How should the plot go in Season 3?

[Faithful Dawn 8]

I think it should stay the same, because i just feel like it.

[Fox 5,330]

If they had to do a continous story....JUST DO A MLP -FIM MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

Not difficult at all, a one story arc would probably follow this structure: There's a big bad guy and in order to defeat him they need certain artifacts, so they must travel the world (hopefully outside equestria) in order to find him and defeat him. Each episode can have a new small villian or problem. One of them should be recurrent and be of great importance in the end in order to make things more interesting, and also having one of the ponies leave the good side temporarily would be great too. Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie would seem to work the best for this, I'd say Rainbow but she is loyalty...

 

That immediately made me think of this:

 

 

No, but seriously. Ponifying that ^ would be awesome. Imagine some great supervillain kidnapping one or both of the princesses, and the Mane 6 needing to work together and travel all over the planet to save them, over the course of many episodes.

 

Story arcs tend to stick with me more. Yes, there are many single episodes that I could point to and say, "That was an awesome episode," but I feel that a story arc gives characters more depth, since you're not throwing throwing them in twenty-minute situations (There's only so much you can do with a 20-minute story plot). If you take a look at Season 1/2 Episodes 1 + 2, you'll see that the stories can develop more, and go into further detail, and that made the endings in Episode 2 all that more rewarding-if it had been a single episode, I doubt it would have been half as good. 10 minutes would have been the evil guy showing up and talking and causing havoc. Five for the mane six going to stop him/her, and five for the end battle. Time constraints are the bane of every episode.

 

You know that MLP:FiM was originally going to have 11-minute episodes? I recall reading somewhere that Lauren Faust really had to push to get clearance for 22-minute ones. To be honest, I think that 22 minutes is just right in length for the "slice of life"-style episodes we've had so far; though I wouldn't mind the occasional 44- or even 60-minute special.

[5guysburgersnfries 216]

I rate it should have a future arc like in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, but add eyepatches, guns and big explosions

[Skye Starlight 223]

Each episode is like a short story... It gets to the complication pretty quick and is over in 30 minutes... I'm going Episodic with occasional 2 or 3 parts...

[Swordfishtrombone 384]

Its fine the way it is. No need for change if everythings going smoothly. I fear a change would just clutter things off if done wrong.

[Jokuc 8,172]

That immediately made me think of this:

 

 

 

 

No, but seriously. Ponifying that ^ would be awesome. Imagine some great supervillain kidnapping one or both of the princesses, and the Mane 6 needing to work together and travel all over the planet to save them, over the course of many episodes.

 

Hahah this would be so awesome.

[Twi Rubix 726]

The short story arcs would be nice to see. Just hope its longer than 2 episodes. But I like the show to be episodic myself, but short story arcs can be something like 1 or 2 times per season.

[Proailurus 214]

I think it would be cool if they had a few short story arcs, and then a continuous story arc in the last season they make because that would be awesome =P

[Stoner Spike 185]

The first season had focused more on the unity and friendships of the Mane Six, placing emphasis on lessons about friendship.

 

The second season is placing more emphasis on life lessons, thus generally having 1-3 characters per episode.

 

As for the question at hand, save the long story arcs for the later seasons. Seeing the show would last about 6 or 7 seasons (from what I think), season 3 may still center around 1 episode stories, with a few short story arcs in time. As the seasons progress, the stories would get longer and longer, until eventually reaching a season which only has one story behind it as the pre-finale to the show. Then, as with most great series, they should end with a movie.

[Gigabyte 8]

Bring back the (nonhuman) G3 villains. It'd be more interesting. And the Smooze.