Is the show worse when it's playing too safe or when a risk backfires?

[Number62 1,267]

It depends.

 

If a story is safe, then does it do anything interesting, give its own unique touch, or be entertaining at the very least? Some acclaimed episodes like "Party of One" and "The Return of Harmony" are predictable, and I don't consider them groundbreaking even within this show. If the safe story is boring instead, I won't care to look at it again.

 

If the story is ambitious but falls short, how much did it miss? If it messed up a little but told at least a decent story, I'll still complain about the wasted potential. If the story falls face-first into the mud, then goddammit because there are few things I hate more than (needlessly) wasted potential. Sure it aimed high, but that doesn't change the fact that it completely missed.

 

A bad story and a mediocre story aren't very different in to me in terms of quality since neither are good.

[pony.colin 156]

I'd like to see the show try to attempt a few more risks (well not sure what exactly is the risk when I say that), but at this point, I'm also probably going to be okay with a 'play it safe' approach as well, mainly because I've lowered my expectations to accommodate the gradual length of the series.

 

The thing is, that also at the same time, I think its at this point the show needs to start branching out into a little bit more complex problems and conflicts  that it presents.  Because it feels we're getting a little too old hat with things and repeating them.  It feels like we're at that stage where the problems/conflicts can get a bit more complex and have a more complex resolution at the end of the episode (or one that gets dragged out a little longer).  Because I feel it kind of needs to do that in order to stop feeling like its stagnating a bit here. But at the same time, I wouldn't be too surprised if it played it safe because it's still struggling to not be limited by its show rating standard and what its monitored under. (And if they are running out of ideas to still work within that parameter)  I can't blame them for it, but I've also lowered expectations where, eh it can get a pass from me in most cases. Its still pretty decent when played safe.

Edited November 15, 2015 by pony.colin

[Lil Pip 775]

Flutter dragon can relate to real life. When friends are faced up against a problem they all handle it differently but in the end using an assertive approach up front with words can resolve conflict. 

Relating to real life doesn't imply slice of life. Slice of life means, a part of their regularish life. It might have tones of slice of life, but that was an adventure, it was about overcoming uncommon challenges beyond their routine setting. 

Except if there was a story that didn't have a realistic situation we wouldn't be able to even decipher what that is. 

 

I wouldn't call those adventure episodes I would call them an abstraction. They've already put magic into this show meaning that the show in it's entirety should satisfy your "adventure" ideas. Exactly them being human-esque is trying to relate to us thus they do things that humans think of and that leads to relating to our situations. 

Sorry, magic is fantasy, not adventure. Agree with them being human implies more of a slice of life feel though, adventure would be if they were ya know, adventuring beyond school.

[cider float 2,539]

Relating to real life doesn't imply slice of life. Slice of life means, a part of their regularish life. It might have tones of slice of life, but that was an adventure, it was about overcoming uncommon challenges beyond their routine setting. 

Sorry, magic is fantasy, not adventure. Agree with them being human implies more of a slice of life feel though, adventure would be if they were ya know, adventuring beyond school.

Didn't the episode Slice of Life itself already implied the mane six fights threats in Ponyville like a routine? Oh here comes another monster, the mane six are off fighting them again. They treat that as being a typical day. And the thing is every new episode they go through something that poses a problem to their regular life so how is that a part of their regular life? It would just be a normal day and not worth an episode, they would wake up, brush their teeth, eat, work, play then go to sleep. No worries nothing.

 

Do you have an example of an adventure because even up to this point nobody is fleshing it out. 

[J. Brony 313]

@@cider float

 

I see what you're saying and I agree for the most part.  A lot of the episodes kind of blur the lines between slice-of-life and adventure.  Castle Mania and Dragonshy are good examples.  The Mane 6 exploring a supposedly haunted castle and driving a dragon away from the town aren't really part of their routine but didn't come across as epic quests either.

 

I think this is due primarily to the nature of the show, its target audience being young children.  And older fans, mainly those who watch a lot of anime, probably have higher expectations of MLP that its writers are unable to meet.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

The whole adventure vs. slice-of-life thing is not the determining factor of whether the show is taking risks or not. Risk is when a slice-of-life episode like "One Bad Apple" attempts to take on a tough subject like bullying, or when a two-parter like "The Cutie Map" takes a common conflict and infuses it with elements unique to the MLP world and informed by pop culture.

 

Playing it safe is when an episode like "The Hooffields and the McColts" take a common kids' show plot and don't really do much of anything new with it.

 

Either way is equally likely to produce good or bad episodes. However, my main question in the OP is, which one makes for more overlooked episodes?

[Lucky Shot 232]

The show is worse when the writers literally decide half-way through that it's a different show.

 

You see, Larson doesn't think of post-Faust-and-Ren seasons as the same show as Faust-and-Ren seasons. He has a decent reason behind this ("we're not them so we can't copy exactly what they would do") but the fact remains that the show changed completely and made no effort whatsoever to keep what made it charming in the first two seasons.

 

Namely, the show's best feature was its amusing and endearing character interactions, which have been sorely lacking because the characters' lives have been consumed and streamlined by the overarching story and the writers backing themselves into a corner.

 

Previously, problems would crop up unexpectedly if not spontaneously, and the characters would misappropriate their own talents in an attempt to solve the problem by force, usually arguing with one another over the course of the episode.

 

But now, there's a Cutie Map, which has several massive crippling flaws:

• The characters now waste large portions of time wandering around the place they're sent to, wondering to themselves what the problem is, rather than failing hilariously to fix it, or causing it themselves
• Which characters are involved in a problem is now rendered efficient and plausible by the mystical psychic Cutie Map, reducing the chance of comically inept character matchups or the ever-hilarious third wheel
• Celestia, formerly a vital support character, no longer has any noteworthy role whatsoever

Essentially, the show has changed and forces things to happen at the cost of endearing characters -- this is especially obvious in What About Discord, where Twilight's friends are all flattened and hammered into mere plot devices to emphasize the social battle between Twilight and Discord, with only half-hearted attempts to retain any of their traits.

 

Before watching the episode, I presumed that Discord hadn't enchanted them and Twilight was overreacting (because that hasn't happened like 3 times already or anything), but once I started watching it I started to suspect that he had, because they had lost all of their personality, becoming bland "we're friends" characters akin to a high school anime.

 

With Faust and Renzetti, we essentially had a team that threw in loads of ridiculous ideas that were then polished up by an experienced editor to produce a professional and respectable product. Without them, we lack both a key originator of good ideas, and a key refinement of those ideas.

 

This show was created by Faust but is now effectively run by the fans -- the worst thing you can ever do to your show short of actually canceling it -- and as such has become memetic and bland, mostly because of that fat drunk Larson though he did seek absolution for his black soul:

• Discord was redeemed for the sole reason that someone's son begged Larson for him to be
• The term "alicorn" was introduced because Larson heard it at a brony convention
• Coco Pommel was shoehorned into a story she didn't need to be because she is a brony waifu
• The entire Slice of Life episode, which was to be written by Amy Keating Rogers, was such a horrible, cringe-worthy mess in concept that Larson objected to its very existence and traded The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone with her to try and spin control its script... Slice of Life is still the worst episode by far (it looks fan-made.) but Griffonstone benefited greatly from Rogers's dedication so it's a'ight

But I can't stay negative forever, and on the plus side, former black sheep Dave Polski took the overwhelming criticism given to him quite seriously and trained in the pits of Ka-on to improve his writing significantly.

 

And I'll see the show through to its end, but it's definitely lost its touch.

[Silver Stream. 708]

Agreeing with half of what Lucku Shot is saying it though I have a more positive attitude towards the show still.

 

Slice of Life was indeed a mess imo. When I expresses this, I thought it would be the death of me since the episode was pretty much created to feed the demands of the the fans. The only good thing out of it was the timing.....Season 5 has been covering with a lot of background ponies lately and revisiting a few C-Cast characters within a few episodes. Its because of this I'd excuse "Slice of Life". Had this appeared in the past seasons, I would officially call it an episode made to pacify a raging storm of bronies wanting to see their background gods a minute of screentime and some random line.

 

What about discord....wasn't a bad episode in my opinion specifically because Discord remained "Discord" and Twilight's lesson was a much needed one. But I will agree that THE MANE 6 WERE NOT THE MANE 6. The constant laughing, the "buddy buddy" attitude was a bit unbearable for me. They were all blended together in this happy-go-lucky laughing mess. Hell, even Pinkie Pie was out of character.

 

To answer the question: Both risk taking episodes backfiring AND safe-playef episodes. In all honesty, I find these two one in the same. After Season 2, any episode that was played safe was then considered a risk taker. Because by then, the episodes shifted from a good-natured quality show teaching basic lessons on relationships to something MUUUUCH deeper. Expectations rose like crazy. Now we all expect the very best and nothing less. Some fail to contain their expectations so whenever an episode is played safe, that's a risk in itself backfiring on the writers "for giving bronies this low quality crap".

[J. Brony 313]

After Season 2, any episode that was played safe was then considered a risk taker. Because by then, the episodes shifted from a good-natured quality show teaching basic lessons on relationships to something MUUUUCH deeper. Expectations rose like crazy. Now we all expect the very best and nothing less. Some fail to contain their expectations so whenever an episode is played safe, that's a risk in itself backfiring on the writers "for giving bronies this low quality crap".

 

That's half of the issue.  The other half being when Hasbro does something risky, such as turning Twilight into an Alicorn or giving the CMC their Cutie Marks, it still falls far short of the fan's expectations and we get several months of bitching about how disappointed they all are.  No matter what the show's writers attempt, it's impossible to please everyone.  Personally, I think that that's their only real failure.

[Lucky Shot 232]

That's half of the issue.  The other half being when Hasbro does something risky, such as turning Twilight into an Alicorn or giving the CMC their Cutie Marks, it still falls far short of the fan's expectations and we get several months of bitching about how disappointed they all are.  No matter what the show's writers attempt, it's impossible to please everyone.  Personally, I think that that's their only real failure.

 

The Friendship is Magic team (relatively young folk) isn't particularly experienced in comparison to the Transformers team (largely composed of old veterans and all-stars), and the problem isn't what Hasbro is demanding -- they demand the same of Transformers, but the Transformers team knows how to make it work smoothly due to 20-30 years of screwing up, whereas the Friendship is Magic team is mostly freelancers and newbies.

 

I make this comparison because Friendship is Magic is roughly analogous to Transformers: Beast Wars, in that it's the first really good cartoon in the series and dramatically expands the lore in a most likely lasting way. And like Beast Wars, because it's the first really good cartoon, it has some serious problems like Beast Wars did, because the team lacked experience in handling all of these expansions and evolutions to the show and its characters.

 

Hopefully, with what they've learned from effectively messing up Friendship is Magic, the next show will have a better plan (and contingency plans) as well as an improved ability to improvise and compromise, and will see even more success than this one. Chances are there will be significant changes that will upset some fans, and may possibly be a reboot since they did not expect to get where they are now from where they started.

[J. Brony 313]

That's a good point; the experience of the writing staff.

 

Another issue I would point out is the sudden and unexpected change in demographic that MLP had.  It was an unprecedented change since the brand's former incarnations.  Seasons 1 & 2 were written specifically for a younger crowd but from 3 onward, there was a older group of fans to be considered as well.  That only compounded the fact that the show was no longer being written by Faust but who can say whether or not MLP would have kept to its original style of writing even if she'd remained on staff, what with all the bronies to cater to now?

 

But yeah, with whispers of the 5th generation being overheard, it can safely be assumed that writing on the next incarnation will be smoother.  The target demographic is well-known by now and the staff will, as you say, have more experience under their belt. 

Edited November 15, 2015 by J. Brony