically prevents them from doing anything at all interesting. I don't really get that mindset, as this seems delightful to me. "Growing Up is Hard to Do" - I guess it says more about my low expectations for this show that I didn't even bat an eye at an episode which ignores the CMC's increasing responsibility, but I still think that this is a great cartoon episode when taken out of that context. The CMC never really stopped acting like kids so this seemed true to them even though they've done far more mature things recently. "Rainbow Roadtrip" - It's just so cute.

What About Discord? Magical Mystery Cure Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well Hard to Say Anything Non-Compete Clause Games Ponies Play Dragon Dropped Tanks for the Memories The Show Stoppers

The order of these could change at any time. All of these episodes are 10/10 to me. Lesson Zero The Best Night Ever Rarity Investigates! A Hearth's Warming Tail Horse Play Hurricane Fluttershy Wonderbolts Academy The Last Roundup Pinkie Pride Party of One

Yeah, sure, it would have been nice to see the rest of the mane six be the focal point of the premieres and finales, which might have given Twilight more regular slice-of-life episodes, specifically in seasons 3 and 4. For a while I sort of viewed the premieres and finales as simply being "the Twilight episodes," especially since I only really cared about seasonal story arcs in the last two seasons. Honestly though, I think in seasons 7 and 8 the show did a good job of splitting the focus across everyone, which I think is more sophisticated than focusing on one character. That's how most shows do it.

Twilight is my favourite across both shows, especially when Twilight in Equestria Girls acts like Twilight ought to. My favourite Sci-Twi moments are actually a lot like what I wish pony Twilight acted like more often... y'know, I complain about both Twilights a lot, but on a fundamental level I just enjoy their archetype and personality the most. I actually like most of these characters a lot, like in Friendship is Magic, which makes picking a least favourie hard for me. Of the main characters, I guess my least favourite is Sunset Shimmer, whose personality seems a lot shakier than the others. But she has her moments and she ended the show on a high note. I'm hesitant to even count Starlight, who appeared exactly once and is just the pony character in human form, or the Dazzlings, who were villains in one movie and then had a minor cameo appearance.

S1: The Best Night Ever S2: Lesson Zero S3: Wonderbolts Academy S4: Pinkie Pride S5: Rarity Investigates! S6: A Hearth's Warming Tail S7: A Flurry of Emotions S8: Horse Play S9: The Point of No Return

On YouTube - which is the only official release in Canada, as far as I know - all of these specials were cut into weekly instalments.