Season of Discord · 11:59am Jan 3rd, 2014
We're getting pretty well into Season 4 now, and it seems like a good time to make some comments on it. Every TV series that has a long run will naturally evolve over time, and each season tends to show its own character, and some will inevitably be better than others.
However... The way viewers come into the series also has an effect. Chatoyance wrote an entire story focused on what she perceived as dire contradictions between Season 1 and Season 2. Well... She came into FiM at the beginning (I presume) and had all winter to contemplate and internalize Season 1 before Season 2 began to air. Anything in Season 2 that upset her established mental model of FiM tended to cause angst.
I came into FiM with Season 2 already under way, so I was watching new S2 episodes and catching up on S1 at the same time, and it all tends to blur together into my mind into a more-or-less cohesive whole, which I have dubbed "FiM Classic". That's the setting of my stories. Everything I write is based on S1 plus S2.
Season 3 is "Season Bogus" to me. It was short, it seemed a bit shoddy, and it did multiple things that irritated me. Crystal Empire? No thanks. King Sombra? Worst villain ever. Discord reformed? No thanks. Trixie with the Alicorn Amulet? Meh... Not a disaster, but not what I'd hoped for. Twilicorn? No. Bucking. Way.
Season 4... Has been fun, actually. I get this feeling that the producers have given it their full attention and efforts, unlike the halfhearted vibe of S3. I loved the way they incorporated so many important characters into the season opener. As much as I detest the idea of reformed Discord, they handled him as well as anyone could hope, and he was funny. As much as I detest the idea of Princess Twilicorn, they handled her well: minimizing but not glossing over her new status. It's like the writers were trying their best to patch up the blunders of Season 3, despite being unable to actually undo them.
My only complaint has been the glaring plot holes and failures of logic that crop up in nearly every episode. All the Mane Six just happen to wander into the heart of Everfree Forest at the same time? They watch Daring Do assaulted in her own home and never think of intervening? Vampire fruit bats?? And so forth... Therefore, I have dubbed this new season, the "Season of Discord". The writers seem to have followed Discord's viewpoint: "Ohh... What fun is there in making sense?" That's Season 4 (thus far) in a nutshell: lots of fun, not much sense.
What's wrong with the vampire fruit bats? They seem entirely compatible with what we've seen of Equestrian biology, especially near the Everfree.
I guess it's the "vampire" part that bugs me. We already knew there were "fruit bats" hanging around Sweet Apple Acres, and it's not clear why they couldn't have been the driver behind this episode. Too cute? Not scary enough?
So we invent all-new "vampire fruit bats" which are more of a threat to the orchard, somehow, even though regular fruit bats presumably eat fruit too? And they seem a little more scary than regular fruit bats, somehow, even though they only consume fruit juice, not pony juice?
Does the word "vampire" even mean the same thing in pony world? The whole thing seems like a muddle to me.
I started with season one, but it was a month before the second aired, so I only had a couple of weeks to digest the first 26 episodes (I downed the first season in like a week and a half). Be that as it may, season two is, overall, my least favorite (though it has many of my favorite episodes), with season 3 being better overall (except for Discord and Twilight), and season one sitting high on top. I'm undecided about season 4 so far, but I do agree that it's a lot of zanny fun. Also, the majority of the cast is more involved each episode, something I felt season two was sorely lacking most of the time.