Some say season 5 and 6 were bad

[Lil Pip 775]

Actually they say everything post season 2 is bad.

 

So lets say what we liked about seasons 3-6.

 

Season 5 had a multiplayer dream episode that may have referenced Undertale. 

 

This happened in season 5

 

Alot of people actually like Starlight Glimmer, so thats not entirely negative. 

 

Season 6 we got more Trixie.

 

Season 4 had Glass of Water song, it had Pinkie n AJ road trip song.

 

Season 5 had that Tree Hugger episode.

 

Season 4 had Pinkie Pride.

 

Season 4 had Maud Pie.

 

Season 5 had that Dash n Tank episode dealing with the 5 stages of loss. 

 

Season 5 opening had that cult stuff, which was darker than their usual stuff, and was better in some ways, and worse in others, but overall it being a newer experience i think it was worth while. Then season 5 finale was pretty crazy too. Idky people dis on it. Breaking their personal headcanons maybe.

 

Season 6 Had that creepy Starlight Glimmer episode, granted this triggered alot of bronies her mind controlling the mane 6, I don't see whats so wrong, she got berated at the end, and it was funny.

 

Then also that Season 6 Hearths warming episode was good.

 

 

So whats the problem anyways? 

 

Discuss, and share good moments from those seasons. Don't share bad moments, because thats cherry picking and doesn't prove the whole season is irredeemable because of a couple bad parts, these good parts proves it has value, even if it has some bad.

[FlareGun45 2,221]

Season 6 fixed Spike by giving him a song and giving him proper character development! I loved season 6 despite some of its flaws! I also enjoyed season 6's cutie map episodes more than season 5!

[ChocolateCrane 155]

Anyone who says season 5 was bad is off their f/ucking rocker. Season 6 may be more subjective, but I personally think it was better than any other season aside form 5.

 

Season 2 is by far the low point of the series, if you ask me.

[Firedog 320]

My opinion:

Season 1: Great! classics

Season 2: Awesome. Branches out a bit, more of same old same old

Season 3: Short but awesome, had some good episodes. 

Season 4: Amazing. Tried a lot of new stuff

Season 5: Good. had a big change in direction with the cutie map and focusing on secondary characters more.

Season 6: Good. Starlight is new main character of show. Contenuned season 5's focus of secondary characters.

 

That's just my opinion. If I was to give least favorite season it would probably be season 3 just because it was so short.

[Blackshirt Brony 415]

If someone hates season 5, they're probably just not an MLP fan. Season 6 wasn't any better or worse than most of the others IMO.

[Nerdy Luigi 2,064]

MLP version of more mild Genwunners (I've been getting into Pokémon recently...)? Sounds like a good analogy to me.

 

My General Opinion of the Seasons:

Season 1: Great season. (Can't say quite the same for Pokémon's 1st Gen with all the balance issues...)

Season 2: That season with the great character development episodes. (If only the CMC could have gotten in on it... *Cough cough* Scootaloo especially *cough cough*.)

Season 3: Will be remembered for being the worst because of it's (sorry if you don't like the next word, but it describes it perfectly IMO) CRINGY finale.

Season 4: Probably my favorite season by far. (I could probably find all of my top 3 favorites in here.)

Season 5: Mixxed bag, but the probabilities were generally quite favorable. (Though still the worst to me other than S3, though not trailing S1/S2/S6 by much.)

Season 6: Good aside from a few absolutely terrible episodes... (Like On Your Marks and The Cart Before the Ponies...)

[Jeric 46,834]

Season One - simple yet clever. Still introducing the world and characters. Has my second favorite episode.

 

Season Two - My second favorite season anchored by a superb opening and finale.

 

Season Three - acceptable but has a horrible stinker to good to great ratio.

 

Season Four - Solid season that actually tried some really need directions with the characters and nailed some character specific episodes perfectly.

 

Season Five is hands down my favorite season, for more reasons than I can count.

 

Season Six was a success, but it had a few episodes that were either conceptual misses or just plain boring. Even within good episodes you felt a little inconsistency. Has the most amount of average episodes, and is also the season with the fewest repeat viewings after initial airing. The great episodes made this season a plus even with the amount of middling episodes. Six is just weird for me.

[Megas 27,048]

I thought Seasons 3-5 were great, they have all the episodes I remember more fondly

 

Season 6 though is really the only season I can say I don't like much

Edited March 8, 2017 by Whompy Whomperson

[Thrond 3,257]

I don't think I'll ever understand why seasons 4 and 5 are so popular, but sure, I guess I'll bite.

 

The latest few seasons all had one episode which I think is among the best the show has ever had. "Wonderbolts Academy" for 3, "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" for 4, "Bloom and Gloom" for 5, and "A Hearth's Warming Tail" for 6.

 

Season 3 is sort of experimental and does a lot of kimda unique things. Its brevity keeps it from outstayong its welcome like seasons 4 and (to a lesser extent) 6 do, and I like most of the episodes to varying extents.

 

Season 4 has those key episodes, which mostly range from forgettable to utterly delightful, as well as that intense finale. It clumps its weakest bits together, but it does have a good few strong ideas even if it makes little effort to expand on the characters most of the time. I appreciate the ending of "Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3," for example.

 

Season 5 has its good spots too. It's definitely more ambitious than season 4, and it has both Rarity establishing the Canterlot Boutique and the CMC getting their cutie marks. Amid all the compromises and tedium, moments like that stand out, and both "Slice of Life" and "Rarity Investigates" are among the best episodes this show has produced.

 

I don't need to be so backhanded with season 6. The CMC have new direction, Starlight Glimmer provides some novelty in the main cast, Rainbow Dash becomes a Wonderbolt, there's the best holiday episode, and every time an episode was kinda dull I could expect a more enjoyable or at least more adventurous one around the corner. I think it's the most I've liked this show since season 2. I'm really glad that the whole thing where the mane six teach other characters without learning anything themselves is done with, which isn't the highest bar, but it's a sign that the show has its priorities straight. Plus, the first half all the way through "Stranger Than Fan Fiction" is the best run this show's had in ages. I feel it had a lot of genuinely good ideas, and I feel it was way more character-driven than the previous two seasons, which I loved. Season 6 even made me like Trixie, and I never thought that could happen.

[ChocolateCrane 155]

The latest few seasons all had one episode which I think is among the best the show has ever had. "Wonderbolts Academy" for 3, "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" for 4, "Bloom and Gloom" for 5, and "A Hearth's Warming Tail" for 6.

 

 

^Excellent taste in episodes if I do say so myself.

 

Now face the wrath of my walls of text! (this is in reference to the topic of the thread in general, not just your post ^^)

 

Something I've noticed is, during season 1, the series was very relaxed. Character interactions felt genuine, and mostly everything was very low on the scale of "importance". In season 2, the writers were fully aware of the older demographic the show attracted, and became obsessed with catering to them almost exclusively. The fan pandering was duly noted by the fandom, however, and most fans felt the series lost its innocence as well as its genuineness, as did I. Not only had everything become tryhard and over-the-top, but they did a BAD job implementing these risky ideas as well.

 

After the show came back from hiatus, season 3 seemed like a return to form for the series. There was much less cringe-worthy nonsense, and character interactions didn't feel quite as forced. The animation quality got a bump, as it did in season 2 (the 2nd season's bump was really more in regard to new vector animations and facial expressions for the each of the characters, while season 3's concentrated more on diversifying the color palette, as well as smoothing out said animations). All this was great, of course, however, season 3 was only 13 episodes long, which led many to fear the series may have been on its way out.

 

To fill the large gap between season 3 and 4, Dhx (the studio behind MLP: FIM) created a new IP based on the MLP universe"Equestria Girls". It was clearly a marketing ploy by Hasbro in order to get their dwindling delicious loli demographic to buy more toys, since, in Equestria Girls all the main characters are transformed into high school girls (besides Spike ofc. He gets demoted to a dog lol), and lets be honest, what's more marketable to little girls than cute Barbie doll-esque characters they can dress up? So yeah, it was supposedly non-canonical to the main series, but that didn't stop bronies the world over from threatening to commit suicide. *rolls eyes*

 

Equestria Girls was pretty fucking shitty. Thankfully they VASTLY improved upon the 2 sequels which came out years later.

 

Anyway, season 4 finally came to fruition, and right off the bat from the first episode, you could tell they were kicking things up a notch. The main characters started going through meticulous introspection, questions afraid to be asked in previous seasons were laid out in full, and over all things just started to get legitimately.... Good. I was kinda shocked, because, honestly the main reason I attached myself to this show in the beginning was merely because the characters were cute, and MLP was the PERFECT thing to troll people with online. I never actually expected it to become a quality cartoon able to compete with favorites of mine, such as Animaniacs, Samurai Jack, PowerPuff Girls, etc. Season 4 did a wonderful job of taking what season 3 set out to do, fully realizing it, and then expanding on it even further. Animation quality was improved upon once again, adding intense volumetric lighting effects which resulted in many beautiful set pieces strewn across the season. It was a full 26 episodes long, and concluded in such a way that I couldn't even conceive there being any way they could possibly follow up to it without being a disappointment....

 

 

...then came Season 5...

 

What can I say, even? There's nothing... no words can do this masterpiece justice...

 

-sigh- I suppose I must say SOMETHING, considering the friggin essay I wrote above >.>;

Season 5 made me question reality; how something of such magnanimous quality could even EXIST on television braodcasting utterly perplexed me. It made season 4 look like a joke in comparison. The best way to put it, would probably be (and this is complete speculation on my part) that DHX was planning on this being the final season of the show and they wanted every single idea, all those magnificent pipe dreams they WISHED could have been implemented earlier on, to be incorporated into the fifth season. Not only did they reach for the stars (an act which all but destroyed their credibility in season 2) but they took hold of them and lifted themselves through the stratosphere to never before seen heights of literary and cinematographic mastery!

 

They went places in this season... that you wouldn't expect them to even go NEAR in this kind of cartoon. And I'm saying even after watching the season 4 finale.

 

Season 6 followed shortly after, and it succeeded in meeting my expectations in nearly every way imaginable. While it "met" my expectations, it did not quite "shatter" them as season 4 and 5 had done in the past. I believe season 6 is perhaps a slight improvement over 4 in overall quality. One of the least interesting characters of season 5 (Starlight Glimmer) was fleshed out in an extremely satisfying way. I would go as far as to say, Starlight was by far the most enjoyable character to watch in season 6. This season also managed to pull off "fluidity" extremely well.

 

During season 6, Equestria Girls: Legend of the Everfree was released, and Jesus Christ was it bad. I was flabbergasted at the HUGE decrease in quality from the last two movies.... it makes me a bit worried for the 2017 movie tbh...

 

Here's a concise visual representation meant to function as a TL:DR for the more impatient among you ^^

 

Edited March 8, 2017 by ChocolateCrane

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

Seasons four and five brought back classic generation one MLP villains and re-invented them for the current generation while still retaining their original concept. Also, Spike is now finally getting the great episodes he's been wanting for a very long time, and the world's lore continues to grow at a pretty decent pace.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Ganondorf8

[FirePuppy 621]

Episodes I didn't like much from Season 6 were:

• The Cart Before the Ponies
• Applejack's "Day" Off
• Gauntlet of Fire
• Stranger Than Fan Fiction
• 28 Pranks Later
• P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)

So this season, some characters got "waste" episodes, mainly Rarity and Rainbow Dash. But in Season 7, we can't let this happen again. After all, nopony should ever get the most attention throughout an entire season.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

If i say there is no such thing as a drop in quality after S5, i will be a big liar   Some episodes just played too safe, didnt live up to my expectation, some episodes are good but nothing to be crazy about, some episodes are freaking amazing but still cant beat the last season's amazing (until now, it hard to beat Amending Fences, Lesson Zero, Slice of Life, Crusader of the Lost Mark....). The best parts of Season 6 (for me) are great episodes with great moral lessons with uncanny realistic scenerios like Stranger than Fanfiction (Broken Base), Spice Up Your life (Critics and how to think for yourself), Flutter Brutter (jobless guy and fear of failure), Newbie Dash ( hazing in military), The times they are changeling (Racism), No Second Prances (Great and Powerful Suicide Attempt), Every Little Thing She Does (Social Anxiety or potential Autism/Sociopathic) and A Hearth Warming Tail (Christmas nowaday is just for commercial purposes), these things alone made S6 my 3rd favorite season. My biggest disappointment is how they use Starlight Glimmer, she only appear in the episode if the plot demand it, the whole trying to force her become mane 7 is a big letdown, she is more amazing with Trixie, Thorax, Discord, Spike and Twilight, trying to shove her to Mane 6 group bring her down, i hope S7 will do it properly or just drop it, make her episodes with Discord/Spike/Twilight or any upcoming new character......

 

...... Anyway, Season 6 is not a good follow up after god-tier Season 5 but still a great season, i love it more than Season 4. Too bad, a lot of people dont like this season...

 

 

Here's a concise visual representation meant to function as a TL:DR for the more impatient among you ^^  

Wait what, Season 2 is below 5 score!???? Is this chart legit ?   How can God-tier Season 2 be this low? This has to be a joke, right?

 

 

 

Season 2 is by far the low point of the series, if you ask me.

Wait what!? Season 2 master race!!!!!!! How can you forget a LOT of classic and amazing episodes in that season   

[Thrond 3,257]

Wait what, Season 2 is below 5 score!???? Is this chart legit ? How can God-tier Season 2 be this low? This has to be a joke, right?

 

Wait what!? Season 2 master race!!!!!!! How can you forget a LOT of classic and amazing episodes in that season

Far as I'm concerned, the last few episodes of season 1 was where the storylines began to provide extra depth and greater detail to the main characters, and season 2 doubled down on it. I like season 2 because it emphasizes specific character development, moving away from the relationship focus of season 1 and not having the exhausting gimmick/plot emphasis of Seasons 4 and 5. Season 6 was my favourite since 2 because it was so character-oriented and because it tried to experiment rather than playing on prior hopes and expectations.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

 

 

emphasizes specific character development

Well, Season 4 has good character development episodes too,  it has Rarity Takes Manehattan (Rarity), Testing testing (RD and Twilight), Pinkie Pride (Pinkie Pie), It aint easy being breezies (Fluttershy), Flight to Finish (Scootaloo),  Equestria Games (Spike)

 

 

 

it tried to experiment rather than playing on prior hopes and expectations.

Season 6 is wierd to me, some episodes are just too uncannily realistic to me   (like Flutter Brutter, Newbie Dash, Stranger than Fanfiction), but on the other hand, some episodes plot are just... too basic and predictable, like Where Apple Lies, P.P.O.V, Gift of the Maud Pie or even A Hearth Warming Tails (i love this ep to death, but I cant deny it just use Christmas Carol plot with a little variation), i hear the word "predictable" a lot when a group of people talk about S6 episodes... yeah, i think there arent many Wow factors in season 6, i remember when i hold my breath and scream like a little girl when i first saw Derby talk in Slice of Life or CMC got their cutie marks.... 

[GrimGrimoire 4,970]

Some say a lot of things.

 

The upcoming film is the beginning of the apocalypse.

S6 spelled doom for the series and now it is in a death spiral

The show has been dying since S1.

Starlight is killing MLP.

The Remane 5 have been useless since S1.

The writers are incompetent and could not write a paragraph on the back of a cereal box.

etc....

 

Really it is just the same things over and over. A constant stream of negativity and unhappiness. Overall I have liked every season of the show... there have been episodes in every one of them I have found forgettable or uninteresting but nothing that ruins my day like it seems to for so many others. Also, I don't expect to like them all or find them some beacon I can point to as a pinnacle of writing or anything of the like. The show has as much value as you want to put into it.... which for anyone struggling to do so it is painfully obvious it has none for them, so why they go through the motions is an utter mystery. So yeah, people say a lot of things... most of which you can fill a pitcher with, but it won't water any gardens.

 

That being said.

 

S1 - I got an awesome fun cartoon show.

S2 - I got Discord

S3 - I got Princess Twilight

S4 - I got a season long story arc that was interesting

S5 - I got the CMC getting their cutie marks

S6 - I got more Trixie and what i consider an experiment in the series and the future of its direction.(although this could be a bad thing i suppose if it goes in a direction I don't like)

[MAIKUN 262]

Season 5: Hate the CMC having their Cutie Marks

Season 6: New direction of the CMC

[Thrond 3,257]

Well, Season 4 has good character development episodes too, it has Rarity Takes Manehattan (Rarity), ... Pinkie Pride (Pinkie Pie)

 

 

I'd struggle to say that Rarity or Pinkie really learn a whole lot new from those episodes, as much as I enjoy them. They're largely just having things they already knew reaffirmed, and those episodes get by more on charm, energy and emotional kick than any sort of fresh take on the characters. S4 was more enjoyable on my second full watchthrough, admittedly.

[Baykush 328]

One thing I've noticed since season 4 is that there are a lot more "cringy" moments. I can't remember many times that made me cringe watching seasons 1-3, but even if those cringy moments in the last seasons weren't as bad as some bad moments in the former seasons for some reason they're more memorable (in a negative way). I think it's because at first the show was more simple, but as it started gaining more complexity it made those "silly" moments less enjoyable. That's a negative result of what seems to be a mostly good thing for the show, that probably explains why Twilight having a breakdown about missing a deadline is the funniest thing ever while Rainbow Dash having a breakdown over her pet is just unbearable to watch (there's more to it but I think it's a good example).

 

Season 3 doesn't feel that much different from season 2, I could put some of its episodes in the middle of that season and they wouldn't feel out of place (in fact the first time I watched season I also watched some episodes of season 3 by mistake). Overall it was a great season, there aren't any episodes I actually dislike and while it was more experimental than the former seasons, it's not so much that it feels too different. Season 4 is when MLP starts to feel like a different show, but ironically it also felt like they were playing it too safe with the changes they were trying to make, so that's why it wasn't as good as the other seasons in my opinion, even if it had some of the best episodes of the show (like Flight To The Finish, Pinkie Pride, Maud Pie and Testing Testing 123) there also episodes like Daring Don't, Power Ponies and Trade Ya, which I just found to be kind of dumb.

 

Season 5 is when the writers got comfortable with the new style and they were more ambitious, and that's why it's my favorite season of the show. Episodes like The Cutie Map, Bloom & Gloom and Amending Fences and Crusaders Of The Lost Mark were surprisingly mature and great, the characterization improved (specially Pinkie Pie, I was going from loving her to disliking her in season 4), and there were also less serious episodes that still managed to be great (like Party Pooped, Rarity Investigates and The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows). Unlike season 4 I think the worst episodes were the ones that had a great premise but failed to execute it, like Tanks For The Memories and Do Princesses Dream Of The Magic Sheep.

 

Season 6 is the most experimental season of the show, and it's kind of weird because of that. Then again the worst episodes were the ones that were playing it too safe, a common criticism I heard was that the characters were acting like they did in the first seasons (28 pranks later) or that it was just boring and dull (like in AJ's Day Off and The Cart Before The Ponies). Aside from that, I think it was a mostly solid season, Starlight was a great addition and she was always enjoyable to watch, I liked all her episodes, I also liked what they were doing with the CMC, and I loved On Your Marks (criminally underrated imo) and The Fault In Our Cutie Marks. There were episodes like Newbie Dash and Flutter Brutter, which were very weird and uncanny for the kind of show MLP is, but that were very good in my opinion, I also loved episodes like Spice Up Your Life, The Saddlw Row Review and Dungeons & Discords. 

 

Each season from best to worst, according to me, would go like this: S5, S2/S6, S1, S3, S4.

[Aurora Glimmer 494]

Season 5 is my second-favorite season after Season 2. In fact, it would've been my favorite season if it hadn't been for the shoddy ending of The Cutie Re-Mark (there's a reason my avatar is of evil Starlight Glimmer and not her after she's been reformed). I think that while Season 6 pales in comparison to Season 5, there are also a number of Season 6 episodes which I enjoy and think are legitimately good.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Aurora Glimmer

[cmarston1 5,951]

While I wouldn't call season 6 terrible, or at least I like it more than some others do, it did feel like a step down from seasons 4 and 5.

My favorite seasons would have to be seasons 4,5, and 3.

Magical Mystery Cure was the episode that got me really invested into the show and made it more than just one of the many shows I was following at the time, plus I am happy that every season afterward we managed to get musical episodes as well.

Season 4 had my favorite premiere and my favorite finale, and had the most amount of episodes in a single season that I consider to be my all time favorites, plus I really liked the whole box and rainbow connection storyline.

Season 5 while started out a bit dull for me, I warmed up to it, and I really enjoyed the second half.

And there are a decent amount of episodes that I really enjoyed out of it.

Season 6 had Spike and Fluttershy (two of my favorite characters) were portrayed pretty well, and I did really enjoy the finale.

[MissDiamond 157]

My favorite seasons were the first two ones, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the rest of them, especially season 6. 

 

As I said before, the show is very well written no matter if it had bad episodes. 

 

My list of favorite seasons: 

1.Season 1

2.Season 2

3.Season 6

4.Season 3

5.Season 5

6.Season 4

 

Season 4 lacked something for me(I loved that they introduced more characters but I didn't like it much because it started to annoy me for the very same reason. Introducing new ponies could also be an annoyance to me).

 

Again, season 5 and 3 were decent and shouldn't be considered as worse than 4th in my opinion. 

 

I also have to mention that Season 3 had only 13 episodes and the finale was interestingly bad(but not enough for me not to enjoy the season). I was shocked when I watched the very end of finale and only the celestia's song was boring to me(I am so sorry). 

[LunarShadow 397]

I cant say i dislike any of the seasons but i prefer Season 1 and 2 over the rest with Season 1 being my ultimate favorite for reasons of Nostalgia and having one of the best Episodes out of the entire franchise. Winter Wrap Up anypony?

 

 

[Violet_S 783]

I honestly dont know why they say that.. I found them both to be pretty good. Sure, they have their bad episodes but EVERY season has those...not to mention we all had different hopes for those seasons so maybe some people were expecting way more than what they received. 

[Snow Frostflame 3,567]

I'd go as far as to say season 5 was the best season, though everyone has their opinion. As for what I saw in season 6... its not great, but I wouldn't say its the worst, that title goes to season 3. The episodes weren't all that great (except one). The season finale was more rushed than the ending to Chowder. And they cut the season short at just 13 episodes. I had heard a rumor why they did it, and that they had more episodes planned but were inevitably scraped.