Best aspects of each Season?

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

@Key Sharkz gave me inspiration to start a new discussion. Specifically, what the best aspect of each Season is.

This is not meant to start a discussion in which season did what best, but rather discuss what we think the biggest strength of each.

[Sondash Studios 4,843]

Season 1 - Sonic Rainboom

Season 3 - The Crystal Empire

I forgot in which season was the "Double Sonic Rainboom"

And yeah, I only mentioned 2 seasons because I can't remember the episodes from the other seasons.

[Megas 27,764]

The first two season had a certain innocence that gave the show it's charm while S3-5 is where they started getting ambitious. Season 7 is where they were really giving it their all

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

Very true. Season 8's best quality is how it expands the world of the series.

[Will Guide 21,362]

7 hours ago, Sondash Studios said:

Season 1 - Sonic Rainboom

Season 3 - The Crystal Empire

I forgot in which season was the "Double Sonic Rainboom"

And yeah, I only mentioned 2 seasons because I can't remember the episodes from the other seasons.

Double Sonic Rainboom is Fanmade, not actually part of the show.

[ShootingStar159 2,157]

Season One: Simple storytelling with relatable characters. It sets up the building block for future character growth nicely.

Season Two: Comedy and Villains. With hilarious episodes like Lesson Zero as well as a greater emphasis on humor overall, and the introductions of Discord and Chrysalis, Season two is where the show truly came into its own. Even then, it still had great moments of emotional storytelling and character growth.

Season Three: Rainbow Dash’s best season. Wonderbolt Academy and Sleepless in Ponyville are two of the greatest Dash episodes ever. Other than that... 

Season Four: First take at a Season long story arc, and maybe the best one so far.

Season Five: Emotional, Character driven storytelling. Amending Fences, Brotherhooves Social, CotLM, Mane Attraction, I could go on and on. Also the first bit of character goal achievement with Carosel Boutique and in my opinion, still the best one.

Season Six: Starlight Glimmer. Actually taking a chance on a serious reformation arc that keeps and highlights a former villains flaws and doesn’t try and make a character perfect to earn forgiveness was a chance that has paid off for the show. 

Season Seven: Emotional, Character driven Storytelling and Worldbuilding. Season 5&7 are pretty similar, but the worldbuilding with the pillars sets it apart.

Season Eight: The School and Student Six. Honestly, I like Season eight. I do. But outside of one or two episodes that stand out for personal reasons, the school is the only thing going to stand out about this season when I look back at it.

[imawesome 449]

Best Aspects

Season One: Getting us adjusted to the show and characters.

Season Two: Developing the world of Equestria and having the two of best two parters to date. 

Season Three: Having a lot of great episodes, even for a short season.

Season Four: The animation improvement and having a season long arc. 

Season Five: Have the best character development, least painful filler episodes, and also two great two parters. 

Season Six: Really fleshing out the side characters. 

Season Seven: Diving into some deep lore and having some beautifully written episodes! (You know which ones I'm talking about...)

Season Eight: Making the Young Six likable/believable as children.

Worst Aspects(Just for fun.)

Season One: Arguably being the most boring season and having LOADS of filler.

Season Two: Having some of the worst written/executed episodes.

Season Three: Being short and its rushed finale.

Season Four: Really not showing Pinkie in the best light until "Pinkie Pride" and having some of the worst morals of the show.

Season Five: I felt this season as being more of an homage to the longtime fans instead of addressing its littler fanbase. 

Season Six: The two parters being the worst and Rarity's just kind of being shoved in as a side character a lot.

Season Seven: The season long arc didn't feel as successful as Season Four.

Season Eight: The obvious "buy our toys" vibes.  

Edited January 26, 2019 by imawesome

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

Season 1: Introduction to the characters and the world of Equestria. Upon rewatch, it's fascinating to see where everyone started out and how much things have changed.

Season 2: The further development of the characters, the improved animation & facial expressions. However, the real highlight of the season is seeing the writers begin to find their footing in the series.

Season 3: More world building and more growth from writing staff.

Season 4: Character development for the main characters and even some supporting ones. Increase in scope of the story. Seeing the show transition and mature. The first season-long arc.

Season 5: Having found their footing, the writers were able to experiment with much darker, thought-provoking and fascinating concepts. The Cutie Map missions were a great way to expand and explore the world of the series. Development of side characters.

Season 6: Starlight Glimmer's transition from big bad to mainstay. A turning point for Spike's character. Further development of side characters.

Season 7: The narrative focus on family and the past. The reveal of AJ and RD's parents and the development given to Twilight's. The Pillars of Virtue.

Season 8: The introduction of the students and showcasing the growth & development of the main characters.

Edited January 27, 2019 by TheAnimationFana

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

Season 1: The inclusion of subtlety and pacing of the M6's introductory arcs - S1 is usually generalized into being 'an introduction to the cast', which is true to an extent, but I feel it often remains overlooked for the way it paces and balances the arcs of its main cast, which no other season manages to pull off in a comparable way. Even the 'filler' episodes are typically filler in that they happen to be written poorly ("Boast Busters", "The Show Stoppers") or oversimplify certain conflicts (therefore rendering them somewhat dull after seven seasons of successively greater bombast) as opposed to true 'filler' where the entire episode could easily be omitted from the lineup without any effect at all. I should also mention that I vastly prefer Pinkie's quirky optimism here to her less grounded hyperactive zaniness in later seasons, but that's debatably yet more subjective. 

Season 2: The crisper colour palette and sharper comedy. The latter in particular is a major influence - many of S2's greatest episodes carry a surprising amount of their weight both on tackling their themes in an introspective and compelling way (I guess S2's treatment of its themes is another of its major strong points - episodes like "Hurricane Fluttershy" are simple through a surface-level lens despite their ability to build upon these themes in a way which renders them head and shoulders above the vast majority of kids' TV to take on these themes) and adding memorable comedy  - "It's About Time" and "The Last Roundup" (should I even mention the Pinkie Promise sequence?) are the ultimate examples of this to me. The two-parters also emerge into their own here, with "The Return of Harmony" debatably lying among the best of the group due to providing dually introspective and comedic views into the M6 whilst structuring the narrative to incorporate the six in a way which doesn't occur again until "The Cutie Map" while maintaining a solid plot which matches its level of ambition (which places it above "The Cutie Re-Mark" and "Shadow Play" in that regard, despite both of the latter episodes being technically more impressive). 

Season 3: The number of shifts in the status quo over the relatively brief 13-episode order. In the span of half a season, the show introduced one of the first significant non-Ponyville locations, increased the CMC's ranks (albeit in a sloppy and tepid way), 'reformed' (I guess?) Trixie, expanded upon Scootaloo's character and her relationship with RD, featured RD ascending into the ranks of the Wonderbolts Academy, introduced the entire Apple family, reformed Discord and drastically upended the status of the series' main character. The hit-to-miss ratio here was far from perfect, but that's a pretty interesting move nonetheless for a season tasked with maintaining the brony craze at its height whilst living up to the sky-high expectations set by S1 and S2. 

Season 4: The employment of more ambitious material, including the increased grandiosity of the musical numbers, in addition to the more ambitious directorial techniques and greater scope for experimentation compared to the previous season. I already said my piece here in the recent season 4 thread.

Season 5: The direction and animation in this season is incredible by the standards of Flash, which elevates even the more tedious filler episodes to bearing some merits - as meaningless and tepid as "Scare Master" was, the art direction and lighting was surprisingly dramatic and visually appealing (particularly the sequence of Fluttershy walking through Twilight's castle), whilst the frenetic pace and looseness (possibly also courtesy of Sibsy's and Nicole Wang's storyboarding) of "Party Pooped"'s animation adds flavour to an otherwise underwhelming narrative. I should also note that, while it isn't typically as effective as the writers seem to believe, the notes of finality and grandiosity to S5's episodes render even its failures at least interesting failures for the most part (save for "Princess Spike" and "What About Discord?", which are both generally among the show's most irredeemably tedious). 

Season 6: The worldbuilding provided to the dragons and changelings was genuinely compelling - particularly the way in which the changelings' social structure ultimately catalyzed the events of the finale. Spike's treatment as a character (courtesy of Josh Haber, who is surprisingly adept at writing him despite his other shortcomings) also proved to be a major step up.

Season 7: The season's focus on the families of the M6 was a nice touch, particularly considering that the writers either framed them in the season's more memorable plots or gave them relatable and understandable traits. The fact that they somehow created authentic characters out of Twilight's parents (both of whom were scarcely even the episode's main characters) was the main redeeming factor of "Once Upon a Zeppelin" to me. 

Season 8: The dialogue has noticeably improved from S6-7 to the extent where, despite the underwhelming quality of several episodes, the comedy actually proved to be a redeeming factor of several episodes in a way I felt was largely absent from the show since around the S2 period. Similarly, S8's lore and worldbuilding also marks a considerable improvement over previous seasons due to its greater sense of creativity (as opposed to merely being allegories of human fables or simple fantastical regions). 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Them's Seeing Ponies

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

12 hours ago, Them's Seeing Ponies said:

Season 1: The inclusion of subtlety and pacing of the M6's introductory arcs - S1 is usually generalized into being 'an introduction to the cast', which is true to an extent, but I feel it often remains overlooked for the way it paces and balances the arcs of its main cast, which no other season manages to pull off in a comparable way. Even the 'filler' episodes are typically filler in that they happen to be written poorly ("Boast Busters", "The Show Stoppers") or oversimplify certain conflicts (therefore rendering them somewhat dull after seven seasons of successively greater bombast) as opposed to true 'filler' where the entire episode could easily be omitted from the lineup without any effect at all. I should also mention that I vastly prefer Pinkie's quirky optimism here to her less grounded hyperactive zaniness in later seasons, but that's debatably yet more subjective. 

Season 2: The crisper colour palette and sharper comedy. The latter in particular is a major influence - many of S2's greatest episodes carry a surprising amount of their weight both on tackling their themes in an introspective and compelling way (I guess S2's treatment of its themes is another of its major strong points - episodes like "Hurricane Fluttershy" are simple through a surface-level lens despite their ability to build upon these themes in a way which renders them head and shoulders above the vast majority of kids' TV to take on these themes) and adding memorable comedy  - "It's About Time" and "The Last Roundup" (should I even mention the Pinkie Promise sequence?) are the ultimate examples of this to me. The two-parters also emerge into their own here, with "The Return of Harmony" debatably lying among the best of the group due to providing dually introspective and comedic views into the M6 whilst structuring the narrative to incorporate the six in a way which doesn't occur again until "The Cutie Map" while maintaining a solid plot which matches its level of ambition (which places it above "The Cutie Re-Mark" and "Shadow Play" in that regard, despite both of the latter episodes being technically more impressive). 

Season 3: The number of shifts in the status quo over the relatively brief 13-episode order. In the span of half a season, the show introduced one of the first significant non-Ponyville locations, increased the CMC's ranks (albeit in a sloppy and tepid way), 'reformed' (I guess?) Trixie, expanded upon Scootaloo's character and her relationship with RD, featured RD ascending into the ranks of the Wonderbolts Academy, introduced the entire Apple family, reformed Discord and drastically upended the status of the series' main character. The hit-to-miss ratio here was far from perfect, but that's a pretty interesting move nonetheless for a season tasked with maintaining the brony craze at its height whilst living up to the sky-high expectations set by S1 and S2. 

Season 4: The employment of more ambitious material, including the increased grandiosity of the musical numbers, in addition to the more ambitious directorial techniques and greater scope for experimentation compared to the previous season. I already said my piece here in the recent season 4 thread.

Season 5: The direction and animation in this season is incredible by the standards of Flash, which elevates even the more tedious filler episodes to bearing some merits - as meaningless and tepid as "Scare Master" was, the art direction and lighting was surprisingly dramatic and visually appealing (particularly the sequence of Fluttershy walking through Twilight's castle), whilst the frenetic pace and looseness (possibly also courtesy of Sibsy's and Nicole Wang's storyboarding) of "Party Pooped"'s animation adds flavour to an otherwise underwhelming narrative. I should also note that, while it isn't typically as effective as the writers seem to believe, the notes of finality and grandiosity to S5's episodes render even its failures at least interesting failures for the most part (save for "Princess Spike" and "What About Discord?", which are both generally among the show's most irredeemably tedious). 

Season 6: The worldbuilding provided to the dragons and changelings was genuinely compelling - particularly the way in which the changelings' social structure ultimately catalyzed the events of the finale. Spike's treatment as a character (courtesy of Josh Haber, who is surprisingly adept at writing him despite his other shortcomings) also proved to be a major step up.

Season 7: The season's focus on the families of the M6 was a nice touch, particularly considering that the writers either framed them in the season's more memorable plots or gave them relatable and understandable traits. The fact that they somehow created authentic characters out of Twilight's parents (both of whom were scarcely even the episode's main characters) was the main redeeming factor of "Once Upon a Zeppelin" to me. 

Season 8: The dialogue has noticeably improved from S6-7 to the extent where, despite the underwhelming quality of several episodes, the comedy actually proved to be a redeeming factor of several episodes in a way I felt was largely absent from the show since around the S2 period. Similarly, S8's lore and worldbuilding also marks a considerable improvement over previous seasons due to its greater sense of creativity (as opposed to merely being allegories of human fables or simple fantastical regions). 

*Implying that the dialogue in Seasons 6-7 was bad*

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

It was okay. S8's was simply sharper and funnier. 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

31 minutes ago, Them's Seeing Ponies said:

It was okay. S8's was simply sharper and funnier. 

As was it in S6 and especially S7.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

The Lady Writers' style of comedy still doesn't do much for me, which is why I believe the dialogue of S8 to be an improvement. I guess we should agree to disagree in this case. 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,596]

13 minutes ago, Them's Seeing Ponies said:

The Lady Writers' style of comedy still doesn't do much for me, which is why I believe the dialogue of S8 to be an improvement. I guess we should agree to disagree in this case. 

For our sake, I suppose so.