My opinion on season 8

[Moonlight-Shine 7]

Season 8 was a pretty good season, my fav episode was "Horse Play" It was just really funny and season 8 as a whole to me is my second or third favourite season.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

Season 8 was very good... overall. It wasn't as good as Season 7 (Which to be fair, was a tough act to follow), but it was still a very solid season.

The showrunners took risks by Introducing the School of Friendship and the Student 6, and I feel that for the most part, the risks paid off.

The writers did a mostly good job of showcasing and developing the students. There were instances where they nerfed/regressed the Mane 6 to prop up the students, but those moments were very far and few between. For the most part, the students are utilized well and are portrayed to be on equal ground with Twilight and co.

The character who unfortunately got the short end of the stick this season was Pinkie Pie. She still had her moments in the season, but her focus episodes were okay "The Maud Couple" to just plain awful "Yakity Sax." Another issue I have with this season is the frequent referencing of events or places in the Movie. 

The first half was meh with a lot of good/great episodes, but also a few weak/bad episodes.  Luckily, the second half of Season 8 really brought it up a couple of points thanks to several great episodes and a very good finale.

Overall, despite those flaws, the positives of Season 8 do outweigh the negatives, and make for yet another entertaining and solid entry in the series.

 

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

Why were references to the movie apparently one of S8's issues? I considered them to be mostly understandable (although I confess to liking the movie more than a considerable number of people around here seem to) but I can see the issues regarding continuity lockout. 

As for season 8 itself, whilst not among the better seasons (1, 2 and 4 for me), I consider it to be about on par with S5 and a notable step up from the relatively bland S6 and the ambitious-but-unsatisfying S7 (although I suspect that the latter isn't exactly a popular opinion around these parts). Whilst the highs (save for "Horse Play" and a small number from the second half) were far from the show's greatest, the duds were certainly a 'softer-hitting' denomination of bad as opposed to the more nefarious rancidity of S6 ("Flutter Brutter", "The Cart Before the Ponies", "28 Pranks Later", "P.P.O.V") and S7 ("Fluttershy Leans In", "Hard to Say Anything", "Honest Apple", "Daring Done?")'s lows (although Fake It and NNC were undeniably awful). The second half was additionally an improvement over the first, but nonetheless never even attained the level of S4's high (despite increased consistency). 

Personal season ranking: S2 > S4 > S1 > S5 > S8 > S7 > S3 > S6

Top 5: "Horse Play", "Marks for Effort". "The Mean Six", "The Hearth's Warming Club" ("But it could've FALLEN IN THE FIRE!"), "On the Road to Friendship"

Bottom 5: "Fake It 'Til You Make It", "Surf and/or Turf" (what a nothing of an episode), "The Parent Map" (pretty blah), "Non-Compete Clause", "A Matter of Principals"

Edited October 14, 2018 by Them's Seeing Ponies

[cuteycindyhoney 13,308]

I liked season eight referencing the movie. Chronologically, the movie is sort of a season 7.B and season eight comes immediately after it. It's part of the reason behind Twilight wanting to start her school. Spreading friendship through their whole planet may help prevent things like the events of the movie from happening again.

Edited October 14, 2018 by cuteycindyhoney

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

58 minutes ago, Them's Seeing Ponies said:

Why were references to the movie apparently one of S8's issues? I considered them to be mostly understandable (although I confess to liking the movie more than a considerable number of people around here seem to) but I can see the issues regarding continuity lockout. 

As for season 8 itself, whilst not among the better seasons (1, 2 and 4 for me), I consider it to be about on par with S5 and a notable step up from the relatively bland S6 and the ambitious-but-unsatisfying S7 (although I suspect that the latter isn't exactly a popular opinion around these parts). Whilst the highs (save for "Horse Play" and a small number from the second half) were far from the show's greatest, the duds were certainly a 'softer-hitting' denomination of bad as opposed to the more nefarious rancidity of S6 ("Flutter Brutter", "The Cart Before the Ponies", "28 Pranks Later", "P.P.O.V") and S7 ("Fluttershy Leans In", "Hard to Say Anything", "Honest Apple", "Daring Done?")'s lows (although Fake It and NNC were undeniably awful). The second half was additionally an improvement over the first, but nonetheless never even attained the level of S4's high (despite increased consistency). 

Personal season ranking: S2 > S4 > S1 > S5 > S8 > S7 > S3 > S6

Top 5: "Horse Play", "Marks for Effort". "The Mean Six", "The Hearth's Warming Club" ("But it could've FALLEN IN THE FIRE!"), "On the Road to Friendship"

Bottom 5: "Fake It 'Til You Make It", "Surf and/or Turf" (what a nothing of an episode), "The Parent Map" (pretty blah), "Non-Compete Clause", "A Matter of Principals"

No, your take on S7 is not exactly a popular opinion.

And by the way, "Surf and/or Turf" is one of my favorite episodes of S8.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

12 minutes ago, Theanimationfanatic said:

No, your take on S7 is not exactly a popular opinion.

And by the way, "Surf and/or Turf" is one of my favorite episodes of S8.

I don't exactly hate "Surf and/or Turf" but found it to be a little too fluffy for my tastes. Yes, the plot was centered on a number of interesting concepts and the worldbuilding was creative (actually some of the most creative in the entire show), but it never felt as if anything was really at stake or if there are really even that much of a conflict. The narrative revolves around Terramar basically overthinking the consequences of his own decision as well, which felt a little like a cop-out to me. Different strokes, I guess. 

[FirePuppy 735]

3 hours ago, Theanimationfanatic said:

The character who unfortunately got the short end of the stick this season was Pinkie Pie. She still had her moments in the season, but her focus episodes were okay "The Maud Couple" to just plain awful "Yakity Sax." 

I definitely agree. To make matters worse, she ended up appearing the least out of all the main characters (including Starlight and Spike) in this season, and possibly even less than a Student Six pony as well. I hope the short end of the stick in Season 9 will either go to Rarity or Rainbow Dash.

Edited October 14, 2018 by FirePuppy

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

Just now, FirePuppy said:

I definitely agree. To make matters worse, she ended up appearing the least out of all the main characters (including Starlight and Spike) in this season, and possibly even less than a Student Six pony as well. I hope the short end of the stick in Season 9 will either go to Rarity or Rainbow Dash.

I don't think any character deserves the short end of the stick, TBH. 

[Thrond 3,263]

I liked it more often than I didn't, but a lot of the episodes I enjoyed were a relatively mild sort of enjoyment. The second half is quite popular, but although I will concede that I enjoy almost every episode in the run from "On the Road to Friendship" on, few of them are up there with my favourites, and I found myself regularly irritated with the show's insistence on high-stakes stories and oversimplified moralizing. My favourite run of episodes this season, rather, is "The Break Up Break Down" through "Friendship University." Still, I feel this season goes in a lot of unexpected directions which the show really should have followed through with a while ago - stuff like "Molt Down" with its puberty metaphor, "The Hearth's Warming Club" directly admitting Gallus is an orphan, and "The Washouts" revolving around disability are genuinely surprising to me, and the worldbuilding has been massively improved this season as well. I feel that the new school gimmick has also allowed the show to explore some storylines which might not have been possible previously. 

Alas, as has been the case for me since season 5, I think the mane 6 were just not very interesting or entertaining most of the time. I get the distinct sense that several of the writers either don't understand or don't care about those characters. And some of the episodes this season are borderline incompetent, though those aren't necessarily my least favourites. How stuff like "Fake It Till You Make It," "Non Compete Clause," "The End in Friend," or "Yakity Sax" were even approved boggles the mind. Furthermore, while the school has expanded the show a little bit, a lot of its potential has been unfulfilled, to the point that the show too often still feels like it's stuck in the past. There's a weird dichotomy there, where so much of what this season does is genuinely novel and ambitious for this show, and yet it also seems downright regressive in how poorly it tries to replicate the show's old strengths. 

I do think each season of this show is different in noticeable ways, and on paper - at least how I see it - the balance of trends here is a lot like my beloved season 6, but the sheer numbers are off: I liked fewer episodes in season 8 than I did in season 6, and most of them I enjoyed less than those I liked in season 6. 

I'll probably expand on this at a later point. 

8 hours ago, Them's Seeing Ponies said:

Personal season ranking: S2 > S4 > S1 > S5 > S8 > S7 > S3 > S6

Top 5: "Horse Play", "Marks for Effort". "The Mean Six", "The Hearth's Warming Club" ("But it could've FALLEN IN THE FIRE!"), "On the Road to Friendship"

Bottom 5: "Fake It 'Til You Make It", "Surf and/or Turf" (what a nothing of an episode), "The Parent Map" (pretty blah), "Non-Compete Clause", "A Matter of Principals"

My ranking: S2 > S1 > S4 > S6 > S8 > S3 > S5 > S7

Top 5: "Horse Play," "The Mean Six," "Marks for Effort" "The Hearth's Warming Club," "Molt Down"

Bottom 5: "Non-Compete Clause," "Fake It 'Til You Make It," "The Parent Map," "The End in Friend," "Sounds of Silence"

 

[Kion 7,407]

5 hours ago, FirePuppy said:

I definitely agree. To make matters worse, she ended up appearing the least out of all the main characters (including Starlight and Spike) in this season, and possibly even less than a Student Six pony as well. I hope the short end of the stick in Season 9 will either go to Rarity or Rainbow Dash.

Not true she appeared more than starlight.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

Season 8 has very good build-up for its story arc, every ep that build up to the finale (School Daze, Mark for Effort, Friendship University, What Lies Beneath) give us a thrill to see what coming next and they are the good standalone story as well.

The only thing that bother me is the mane 6 episodes are not as great as they should be (remember when we got Hurricance Fluttershy, Pinkie Pride, Rarity Take Manehattan?). This season just has many great great episodes the same amount of past seasons but the bad news is they are not mane 6 episodes (as a group or as an invididual).

 

Edited October 15, 2018 by Lambdadelta

[Here No Longer 5,276]

I guess I'll be the first here to say: I didn't like Season 8. It's my second least favorite season. I've explained why plenty enough so I'll keep it short. The season had very, very inconsistent episode quality, poor characterization for most of the mane six, and awkward pacing (started a bit too slow, and then suddenly went into overdrive towards the end).

Another thing to add to that list: It felt like the season took until "What Lies Beneath" to get going on the actual story arc, and then completely dropped it until the finale that didn't even do much to actually further it whatsoever (my opinion, of course). There were plenty of red herrings, and episodes that could have delivered on the front, but they really didn't. There were no real consequences for the actual story most of the time and they just wasted the potential for actual story development. 

 

My personal rankings:

Personal season ranking: S4>S7>S2>S1>S5>>S6>>S8>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>S3

Top 5: "Rockhoof and a Hard Place", "The Mean Six", "The Break-Up Breakdown", "Grannies Gone Wild", "What Lies Beneath"

Bottom 5: "Fake It 'Til You Make It", "The End In Friend", "The Non-Compete Clause", "Yakity Sax", "Father Knows Beast"

Edited October 15, 2018 by ~Dusky~

[Dark Qiviut 22,444]

It's no secret around the site that I LOVE season 8. Back in the day, a lot of bronies were just so excited for episodes in S1 and 2. Season 8 is like that for me. Some exceptions aside, I looked forward to virtually every single episode. S8 from HW Club forward doesn't have one episode below decent (including the severely underrated Yakity-Sax), making it its second-best run of the series. But its best came within, from Road to Friendship to Sounds of Silence; all five are among the best of the series. I was pumped from the start, and I'm glad I did.

Fuller detail from a recent status:

Quote

School Raze comes the end of S8. What a ride. I first saw S8 when seven first-half episodes were originally leaked, and I leapt onto the hype train immediately. The first four episodes gave me worries, but from GGW onward, I never not looked forward to it again. It doesn't quite reach the highs of S5, but it achieved something that no other season did: solid consistency. Fame & Misfortune's the worst one last year; neither Non-Compete Clause nor Fake It are close to its quality. When it was good, it was great, home of the biggest collection of the best episodes of the series.

Dubuc, Haber, et al knew what they were doing; this arc persisted throughout in the background and front with few hiccups. Haber himself showed massive improvement as editor last season upon his return, but season 8 eliminated all doubts, proving why he and Dubuc are perfect choices to co-edit the series. This is the show's second-best season, and I can't wait for season 9!

---

Season ranking: 5 > 8 > 7 > 2 > 1 > 4 > 3 > 6.

Top-Eight:

1. A Rockhoof and a Hard Place: A+
2. The Break Up Break Down: A+
3. The Hearth's Warming Club: A
4. On the Road to Friendship: A
5. The Washouts: A
6. The Mean 6: A
7. Surf and/or Turf: A
8. Grannies Gone Wild: A

Bottom-Three:

1. Fake It 'Til You Make It: F
2. Non-Compete Clause: D-
3. A Matter of Principals: C-

Here's the rest of the list.

[heavens-champion 1,905]

I'm not sure, but I think I lost interest after the 23rd episode, because I skipped Father Knows Beast and the season finale. Eh, wouldn't be the first time. The same thing happened when I watched Season 6. Season eight was okay...

Edited October 15, 2018 by heavens-champion

[bigbertha 414]

This season is meh. It's definitely an improvement over season 7, but it's still not an overall good season to me. While there were attempts at making the mane six interesting again and bringing back the fun like "The Maud Couple", "The Washouts", "The Break Up Break Down", "Horse Play", "Fake it Till You Make It", and "Road to Friendship", there were still too many episodes that just end up as boring and wasted potential. "Surf and/or Turf" doesn't go deep enough into Tarramar's conflict to be engaging, "Molt Down" wastes a lot of time repeating the same puberty and "Rarity has her ears clogged" jokes, "The End in Friend" plays things so safe that there's just no impact, etc.

The biggest problem here is that it tried to have a season long arc. Not like season 4 which had the chest thing in otherwise standalone episodes. This season tried to have overarching characters and plotlines. The issue is that this show is really bad at that. When the season was over, I still didn't see much in the Student Six past their base character traits and Cozy Glow still ended up as a very generic manipulator antagonist. Episodes that should've been expanding the story like "Friendship U" and "The Mean Six", ended up just being unrelated stories with overarching characters shoved in for no reason other than to tell us once again that Cozy Glow is evil or not even have anything to do with the arc. It feel like the writers wanted to make a more story driven season, but also realized that doing that would be a really radical departure from everything before, so they just half assed it.

If season 9 wants to be better, it should either learn to make a story arc that's interesting or drop all of that and go back to just having fun with the mane six.

Season Rankings: S2>S6>S3>S4>S1>S5=S8>S7

Top 5: "The Washouts", "The Break Up Breakdown", "Road to Friendship", "Horse Play", "The Parent Map"

Bottom 5: "Father Knows Beast", "The Mean Six", "Yakity-Sax", "The End in Friend", "What Lies Beneath"

[RulesofRarity 493]

While I hated the school setup this season(The Mane 6 aren't qualified at all to be teachers and nothing this season convinced me otherwise), I'll admit that this season was at least better than the fanservice, lore prioritisation over actual story mess that was Season 7. Twilight's characterisation was just awful this season, I'm so sick of her forgetting lessons that she's already learnt in previous episodes. It's so sad because she use to be one of my favorite characters but now I find her one of the most obnoxious.

Here's my Top 5 episodes of S8:

1. Sounds of Silence
2. The Washouts
3. Molt Down
4. A Rockhoof and a Hard Place
5. Grannies Gone Wild

Here's my Worst 5 episodes of S8:

1. Yaxity Sax
2. The Parent Map
3. Horse Play
4. Father Knows Beast
5. A Matter of Principals

Ranking of the seasons:

S2 > S6 > S4 > S4 > S3 > S1 > S5 > S8 > S7

[Landi 600]

I am not a big fan of season 8. First off, the season introduced the School of Friendship which is a bad plot device meant to sell more playsetts. Second, the show stops showing focus for the Mane six, and the show is too busy trying to build up the student six and failing to do so. Third, most of the episodes were either inconsistent, boring, or just downright bad. This is by far my least favorite season of MLP.

[Megas 27,748]

I genuinely like Season 8, but I can't deny there's....a ton of problems with it. Everything about the Friendship School, from the concept to it's execution is awful, and a ton of episodes featuring it is usually bad, and I think The End In Friend highlights this, where the inclusion of the School actively makes both the situation and the episode worse, and the moment the episode ditches the school it gets significantly better. Then a lot of the season is just wildly uneven, it has some high highs(at least enough for me to recommend it over something like S6) and there aren't too many low lows, like I don't even hate Yakity Sax or Fake it Till You Make it(though hearing Yakity Sax was some of the staff's favorite episode of the season was really worrying), but when it got bad it got bad. I honestly think Non Compete Clause and A Matter of Principals are some of the absolute worst episodes in the entire show. And the show was really uneven with its characters as well. The Student Six as a whole were pretty lame and brought down a lot of episodes that didn't directly focus on them(What Lies Beneath and Hearth's Warming Club were good, but episodes where they were mixed with other characters left a lot to be desired), and if I'm being honest, Gallus and Smolder are the only ones who brought anything noteworthy to the table. The Mane 6 also had some mixed results, I'd say it was probably the worst season for both Libman Ponies, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and Twilight, Rarity and AJ were pretty meh, not terrible for the season, just average. I'd say RD was the only one who had a good S8, which I'd argue was her best season since S3(and this is a hill I'm willing to die on), even with NCC. Grannies Gone Wild was a weird but a good, fun episode and The Washouts was a fantastic final episode and send off for her. On that tangent Sound of Silence was a great send off for Fluttershy and AJ as well. Starlight was also pretty good this season, I'd argue her best season yet. Oh and it was the first season to finally give us a dedicated Celestia episode, and it was glorious

A heavily flawed season, but the things I like, I like enough to keep me from writing it off, and the stuff I hated, I didn't hate enough for it to ruin the season for me

[ChB 18,557]

While Season 8 is on the bottom half of my "favorites seasons" list, it will always have a place in my heart for one reason:

During the years of Season 6 or 7, I said somewhere in EQD that I wanted Twilight to become Founder of the School of Friendship. I got absolutely ecstatic when I found out that my wish came true.

Thank you, Nicole Dubuc and Mike Vogel!  

[Sparklefan1234 172,153]

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*This has a point I promise. 

 

I would place season 8 in bottom 2 "favorite seasons" simply because of School Raze, Fake It Till You Make It & Maud Couple

 

but I can't because I love Friendship University, The Mean 6 & Molt Down too much. 

[Cash In 22,459]

Season 8 was good and all, but I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as the other seasons. I'm not calling it bad by any means - it just didn't appeal to me as well as the others.