Season Six Highlights · 3:39pm Nov 28th, 2016
art by AssasinMonkey
I know may seem premature since I have yet to write my Afterthoughts for the (now long past) finale of Season Six, "To Where and Back Again". But recently, the always-pleasant Dr. Wolf released a pair of videos giving his "top ten" picks for favorite episodes of Season Six. Watching these inspired me to write a blog celebrating many of the finest aspects of this Celestia Tier season.
First, here are the videos by Dr. Wolf:
Having shown Dr. Wolf’s excellent analysis, I am not going to follow it up with a top ten list of my own. Instead, I will say that I agree for the most part in his list, and would have almost all of the same episodes on it, if shifted in position. The most noteworthy changes would be that his favorite, “Hearth’s Warming Eve”, would only be ranked amongst my honorable mentions, despite how much wonder the episode had to offer. Instead, I found “Spice Up Your Life” to be a rich enough episode, with plentiful food for thought (and a really catchy song), that it would have made my number 10 spot.
The episode “Every Little Thing She Does” wouldn’t have made it on my honorable mentions list, but there is another that definitely would have. The meaningful and deep themes dealt with in “On Your Marks” would have placed the episode within my own top ten save that it isn’t an episode I find myself re-watching. I do, however, listen to the beautiful song from that episode on occasion.
Season Six was a season of running themes. In particular, much of the season was about growing up and taking responsibility, presenting several valuable lessons and reminders that touched on different aspects of these.
This is a proper development that fits well with a show that is ever-increasingly embracing its more adult audience while still continuing to be a family show ostensibly targeted at young girls who are growing up. Season Five was no stranger to mature themes, particularly in episodes like "Amending Fences", "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep" and the (still impressive and daring) tackling of the stages of grief in "Tanks for the Memories". Season Six continued this trend, giving content that catered to the adult audience with everything from ponified cameos that only adults could catch, mature jokes, and episodes that handled issues and conflicts that spoke far more to the older audience than their younger viewers. (Perhaps most emotionally impactful, Trixie's suicidal cry for help in "No Second Prances"!)
The season focused on transition, even starting out with a season premiere that had no big villain and instead featured the struggles of parenthood and the difficulties of reconnecting. Starlight, the CMC and Rainbow Dash particularly dealt with major changes in their lives, but the theme was echoed in others, such as Fluttershy and even Discord.
The season also emphasized being respectful of the desires of others, listening and compromise. Discord’s selfish efforts to turn the activities of others towards his own preferences in “Dungeons and Discords” was mirrored by the older sisters taking over the Applebox Derby in “The Cart Before the Ponies”. Later, the show examined similar behavior but coming from generosity and a desire to help with “P.P.O.V.”
Other lessons were echoed between episodes, such as Spike’s growth from “The Times They Are a Changeling” being evident in his immediate acknowledgement that they should give Discord another chance one episode later. These echoes gave the season a sense of cohesion that made it more than just a collection of slice-of-life episodes. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of Season Six.
(As an aside, I must reiterate how Season Six has been a phenomenal season for the growth and development of particular characters, and blessed us with some of the best character episodes and interactions in the series for those characters.)
Additionally, Season Six also carried on several running themes from the previous seasons. We had more episodes dealing with achieving personal goals, and how success presents us with new challenges. Likewise, the show continued to visit how childhood shapes the adult you become and how scars from the past can fester and cause damage and suffering for you and others if those wounds aren’t addressed and healed.
Along the way, the season gave us some extremely fun and memorable songs...
...plenty of new characters who we would love to see again...
...and some delicious laugh-out-loud humor.
Not to mention some amazing new locations and world building, as well as an absolute cornucopia of new visual treasure as the artists and animators continue to exceed themselves to provide us with a beautiful and endearing show.
Thank you, Hasbro and everyone who worked to make Season Six the wonderful gift that it was! 
Season six is definitely one of my favorite seasons.
Amen!
I have to say, I think seasons five and six are my favorite as they provided a lot of episodes I enjoy re-watching as well as presenting some decent lessons.
I didn't realize I fell behind on my pony content.
That first picture you have is really amazing! I'm not usually a fan of that style, but it sure looks fantastic.
Sadly i don't have the time to look threw this but i really liked this season, my fav episodeds was the dragon one with spike, the one were they spent time with discord, although they should have done alot more with there G&G game, i also love all of the easter eggs they have in the show, personally i think it should be much more adventures and the show could do better and i wish it followed what lauren wanted, instead its been forced into the roll of a little kids show with lessons and compromising the characters, is season 7 confirmed? oh and im guilty for watching the last episode leak. i hope the show takes a good turn and we get some adventures because it was really lacking, i mean why was the hive so close to ponyvill
Interesting that you and I find many of the same episodes to be the best of season six Kkat. Even if the order of which is a fair bit different.
4320635 to go a little further, they just turned sombra into some deranged lunatic with no story when he was ment to have so much more, after that there was soposed to be much more with the changelings but they just turned it into a caring thing and a racism thing when there was much more to it including them being cursed for being greedy and stealing love in the first place, the holes were a representation of every time they stole love showing that all of them have committed the crime.
season 6 was a very, vewry good season. the mlp staff keep on improving theri craft.
and there is yet another season coming. be it the last or simply another, mlp is simply awesome
4320787
I know lots of people who think that with every new season "MLP sink lower and lower" and basically really-really want seven season to a last one (and before then want to six one to be a last) because Hasbro, supposedly, "ruined" Lauren Faust great work.
I hate to be "that guy", but...
There's a bit of repetition in the seventh paragraph that looks like an accident.
Best season yet! For all the reasons you listed. Just so many amazing stories, so much growth and maturity. The RIGHT kind of 'mature' not "Sex and violence and cynicism"-esque adolescent junk that so many try to pass off as 'mature'. This is how you do that right.. and while still being completely open and directed at the target audience, but with more and more there below the surface. That, plus, only season so far I can not say there was a single outright 'bad' episdoe. One was 'meh' and another 'decent but flawed' and that was the worst. So yeah.. this season was phenomenal on so many levels.
4320635
And the next bit.... about how Sombra and the Changelings were 'meant' to be something else......... two words for you Citation. Needed. Please show your facts to back up this claim? Going to be hard given the one about Sombra is outright false from the start, as Lauren had nothing at all to do with him in anyway. The entire idea for the character came from Meghan.. who also wrote the episdoe, nobody 'ruined' him, Meghan simply failed to adequately write him to be what she intended, this was purely a mistake in execution failing to deliver what the writer wanted it to, something she has outright admitted herself. She meant for him to be some immaterial, omnipresent evil force like Sauron in LOTR, but failed to actually follow through and make him come off like she wanted to. Nobody forced any changes on her about anything.
All the rest...... heacanon's don't count as facts.
4320918 Thanks. Fixed.
4320928 http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Siege_of_the_Crystal_Empire
4321098 1. Comics aren't canon. 2. That came after. 3. Comics aren't canon. 4. This proves what exactly? Because 5. Comics aren't canon.
4321137 im not going to go start a fight with you, but yah its not cannon as something else happened in the show but the show was soposed to be much war, we have a crazed dictator. how did he become a dictator? what lead to his rise of power, why does he love crystals, Exactly, they have nothing at all on it and the original story was botched, plus why would they release a comic before the episode which would spoil the entire thing? exactly they would not :P
4320860 Well, obviously, I think those people are being quite silly.
4321191 ........ You still have yet to actually make a single coherent point. You are claiming that, somehow, he was 'meant' to be something else, have yet to prove that in anyway. Are utterly ignoring the linear nature of casualty in doing so since just because someone came up with something different later, it does not mean that was always how he was. Nor do I even understand what the issue is in the first place.
4321275 he was the dictator of an empire, how did anything bad happen? why did it happen, what cause this. non of those questions were answered, except we found out he liked crystals. could have been much more.
Im not necessarily saying the show is bad but it could be alot more, they compromise spikes personality in spike at your service, and they do that alot.
4321320 We know exactly how he was defeated. Two demigoddesses showed up and kicked his flank. As to the rest... it's complaining about what things are not, rather then dealing with what they are, and it is entirely on you unless you can show, empirically, how that harms the overall narrative, in what way our ability to understand was impaired by the lack of this information.
Further, having to go all the way back to season 3 to complain about things... is also missing the point of this entire post as it was focused on THIS season. Also also.... yeah SAYS sucked, but it was a Merriweather Williams episode so... no surprise there. It's fairly well agreed she was not a good writer when it came to this show, and clearly did not get how to write for it well, preferring a style better suited to Spongebob, where there is no episdoe to episdoe continuity, and characters can just be randomly made to be what the story needs them to be at the moment without worrying about continuity or consistency.
4321354 Well i hope there is some more adventure in the next season, i loved every episode with discord in it, i feel like they should have done a bit more with the D&D one, like show there adventure.
4321320 4321354
This blog is about Season Six. And in particular the highlights of it. This conversation has gotten off-topic. Thank you, both of you, for seeming to come to this conclusion on your own while I was writing the post adding my own thoughts below.
Please take any further discussion of "The Crystal Empire" to PMs.
4321320 If I may interject, I don't really understand the logic here:
Perhaps your sentence structure is confusing me. Are there words missing? Taking this as it is, it would seem to me that the second part is answered by the first part. To wit: "How did anything bad happen? Because he was a dictator." A completely egotistical, tyrannical dictator at that.
So yes, that question is pretty much answered by the very nature of tyranny. And many of the additional questions you seem caught up on were at least hinted at. We may not have a lot of details -- it is admittedly one of the weakest parts of the Season 3 opening that Sombra isn't given adequate characterization -- but we are treated to images of his reign like this one:
i.imgbox.com/6QGO840i.png
It isn't difficult at all to imagine how bad things were and why. Nor is it difficult for anyone with a little knowledge of the rise and fall of tyrannical dictatorships in history to surmise how things may have gone. Sure, we don't have the specifics, but that is neither a surprise nor a flaw.
Within the episode time constraint, writers have to chose carefully how much backstory to fill, and this wasn't an appropriate episode for a fifteen-minute history lesson. Consider how many full episodes of the show went by before we were given the founding of Ponyville. They gave us an appropriately sketched framework that they could hang the actual story of the episode on. And in the process, they left themselves potential story elements they could chose to return to in the future. (Or that we as fans and writers could play with.)
So I have to disagree with your assessment that it "could have been much more". Not in the time allotted; not without critically sacrificing characterization and compromising the actual present-day story.
The Crystal Empire had some flaws (particularly in that Sombra was underdeveloped), and was not amongst the strongest of the show's two-parters. But it wasn't by any means a bad episode. And the attitude that it somehow "betrayed" what it should have been or was supposed to be has no basis in fact.
4321379 i have to agree with what you said, and to clarify, i meant how did he become a dictator. how was he discovered what about the crystal heart? (which is a dark artifact that actually has the soul of a pony and suppresses another race of pony) yes it would take longer, but i feel like people would have been happy if they did not try to force it into two episodeds and make a movie or more episode, but yah im done with that here. i really enjoyed discord.
Not a lot of shows have me going back and reflecting this much. Not sure if its just how much I have come to love these characters or if it is the community that makes each episode, no matter how good or bad, so much fun. Thanks for the opinions Kkat, now I have another outside source to read off of and see the season from another perspective. I didn't even realize there was a theme going on till you mentioned it. These past 4 (almost 5) years in the fandom have been amazing and I can't wait to see what MLP has in store for us next year.
I hated this past season. I felt like there was a glaring flaw in almost every episode that ruined the entire experience for me.
With that said, thank you for reminding me that there were plenty of good things too.
Not every show has the kind of gift MLP has.