Best writer in each season

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

In light of the show's oft-shifting writing roster, I considered creating this thread to discuss which writer had the best 'track' record in each individual season. Note that it's perfectly acceptable to list a single writer for multiple seasons. 

My preferences would encompass:

Season 1: M.A Larson. Penned only three episodes, albeit said three are essentially a triad of majorly formative installments - Swarm of the Century solidified the charmingly witty and self-referential comedy of the Faust seasons, Sonic Rainboom  pioneered the show's ability to handle spectacle and tension (the climax remains one of the best to this day) within standalone episodes and The Cutie Mark Chronicles stands as an emotionally affecting finale to the character arcs of S1. All three are fundamentally significant to constructing the foundation of the series both throughout S1's progression and to the show in subsequent seasons. 

Season 2: Cindy Morrow. All of the four episodes penned by her here are highly effective in their ability to combine the show's Faust-era charm and humour with solid emotional storytelling, thus solidifying the early seasons' ability to convey cliched stories far more effectively than contemporary shows of its category - Sisterhooves Social is both adorable in a low-key manner and serves as Sweetie Belle's breakout moment, Family Appreciation Day is a textbook example of utilizing the third act to recontextualize a decent-yet-shopworn preceding two acts into an altogether more poignant narrative, Read It and Weep is one of the show's best portrayals of Rainbow Dash and features some amazing comedic sequences (despite its dissonant moral for a show focusing on the social interactions between the main cast) and Hurricane Fluttershy is a rock-solid masterpiece. How is this the same writer who would go on to botch up a simple bullying moral a single year later?

Season 3: A bizarrely difficult decision, considering the season's shorter duration, but I'll go with Corey Powell, given the phenomenal solidity of Sleepless in Ponyville (otherwise the episode which placed Scootaloo fully onto the map) and the decency of Just for Sidekicks. 

Season 4: Dave Polsky. The myriad of different style (particularly the larger-scale McCarthy-esque aesthetic of Equestria Games and the more somber and introspectively driven tones of Rarity Takes Manehattan and For Whom the Sweetie Belle Tolls) he tackles throughout the season is successful as a majority, which definitely counts for something considering his distinct comedy-based tone in his S1 and S3 work (thus marking a shift to a more experimental and varied creative palette in a way which the show's other recurring writers have generally not displayed in a comparable way). The only episode out of the five I would consider to be subpar is Daring Don't, although I believe that 'uninspired' is a more accurate term for its qualities as a whole than outright bad. 

Season 5: M.A Larson again. The Cutie Map  is among the show's best and most tonally intriguing two-parters, Slice of Life  is one of S5's more successful forays into experimentation (due to its high comic energy) and Amending Fences is touching in an odd, intangible way to me, which stands out amidst the season's bizarre combination of the lighter, more Faustian work of AKR and the more sardonic material of the newer writing team. 

Season 6: Surprising coming from me, but the Lady Writers (Lewis and Songco). As much as I find their general style and comic leanings polarizing (their best material can be hilarious, but their worst is lame and dissonant with the show's tone as a whole), their two episodes were some of the most memorable of the season - I find Gauntlet of Fire overrated, but its treatment of Spike is a considerable improvement over previous seasons, and Top Bolt is easily my favorite of the episodes catalyzed by the dreaded Cutie Map (due to possessing the strongest plot and character chemistry of the episodes in that particular category). I nonetheless maintain that Mike Vogel has a better grasp on the show's McCarthy-era tone, but the Lady Writer's individual episodes were conspicuously stronger in this otherwise relatively banal season. 

Season 7: I'll go for Wetta and Crowley - I'm not a huge fan of A Flurry of Emotions , but it was generally cute fun and featured Twilight in a solidly characterized role for the first time in multiple seasons, whilst A Health of Information surprised me in its handling of Fluttershy's character (her episodes are typically better when she actively chooses to leave her comfort zone, which this episode utilizes wisely to push her character forward and set her into a less cliched role than, say, her S4 and S5 episodes tended to). 

Season 8: Mike Vogel. As I've noted earlier, his style seems to be the most versatile of the current writing team in that he can lean into both the relative charm of School Daze  and the looser comedy of The Mean Six. 

Anyone else willing to share their thoughts here?

Edited February 10, 2019 by Them's Seeing Ponies

[Megas 27,052]

S1 - Larson

S2 - Cindy Morrow

S3 - Corey Powell

S4 - Amy Keating Rogers and Dave Polsky 

S5 - Larson

S6 - Lady Writers and Nick Confalone 

S7 - Lady Writers and Josh Hamilton 

S8 - Nick Confalone 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

Season 1: M.A. Larson. The man responsible for many episodes that would go on to become fan favorites.

Season 2: Cindy Morrow and Meghan McCarthy.

Season 3: Corey Powell and M.A. Larson.

Season 4: Dave Polsky, Josh Haber, Meghan McCarthy, Amy Keating Rogers, and Ed Valentine. Josh Haber proved himself to be a reliable and consistent writer.

Season 5: M.A. Larson, Josh Haber, and Amy Keating Rogers. The latter of whom went out with some of her best episodes.

Season 6: Michael Vogel, Chris Wyatt & Kevin Burke, Nick Confalone, and Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco. The latter 3 having shown a lot of growth from their solid debuts in Season 5.

Season 7: Josh Haber, Nicole Dubuc, Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco, Josh Hamilton, Sammie Crowley & Whitney Wetta, and surprisingly, the Fox Brothers.

Season 8: Josh Haber, Nicole Dubuc, Nick Confalone, Michael Vogel, Brian Hohlfield, and Kaita Mpambara.

 

@Dark Qiviut @This Whomps @Tacodidra @Sparklefan1234

Edited February 10, 2019 by TheAnimationFanatic

[ChB 18,532]

Season 1: Charlotte Fullerton, for surprisingly awesome slice-of-life episodes! 

(Honorable Mentions: Cindy Morrow for Winter Wrap Up, and Lauren Faust for the iconic Series Premiere!)

Season 2: Meghan McCarthy, for writing four well-written episodes, nailing it in the head in both slice-of-life and adventure story-telling.

Season 3: Dave Polsky. Admittedly hit-or-miss...but when he hits, it's a home-run!

Season 4: Amy Keating Rogers. Her characterizations of the Mane Six were spot-on!

Season 5:  M.A. Larson. You know why.  

Season 6: This might be controversial, but I think Josh Haber gets the crown. His adventure stories were suspenseful in the Season 5 finale, and continues to be suspenseful the following season.

Season 7: Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco, by far! Nice, solid comedy in All Bottled Up and A Royal Problem, not to the mention writing one of the best (if not THE BEST) Applejack episodes in the whole series!

Season 8: Tough one...I would give it a tie between Josh Haber and Nick Confalone. The former wrote thrilling milestone episodes, while the latter wrote a great comedy and an emotionally touching episode.

[Dark Qiviut 22,160]

@TheAnimationFanatic Thanks for the mention.

This was much harder than I thought. But I got my list.

S1, S2: Larson and Morrow, respectively, for the reasons the OP gave. Season 2 was Morrow’s best and most consistent by a wide margin. Larson didn’t make any grave mistakes in his for S1.

S3: Again, Larson. As much as I like to put in Powell for Sleepless, she also wrote Just for Sidekicks, one of the worst of the show at the time, so she’s out. MMC isn’t good, either, but the problems were well out of his control. Magic Duel was the third best episode of Season 3, and his ideas for MMC were really great, so he takes that slot.

S4: AKR. Recall Pinkie acting like a jerk in Filli Vanilli? According to AKR at last year’s BronyCon panel, that was Hasbro’s idea. As a result, I give her a pass for writing her this way. AKR gets Pinkie and shows it in Pinkie Pride and in her smaller segments of Testing Testing, each of them equally great.

S5: A broken record, but Larson again. Every episode he wrote was really good. Cutie Map, SoL, and Amending Fences are all among the best of the entire series.

S6: Burke & Wyatt. Viva Las Pegasus is a very solid outing that (should’ve) closed AJ’s feud with Flim and Flam. But don’t forget Times, Spike’s best central performance of the series and a really solid message on the consequences of xenophobic behavior.

S7: This one is the hardest to pick, but mine goes to Haber. Yeah, Lewis and Songco co-wrote TPP and All Bottled Up, each of them great. Celestial Advice is serviceable, but A Royal Problem sucked. Haber doesn’t have such a stain in Season 7. Mane Thing and Uncommon Bond (the latter a co-writing credit) are both very outstanding. But with the extra hand of Dubuc, he co-writes Shadow Play, one of the five best episodes of the show for its excellent dialogue, wit, humor, and supreme balance of characterization and lore.

S8: Impossible to decide who, so it’s a tie between Mpambara and Hohlfeld. First with Mpambara, he debuts with Horse Play, one of Twilight’s best performances and a genuinely great outing for Celestia. What does he do next? Write the season’s best episode, A Rockhoof and a Hard Place. However, Hohlfeld’s season shouldn’t be taken for granted, either. His debut, Surf and/or Turf, tackles the subject of divorce from a kid’s perspective. A few episodes later, he follows up with HW Club, giving all of the Young Six excellent backstories, especially Gallus’s.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Dark Qiviut

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

Nothing would make me happier than Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco returning for Season 9. 

 

[ShootingStar159 2,155]

3 hours ago, TheAnimationFanatic said:

Nothing would make me happier than Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco returning for Season 9. 

 

Same, but if they returned for G5, I’d be much more optimistic about it as well.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

Considering that Big Jim noted that the Lady Writers were absent specifically for 'this season' (in reference to S8), the possibility of them returning for S9 is actually more plausible than one may think. Still wish Larson and AKR could return as well, but that's mostly pure wishful thinking on my part at this point by comparison. 

Not to mention that, in light of DQ's post about Pinkie's mischaracterization in Filli Vanilli, I should presumably have given at least an honorable mention to AKR for her S4 work, considering that all three of her effort were above-average (despite the inherently shopworn plot of Filli Vanilli, it was nonetheless a relatable depiction of social anxiety with one of the more plot-relevant examples of fanservice during the McCarthy seasons). 

Edited February 10, 2019 by Them's Seeing Ponies

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

Also, I forgot to mention her, but I would like to include Natasha Levinger for Season 4 and 5. 

[bigbertha 410]

I'm only going up to season 5 since I haven't finished rewatching seasons 6-8

S1: M.A. Larson- All of his episodes are enjoyable with Sonic Rainboom and Cutie Mark Chronicles being some of the best of the season   (HM: Amy Keating Rogers- She wrote The Best Night Ever and Fall Weather Friends, but The Ticket Master and Applebuck Season hold her back )

S2: Meghan McCarthy- Lesson Zero is my favorite episode of the show and A Canterlot Wedding is my favorite two parter. Her other episodes are pretty good too.   (HM: M.A. Larson- He wrote some real classics like It's About Time and Ponyville Confidential, but Return of Harmony and Secret of My Excess hold him back)

S3: Corey Powell- Both of her episodes are really great.    (HM: Merriwether Williams- Wonderbolts Academy is my favorite episode of the season and Spike At Your Service has a lot of genuinely great jokes, but the story of Spike At Your Service is too much of a mess to put her above Corey Powell)

S4: Josh Haber- Leap of Faith is meh, but his other episodes are pretty decent, with Simple Ways being one of the few standouts of the season    (HM: Amy Keating Rogers- If she wrote something as amazing as Simple Ways, she'd be my favorite writer of the season, but she didn't. Testing Testing is meh and her other episodes are good, but not great)

S5: Josh Haber- The only writer of more than one episode where all of their episodes are good       (HM: Gillian M. Berrow- She only wrote one episode, but it's a pretty great episode)

[FirePuppy 621]

Seasons 1 and 4: Meghan McCarthy

Season 2: Amy Keating Rogers

Season 3: Dave Polsky

Season 5: M.A. Larson

Season 6: Jennifer Skelly (too bad she only wrote one episode)

Season 7: Josh Haber

Season 8: N/A (they all sucked!)

Although, I would have given the honor to Nick Confalone for Season 8 IF he had put Pinkie Pie in The Break Up Break Down. I mean, we did see Sugarcube Corner, we did see Maud Pie (in the background), and Confalone did put Pinkie in all other episodes he wrote, but in this one, he didn't! So with that, I am declaring no winner for Best Writer of Season 8.

Edited February 11, 2019 by FirePuppy

[bigbertha 410]

Now that I've rewatched seasons 6-8, I'll do this for those seasons too.

S6: Dave Rapp- He wrote one of the few standout episodes of the season in Newbie Dash and his other episodes is pretty decent too (HM: Josh Haber- He co-wrote the best episode of the season, Stranger Than Fanfiction, and his other episodes are at least okay, but the fact that he co-wrote his better episodes puts him below Rapp, who solo wrote all his episodes)

S7: Crowley and Wetta- In a sea of really bad episodes, these two somehow pulled out two solid episodes, though A Health of Information is only just okay (HM: Brittany Jo Flores- She only wrote one episode, but the fact that Once Upon a Zeppelin is the best episode of the season has to mean something)

S8: Josh Hamilton- I never thought the writer of Parental Glidance could ever be the best writer of a season, but everyone who wrote more than one episode had at least one dud to their name (HM: Dave Rapp- He also only wrote one episode. I just like Fake It Till You Make It more than The Parent Map)

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

I forgot to add M.A. Larson for Season 2. He wrote some of my faves from that season. 

[FlareGun45 2,221]

Season 1: Dave Polsky

Season 2: M.A. Larson

Season 3: Corey Powell

Season 4: Dave Polsky

Season 5: AK Rogers

Season 6: Nick Confalone

Season 7: Lady Writers

Season 8: Nicole Dubuc

[ErisPegasus 56]

I only just found out that Larson was entirely absent in S4, which threw me into a loop because it was a good season.

 

Best: Larson in all the seasons he's been in. Lady Writers since Larson left.

Mike Vogel is underrated. Frenemies put him on the map for me, but he was also decent in seasons 6 & 8.

 

Worst: probably Haber. In terms of episode-by-episode he's not the worst, but he's had the most deleterious effect on the show's narrative direction since several of the original writers left.

Edited July 20, 2019 by ErisPegasus

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

3 hours ago, ErisPegasus said:

I only just found out that Larson was entirely absent in S4, which threw me into a loop because it was a good season.

 

Best: Larson in all the seasons he's been in. Lady Writers since Larson left.

Mike Vogel is underrated. Frenemies put him on the map for me, but he was also decent in seasons 6 & 8.

 

Worst: probably Haber. In terms of episode-by-episode he's not the worst, but he's had the most deleterious effect on the show's narrative direction since several of the original writers left.

I largely agree with the assertation that Haber's extended influence over the series for the past four seasons has led the show's general tone/structure down a more undesirable path - whilst an integral part of the success of the Faust seasons, at least from my perspective, was the surprisingly subtle wit and honesty of the show's execution, the seasons run/edited by Haber appear to have shed these elements in favour of broader, more predictable comedy (shoehorned overexaggerated meme faces and characters behaving crazily via huge emotional takes akin to an awkward teen sitcom) and weaker plotlines (which tend to resort to using setpieces, fanservice or worldbuilding as audience distractors as opposed to focusing on developing the cliched story accommodating them, which many of the original staff were surprisingly diligent about). Granted, these issues aren't exclusively limited to the Haber-run seasons (particularly as Meghan McCarthy's leadership during seasons 4 and 5, while better than the show's current state, emphasized the use of impact over more delicate storytelling, which I think may have washed some of the sharper creative edges out of the show's internal mechanics), but Haber's influence has led to their accentuation and regularization, particularly as the beginning of his significant influence coincides with the post-S5 exodus (including McCarthy, Larson, AKR and Dave Polsky), which drained the final vestiges of the show's original sensibilities away almost too rapidly (which is an unenviable position for most popular shows attempting to maintain public momentum) and left a largely blank slate for Haber and Big Jim to populate with writers that more closely matched their creative sensibilities (the Fox brothers, Burke and Wyatt, Kaita Mpambara, Kim-Beyer Johnson, the list continues), none of whom have nearly as consistent a track record both FiM and career-wise. The fact that Haber has served as story editor for the better part of four seasons now (far longer than Rob Renzetti, the Lady Writers, Larson (during his brief tenure) or even Meghan) has also led to a fatigue of his current style (honestly, I always postulated if Mike Vogel would be better suited to the story editing position, considering that his style, while not perfect, seems more solid and in-line with the show's earlier qualities (at least during the McCarthy seasons) than Haber's sensibilities) and resultantly hasn't exactly eased these issues either, in turn leading to some... unremarkable episodes recently (much of mid-S8). 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

I disagree with both of you on Haber.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

I understand, but I would prefer if you elaborated more on why you disagree as opposed to just raising your hand.

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

I very much think that while the seasons where Haber was the story editor were slightly uneven, they still did much in terms of expanding the scope of the world while still staying true to the series' themes and messages. 

I like how Seasons 6-9 are willing to be more experimental and ambitious. While that might be undesirable to a few purists, I honestly don't think that any of their missteps are more egregious than those of the previous seasons. 

I like the willingness to showcase supporting characters more.

[Them's Seeing Ponies 282]

I can see your point despite generally disagreeing; thanks for replying. 

[TheAnimationFanatic 3,543]

I also want to argue that for his occasional missteps, Haber has been on the most consistent and/or reliable writers on the series.

[Megas 27,052]

Josh Haber is a good writer, he's made some great episodes, but after S6 I thought he was an awful story editor, and even after S8(A season I'm willing to defend) and most of S9, my opinion really hasn't changed much. Much of it is because I don't even know if he actually does any actual story editing. Whereas past season and S7 often feel like group efforts with slip ups every now and then, seasons under Haber feel like episodes lived and died by the writers. So much bullshit could have been avoided completely if someone actually looked at some of the stories submitted for longer than 5 seconds and said "wait, no, this is rubbish". People will say that his seasons are more ambitious and like to experiment more, but personally they they feel really careless mainly due to everything I said above, and the things they wanted to pull was done at the expense of things people liked in past seasons. Starlight got a huge push in season 6, but it felt like something straight out of the WWE, where any build up to Starlight was really poorly done and then climaxed at the expense of just about every main character in the show, in fact S6 and Royal Rumble 2015 almost perfectly mirror each other. Then in S8, almost the exact same thing happened with the Student Six, with plenty of moments most of their development pretty much amounted to "omg look at how much these better the student six are than the mane 6". In S9, there are lots of episodes that make me wonder what they're doing here. They said that there wasn't enough to tie up all loose ends, yet there are lots of episodes that could be cut out completely and no one would miss them, and then they could have done more to give everything a satisfying conclusion. Even S7, with the Pillars, they could have been handled a lot better, when he popped back up halfway through, they had to shoehorn 3 of the Pillars into one episode, which gave the feeling that the idea was rushed, this is even more highlighted when that, with the obvious exception Starswirl, the Pillars were completely abandoned when the writers had the bright idea of bringing in yet another group of six new characters

[FirePuppy 621]

As of 2019:

Season 1: Meghan McCarthy

Season 2: Amy Keating Rogers

Season 3: M. A. Larson (purely for Magical Mystery Cure)

Season 4: Meghan McCarthy

Season 5: M. A. Larson

Seasons 6 & 7: Josh Haber

Season 8: None of them! >:-P

Season 9: Josh Haber (for now)

[Rushing cash 824]

Well, it won't be easy to decide to me, but here is my 5 cents on this:

Season 1: This season was dominated by 3 writers: Amy Keating Rogers who wrote 6 episodes with the average ranking I give for said episodes are 8.2, Meghan McCarthy who wrote 4 episodes with 8.3 average and she wrote party of one which is the best episode in season 1 for me. And then there of course M.A.Larson who wrote only 3 episodes but 2 of them were great and the other one was still good(8.7 average). SO, Rogers had the most impact, Meghan wrote the best episode and Larson who wrote the least episodes but the most consistently good ones. If I must choose only 1 winner it will be M.A.Larson but the most important one was Rogers. 

Season 2: Meghan McCarthy is the best writer this season by quit some margin, She wrote the 2 best episodes of the season in my opinion(the finale and lesson zero) and unlike larson, she didn't write any mediocre episodes. 

Season 3: This season is a mess, but Meghan only wrote the premiere and Larson the finale and magic duel. So, I guess M.A.Larson.

Season 4: Ed Valentine Deserves a mention, Meghan McCarthy has to take it, she wrote some great episodes with power ponys is the worst and that episode is still pretty good episode.

Season 5: Amy Keating Rogers  had a great season with some amazing episodes and M.A.Larson participated in fewer episodes but all were stunning episodes, so I will give M.A.Larson the edge. 

Season 6: Michael Vogel takes it. The lady writers participated in only 2 episodes while vogel had a much bigger role this season.

Season 7: Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco easily, they wrote 2 of the best, if not the best episodes in the show in this season, and their other episodes were good too.

Season 8: Gregory Bonsignore wrote only 1 episode and it was a really good one but I would choose another writer who had a bigger impact on the season. So, the other 3 writers that shined in this season were  Michael Vogel ,Nick Confalone and Kaita Mpambara. Vogel wrote 2 of the seasons best episodes by far, but he also co-wrote the premier which I am not a big fan of. Nick wrote The maud couple which was ok, The break up which was good and The Washouts which was the best episode of the season. Kaita had 2 episodes, Horse play which was great and "A Rockhoof and a Hard Place" which was pretty good, and he did it as a new writer no less. I will go with Nick Confalone here, as he wrote good episodes and the best one this season.

Season 9: This season is not finished yet, so I will say temporarily its  Michael Vogel, as he wrote 2 great episodes that are important to the plot or  Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco are strong contenders as well due to their spectacular premier. Nicole Dubuc also deserves a mention here, she did co-write sparkles seven and the last crusade which were great episodes. Gail Simone wrote only one episode but it was a really good.

So, overall, I would say Amy Keating Rogers, Meghan McCarthy, M.A.Larson, Michael Vogel and Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco are the top 5 writers in my opinion in the show.

[Lucky Bolt 34,914]

I dunno...I say they have all been phenomenal.