Most cliched episodes

[ggg-2 3,555]

Which episodes, in your opinion, had the most cliched plots? For me, it'd have to be Spike at Your Service and, if i'm right based on the previews, Castle Sweet Castle, in which a character saves another character's life only for said character to start waiting on their savior hand and foot in Spike at Your Service's case and in the case of Castle Sweet Castle, again, if i'm right, the other characters help another cope with a new home.....by making said home more like theirs. Both of these are tropes i've seen in 80's sitcoms.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

I'd definitely agree with "Spike at Your Service", but I think one of the most egregiously overused setups had to be the one in "Games Ponies Play", which severely detracted from the episode's story structure. The "mistaken identity" plot seemed too simple and out-of-place for MLP to do effectively and the episode turned out to be nothing but a mindless comedy romp, with a moral pulled out of an unimportant and underused subplot at the end.

 

Subjectively, some could say that many of the plots are apparently "cliche", but it really depends on how MLP does it. If MLP brings a new spin on a well-worn formula, they will less likely be seen that way, like "Pinkie Pride", for example. The "always someone better" episode is one that's very common in kids' TV, but the character development, the characters themselves, and the large, loud presentation helped bolster the episode's appeal.

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,331]

Spike at your Service. It literally does nothing with the cliche besides some well designed timber wolves.

[PoisonClaw 8,174]

Have to agree with "Games Ponies Play", which was so cliche I ended up calling just about every plot point in advance and groaned when Twilight read the note solely giving the vaguest description of the pony's luggage (as opposed to, you know, an actual photo).

 

I'm not sure if I would call it cliche, but a really predicable episode is "Cutie Pox", especially the part about how the Cutie Pox can only be stopped by telling the truth, which basically takes the moral and beats the audience over the head with it like hammer since every time Apple Bloom lies, the Pox gets progressively worse. In short, "telling lies will bring you misery and only telling the truth with make things all better."

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,164]

"Somepony to Watch Over You."

 

I'm sorry, but the over-protective guardian bit just feels so overdone at this point; especially at the end when the child does something dangerous and the guardian realizes how stupid they were.

[cmarston1 5,964]

Simple Ways.

It is just soo boring and predictable, within the first 5 minutes or so you could easily tell how the episode would go down.

Rarity would try to change herself for an out of the blue crush only to learn not to do that and would teach that to Trenderhoof and nothing interesting would happen.  One of the few times I was actually bored while watching an MLP FIM episode.

[Odyssey 5,719]

Baby Cakes. Just Baby Cakes.

 

It has your typical babysitting clichés, and unfortunately not in any funny or surprising way. It is also predictable as heck and seeing Pinkie get needlessly tortured is just painful to sit through.

[Steve Piranha 29,496]

FiM is no free from cliches, but I'd agree Spike at your Service's plot is the one I've seen the most in other shows so far

[Pastel 7,630]

As much as I like Hurricane Fluttershy, I also find it a bit clichéd.

And yeah, Somepony to Watch Over Me too...

[The Awesome One 1,315]

Every single episode of FiM is cliched if you think about it, nothing new about that. The real problem is that in certain episodes they didn't do a very good presentation of the moral of the story in a way that the episode wouldn't be too predictable but instead they just copy pasted what many other kids shows had don only with ponies.

[Yellow Diamond 7,578]

Have to agree with "Games Ponies Play", which was so cliche I ended up calling just about every plot point in advance and groaned when Twilight read the note solely giving the vaguest description of the pony's luggage (as opposed to, you know, an actual photo).

 

"Games Ponies Play" definitely does suffer from a massive case of Idiot Plot, and that causes any subsequent tropes in the episode to suffer.

 

I'm surprised no one has brought up the pilot episodes. They're terrific in terms of world building and giving us a taste of what the show would become -- but there are moments that are so wooden as to be cliché.