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What bugged me about Season 6.


Buck Testa

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Season 6 for me was some of the most disappointing episodes that this show has put out. Please note the use of the word "disappointing" instead of words like "crap" or "garbage", cause I wasn't really angry with any of the episodes that came out. 

 

Just disappointed. 

 

In some ways, that's actually worse than being mad with the series, because that means that I wasn't able to garner enough passion towards this season too even feel anger. When a bad episode aired in a previous season I was heated, I had made posts about how it could be made better, and I've even admonished people for judging the show before a season even aired, much like with the announcement of Flurry Heart. 

 

I was right too, Flurry Heart was not the bad thing about season six. Her introduction has been so unimportant that I dare say the season could have taken her out of it and nearly nothing would change save for the premier. Even her appearance in the season finale was entirely inconsequential. No it wasn't Flurry Heart that was the bane of the season, nor was it even Starlight Glimmer per say (though she plays a role). The real killer of my enthusiasm for the show lies with the writing. 

 

The abysmally on the nose, lack luster, painfully cringe inducing writing that makes me question why I'm watching the show to begin with. 

 

i'm talking about writing that went to plot ideas so uninspired that they've been stale for literally hundreds of years. Episodes ideas that are so worn out and overused like Gift of the Magi, liar revealed, an episode about characters with different points of view, A Christmas carol,  episodes that make the normally competent characters look dumb, episodes that forget the basic character development that's already happened, and a few genuinely good episodes sprinkled in there as well. Its not just that they used these basic uninspired plots, other seasons have done that too; What is worse is that they didn't do ANYTHING NEW with these plots. Gift of the Maud Pie was just Gift of the Magi with ponies, that's it. A Hearths Warming Tail was just a Christmas carol with ponies, that's it. There was no real notable creative twist too any of it, it was just the plot equivalent of paint by numbers with ponies. 

 

 

Paint by Numbers plotting isn't a horrible sin, however coupling that with the writing this season has been subjected too doesn't make it any more palatable. Hearing character after character becoming exposition machines that regurgitate previous episodes instead of moving the plot forward was just painful to witness. first episode of this season alone was just painfully bloated with exposition, enough where challenging someone to a drinking contest based on each line of exposition uttered would be a fatal venture to pursue. 

 

Exposition is a necessary evil sometimes, but when the lines of dialogue that are used to traffic the exposition are so clumsy and literal, it ends up destroying immersion in the story entirely. A good example would be the Last Airbender movie. Many lines of exposition and narration in that movie were so awkward that it made people angry and more confused. Instead of filling people in on the plot it just pulled people out of it. Season 6 has plenty of instances where they are guilty of the same offences. 

 

 

If season 7 is going to pick up its game, then its new writers are going to need to figure out how to tell a story without leaning on these tired plots and these painfully shoe'd in lines of exposition. While I have my hopes they are going to do just that, you'll have to forgive me for having a decent amount of skepticism that most of these writers have the capacity to do this. 

 

 

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I don't care about M.A. Larson. I'd rather he wasn't working in My Little Pony. He made those two messes of episodes of one Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn and SoL. Two episodes I wish I could erase from my memory.

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To me, I think Season 6 was pretty fair. Rarity, after all, needed some episodes with Pinkie (and she did), and more yet, didn't have any major roles in the first half of Season 5, which is why she needed to appear a lot more in the first half of this season. And Rainbow Dash was falling behind early that season, which is why it was her turn next to have some major roles of her own, then Applejack.

 

I just want the writers to give Pinkie and Fluttershy a chance for major roles together in Season 7, now that Season 6 is out of the way.

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… Must … Not … Post … Glimmer hate …

 

The episodes give you this unnerving feeling that our glorious writers have taken a bundle of regular run-of-the-mill plots and then made them work by any means necessary. In other words: they didn’t build an episode around a pony but a pony around an episode. It is my humble opinion that Starlight represents this writing mentality: she has been made as a story line and not as an actual pony character that can support stereotypic quirks and self-centered humor. Oh shit, does that constitute as Glimmer hate? On Christmas morning?! Bad Goat-kun!

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I would like to see Starlight get more interactions with one of the characters at a time. And less focus on the Mane 6, come on we have seen enough of that, let background characters have a chance to shine.

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The season ultimately felt uneventful and like it was just going through the motions.

Outside of maybe the finale, I can't say that any of the episodes this season would be in my all time favorites.

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Kinda says it all when the writers redo one of the show's most hated episodes only to do nothing to address it's faults and repeats virtually every mistake that episode and then some

 

I always disagreed with the whole "this season feels very safe", as I felt there are a lot of episodes that, quite honestly, should've never gotten passed brainstorming, and I mean in that common sense should've stopped these episodes from going anywhere

 

AJ's Day Off? Interesting premise, then we get 18 minutes of nothing literally happening, and an ending where we just make AJ an idiot

Newbie Dash? Dash finally achieves her lifelong goal, lets spend the entire episode completely humiliating her!

28 Pranks Later? We're gonna go back to one of our most hated episodes to see where we went wrong. You know what can help this episode? Let's add fucking zombies!

Every Little Thing She Does? Last episode before the finale which Starlight stars in, how can we get everyone to side with her? Leave her out for 2/3rds of the season, and make Starlight brainwash her friends out of laziness!

 

And those are just some of the more notable examples(There's still Cart Before the Ponies, where AJ acts like she'll kill Applebloom if she doesn't do things traditionally 

 

/hyperbole)

Edited by Megas
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I don't care about M.A. Larson. I'd rather he wasn't working in My Little Pony. He made those two messes of episodes of one Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn and SoL. Two episodes I wish I could erase from my memory.

 

Well to be fair, Twilight becoming an Alicorn was mandated by Hasbro, because they wanted to sell toys based on the concept of her being an Alicorn Princess.  So if you're going to blame anyone on that one, you have to blame Hasbro.

 

I don't think many people that come to this site realize how much of a lemon a company is handing a writer if they're required to incorporate a toyline into episodes of a cartoon (people that have been on production teams for hit cartoons might be more aware).

Edited by SBaby
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More of this, huh? Guess it's nobody's fault but my own for clicking on this thread. Sometimes I wonder if there's a less grumpy forum I could flee to, but then, I was pretty much in your place when season 5 finished. Anyway: 

 

A Hearths Warming Tail was just a Christmas carol with ponies, that's it. There was no real notable creative twist too any of it, it was just the plot equivalent of paint by numbers with ponies. 

I maintain that replacing Jacob Marley with the windigo mythology and having Snowfall legitimately think what she was doing was best for everyone rather than merely being greedy and selfish gives "A Hearth's Warming Tail" a very distinct personality from "A Christmas Carol." You could argue that the ultimate message isn't even the same. Carol: "It's important to be generous." Tail: "There's nothing wrong with leisure." 

 

Aside from that - exposition wasn't a huge issue to me aside from a few small instances, "The Gift of the Maud Pie" had a lot of fun details and a different ending (although I never realized until now just how close to the original story it is), and I've already stated that I don't really think the characters acted dumb or regressed that much more often than in previous seasons. 

 

The "RIP M.A. Larson" thing was horribly unneeded. I don't think the writer of "It's About Time" needs to be mourned as some symbol of good writing in this show. I like his work but I also think he's terribly overrated by fans. 

 

Well to be fair, Twilight becoming an Alicorn was mandated by Hasbro, because they wanted to sell toys based on the concept of her being an Alicorn Princess.  So if you're going to blame anyone on that one, you have to blame Hasbro.

 

I don't think many people that come to this site realize how much of a lemon a company is handing a writer if they're required to incorporate a toyline into episodes of a cartoon (people that have been on production teams for hit cartoons might be more aware).

He says he had the script ultimately taken out of his hands, so I don't blame him too much for it, but whoever was responsible for the final version still deserves some of the blame for how atrociously it was handled. 

 

 

AJ's Day Off? Interesting premise, then we get 18 minutes of nothing literally happening, and an ending where we just make AJ an idiot

Newbie Dash? Dash finally achieves her lifelong goal, lets spend the entire episode completely humiliating her!

28 Pranks Later? We're gonna go back to one of our most hated episodes to see where we went wrong. You know what can help this episode? Let's add fucking zombies!

Every Little Thing She Does? Last episode before the finale which Starlight stars in, how can we get everyone to side with her? Leave her out for 2/3rds of the season, and make Starlight brainwash her friends out of laziness!

Apparently I'm weird or something, because aside from the lack of anything interesting in "AJ's Day Off," I don't have any of those problems with those episodes. Also, I apparently have no idea what everyone else dislikes about "Mare-Do-Well," because my biggest issue was that it contained too many scenes of Dash being humiliated, and "28 Pranks" had very few of those. It's way off from her previous character development, but it doesn't contradict its own moral. 

 

 

The episodes give you this unnerving feeling that our glorious writers have taken a bundle of regular run-of-the-mill plots and then made them work by any means necessary. In other words: they didn’t build an episode around a pony but a pony around an episode. 

There are a handful of episodes - in particular, "The Cart Before the Ponies," "28 Pranks Later," and "P.P.O.V." - where I think you have a point here; these episodes seemed to shoot for a specific moral and then bend character personalities lightly to suit that moral without adding the extra detail which would make that bending of characterization actually make any sense. I was more frustrated with the former two for just being overly simple, but I maintain that the characterization in "P.P.O.V." is pretty inexcusable. I don't think a whole lot of episodes this past season made such inexcusable mistakes, however, which apparently puts me in a minority. And yes, Starlight does seem to have been built around a specific character arc and not necessarily given the traits to stand out otherwise, but I don't think that approach is without merit. 

Edited by AlexanderThrond
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More of this, huh? Guess it's nobody's fault but my own for clicking on this thread. Sometimes I wonder if there's a less grumpy forum I could flee to, but then, I was pretty much in your place when season 5 finished. Anyway: 

There are a handful of episodes - in particular, "The Cart Before the Ponies," "28 Pranks Later," and "P.P.O.V." - where I think you have a point here; these episodes seemed to shoot for a specific moral and then bend character personalities lightly to suit that moral without adding the extra detail which would make that bending of characterization actually make any sense. I was more frustrated with the former two for just being overly simple, but I maintain that the characterization in "P.P.O.V." is pretty inexcusable. I don't think a whole lot of episodes this past season made such inexcusable mistakes, however, which apparently puts me in a minority. And yes, Starlight does seem to have been built around a specific character arc and not necessarily given the traits to stand out otherwise, but I don't think that approach is without merit. 

It’s not just character bending but episodes that do nothing exciting with the characters that are thrown in because they kinda fit. Newbie Dash, AJ’s Day Off, Gift of Maud, Viva Las Pegasus: why are these episodes there? Were they made because someone thought it’d be cool, or were they made because some writer was browsing though a catalogue for easy stories?

 

When a character is built around an arc and not the other way around, guess what happens to them when it’s finished? They get backgrounded, and for a damn good reason. Also, main characters usually get development in the arcs, because, well, that’s just a thing arcs do.

 

P.S: You actually like the grumpiness, don’t you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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It’s not just character bending but episodes that do nothing exciting with the characters that are thrown in because they kinda fit. Newbie Dash, AJ’s Day Off, Gift of Maud, Viva Las Pegasus: why are these episodes there? Were they made because someone thought it’d be cool, or were they made because some writer was browsing though a catalogue for easy stories?

 

When a character is built around an arc and not the other way around, guess what happens to them when it’s finished? They get backgrounded, and for a damn good reason. Also, main characters usually get development in the arcs, because, well, that’s just a thing arcs do.

 

P.S: You actually like the grumpiness, don’t you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I enjoy what "The Gift of the Maud Pie" and "Newbie Dash" do with those characters, and even think that "Viva Las Pegasus" is at least fun, which I think is worthwhile in its own right.

 

And I don't enjoy your bitterness, but I thind arguing with it sorta cathartic. Gettin' sick of it, though.

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He says he had the script ultimately taken out of his hands, so I don't blame him too much for it, but whoever was responsible for the final version still deserves some of the blame for how atrociously it was handled.

 

Yeah, I've even said before that the biggest flaw in the episode was that it was done in one part.  There were enough ideas in the episode to warrant two or even three parts.

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Only thing that 'bugged' me about the season as a whole was Starlight Glimmer.
Not that she existed, but that she and to a lesser extent Sunburst weren't Starswhirl.
I still wonder how the character arch those two had would be the same/different if they were.

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I enjoy what "The Gift of the Maud Pie" and "Newbie Dash" do with those characters, and even think that "Viva Las Pegasus" is at least fun, which I think is worthwhile in its own right.

 

And I don't enjoy your bitterness, but I thind arguing with it sorta cathartic. Gettin' sick of it, though.

Well enjoy your martyrdom then cause there’s plenty more where that came from!

 

You and I won’t be the final judges of these episodes. And when they fade away from the annals of this dork age, I shall pull them back into the light and compare them. To better seasons!

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Another Season 6 blog? Well okay, it was expected now that we had a new character in the show, it wasn't going to be perfect since they were experimenting with what to do with Starlight and it was probably to see what they can do better in Season 7. With the exception of the Starlight episodes, I felt that the remaining episodes were no different to previous seasons although I thought that those episodes were just not as good as they used to be since the novelty of Twilight not appearing sort of died off.

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I would like to see Starlight get more interactions with one of the characters at a time. And less focus on the Mane 6, come on we have seen enough of that, let background characters have a chance to shine.

 

That isn't gonna happen. I mean, imagine if everyone saw the Mane Six all not appearing much on the show. They'd all go, "Hey! Where's our favorite pony friends?" And they'd hate the show even more than it is now.

 

When Season 7 comes out, I'd rather have Starlight have more screen time/dialogue than Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity, but not Pinkie.

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The "RIP M.A. Larson" thing was horribly unneeded. I don't think the writer of "It's About Time" needs to be mourned as some symbol of good writing in this show. I like his work but I also think he's terribly overrated by fans. 

 

Its more what the video had to say than his credentials, though I posit "its about time" was a more fleshed out and interesting episode than most of the amateurish crap that went on this season.  

 

 

I felt that the remaining episodes were no different to previous seasons although I thought that those episodes were just not as good as they used to be since the novelty of Twilight not appearing sort of died off.

 

The only thing I felt similar to previous seasons in the majority of these episodes were the art and the actors. The writing has taken a steep nose dive into mediocrity, and if they keep on with writers of this poor quality then its going to plummet even further till even people with higher tolerance levels for inferior writing are going to see the cracks through the seams. 

 

I'm not saying MLP was ever a gold standard in this department, but this is the first season I felt like the writers were actually being lazy because "its just a kids show." Even at their worst I never thought that about the other seasons, but with this one that is the only thing that makes sense. 

Edited by Buck Testa
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Its more what the video had to say than his credentials, though I posit "its about time" was a more fleshed out and interesting episode than most of the amateurish crap that went on this season.  

 

 

 

The only thing I felt similar to previous seasons in the majority of these episodes were the art and the actors. The writing has taken a steep nose dive into mediocrity, and if they keep on with writers of this poor quality then its going to plummet even further till even people with higher tolerance levels for inferior writing are going to see the cracks through the seams. 

 

I'm not saying MLP was ever a gold standard in this department, but this is the first season I felt like the writers were actually being lazy because "its just a kids show." Even at their worst I never thought that about the other seasons, but with this one that is the only thing that makes sense. 

That was what concerned me about the previous seasons, they were more interested in what they and the company wanted to see in the show rather than listening to reviewers and fans to help improve on the show quality. With the exception of the Starlight episodes, I felt that the other episodes lacked in quality and it was just to fill the season, some of the episodes were just recycled from previous seasons with different themes and locations and there was still no major character development and when there were, they have taken a step back.

 

They can say all they want about being a kids show but we don't live in that age anymore and people can leave and adapt to other stuff very quickly if you are not careful, I also feel that some of the characters are just in the show because of their past success and don't really serve any real purpose in the show, this is especially the case with Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie in my opinion.

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Yeah I'd agree. the writing in season 6 was rather lackluster. To me it felt as if there was less passion there. For one thing Haber basically decided he wasn't going to do anything with the Mane 6 and instead focus on His OC  Starlight. Then he roped in the other long term writers from the show like Vogel and Conofane, the ones that were left anyways and gave the new writers the Mane 6 because he really didn't care about advancing them or allowing them to do anything because that would interfere with his pet being so great.  The thing is that there was a lot less passion in the writing, at least in certain regards. While I hate the Starlight episodes there was passion in them because Haber really wanted to force his new lead on the audience and didn't care about how the rest of the Mane 6 were portrayed because they weren't Starlight. Now a few of the writers were able to put passion into a lot of the characters like in Flutter Brutter and Saddle Row Review, but they were few and far between. That's not to say that all the episodes were bad but it's just they were painfully average in general, though there were some rather good ones in the mix when they tried. 

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That isn't gonna happen. I mean, imagine if everyone saw the Mane Six all not appearing much on the show. They'd all go, "Hey! Where's our favorite pony friends?" And they'd hate the show even more than it is now.

 

When Season 7 comes out, I'd rather have Starlight have more screen time/dialogue than Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity, but not Pinkie.

Yes. I find Pinkie Extremely annoying. 

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I also feel that some of the characters are just in the show because of their past success and don't really serve any real purpose in the show, this is especially the case with Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie in my opinion.

 

I agree with the sentiment, not with the character choices.

 

The characters who are in this season just cause of past success and didn't need to be there imo were the fan favorite side characters who showed up and revealed nothing new about their characters. Once again the only one I can think of out of the recurring side characters that actually showed more growth was Trixie (they've surprisingly handled her really well) 

Edited by Buck Testa
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Yes. I find Pinkie Extremely annoying. 

 

I think you misunderstood what I said. What I mean is, Starlight needs more screen time and dialogue than within just Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity for Season 7, but nopony else in the Mane Six.

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I think you misunderstood what I said. What I mean is, Starlight needs more screen time and dialogue than within just Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity for Season 7, but nopony else in the Mane Six.

Oh. Yeah she needs to do so. 

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Yes. I find Pinkie Extremely annoying. 

I thought I was the only one who found her annoying, all she did last year was annoy other ponies and use that annoying party cannon that she would never let go of, but I guess that's what being in the Mane 6 would do to her, the show would never cut/replace her because of what she did in the past.

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