Anyone found Season 5 first half lacking in mane six solo focused episodes?

[SilverComet 170]

About all this "world building". Honestly, the only episode I'd rank as a worldbuilding episode is Griffonstone's episode, and while that WAS a good episode, the rest just seem like normal episodes :/

 

As for the cutie mark focus, never really liked that that much: I feel cutie marks work best just as something that's "There" as a minor attribute, not something you focus everything around, like how you don't build an entire season around unicorn horns or whatnot.

 

World-Building:

[s5E01] Coldstart scene: Recap of the S4 finalle, plus a fricking Map of Equestria IN 3D!

Also, both parents of Pinkie Pie are alive and still living in the rock farm (not just her father, as shown in S3E05).

[s5E01] Travel to "Our Little Village" (the song is called "Our Town", is not the name of the place); located in a desertic valley between mountains.

 

[s5E02] The mountains at the east of Equestria had a complex system of internal caverns (like Moria in the Misty Mountains of The Lord of the Rings).

 

[s5E03] Technically speaking is world-rebuilding: The remains of the Treehouse Library is removed from the ground (hence the place does not exist anymore; [not even the "underground lab"]).

The Crystal-Tree-Castle starts its slow transformation into an "organic place" by getting the style and personal touch of the ponies in each of its rooms.

 

[s5E04] Babs Seed job career, the (probable) existence of "pest ponies" and the "job rotation replacement" for specific jobs being strongly influenced on the presumed talents of a cutiemark.

 

[s5E05] Cloudsdale moves trough Equestria (already implied in S2E22). Winter set up is mostly handled by the pegasi after the running of the leaves is done by the earth ponies (not a single unicorn in it this year).

 

[s5E06] Appleoosa was either "moved", or there was a massive "terraforming" going on in the second year of the town (only comparable to the pegasi "winter sky" set up & wrap up).

 

[s5E07] The "chaos dimension" is either just another place of (outer) Equestria, or there is a fixed portal going into it accesible by land (much like the "Breezie Falls" or the "Gates of Tartarus" being the only known access points to those planes/places).

Also, there is a "puppet dimension" only Discord can/knows_how_to access.

 

[s5E08] Griffonstone is part of Equestria. Is located to the east of Manehattan, beyond a great body of water (it explains the concept of "Half of Equestria" being the logic delimitation for the maximum range of a non-sentient natural threat in S4E01).

 

[s5E09] Internal world-building. 

 

[s5E10] The number of "important/relevant" towns/cities in Equestria is now greater than the total combined evidence (and sugestions/headcannons) from all previous episodes and official comics.

 

[s5E11] There is life in "The Frozen North" (old map of Equestria); and it has their own kind of population and culture.

 

[s5E12] Internal world-building (Canterlot Edition)

 

[s5E13] The Rainbow Power can be summoned "on demand" and remotely by the mane six.

It has the same functionality of the old Elements of Harmony (or at least Luna considers this to be true).

 

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About the "Theme" of the season:

There is one focussed idea [Cutiemarks & Destiny] for the "key episode" of S5; and there is the standard "filler" plus the mid-season finalle (witch has zero correlation with anything, just look at Tank!)].

 

The same happened in S4, were the underground concept [Rainbow Conection] had the properly named "key episodes" to be developed, plus lots of unrelated adventures and irrelevant slice of life situations (most of them clear "red herrings" in retrospective) for the season finalle.

Edited August 2, 2015 by SilverComet