The 22-Minute Conundrum · 4:35pm May 31st, 2015
Written in response to some points raised in HoofBitingActionOverload's review of the latest episode, and in the comments of that post.,
It's an inherent issue that, within a thirty-minute timeslot, the show writers can only cover so much material and convey so much story in a short period of time. This hardly excuses substandard or poorly thought out writing, however; The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well and Magical Mystery Cure are particularly overt, if highly overused, examples; the former for being terribly out-of-character and the latter for being a musical that substituted songs in place of almost all dialogue.
A troubling theme with FiM (and indeed, every other episodically plot-segregated series that's also limited to 22 minutes) is that many episodes, whether they be regular-length ones or two-parters, are about half as long as they 'should', in an older audience's opinion, be in order to properly convey everything in the story to its maximum potential, and suffer from an acute overtone of 'plot compression' that shows drastically in the quality of the show's storytelling.
Even the two-parters' plots are written too broadly in scope to cover them sufficiently in 44 minutes; both The Return of Harmony and Magical Mystery Cure (while not technically a two-parter, it's still a season finale) raise some very interesting existential and philosophical questions about the nature of Cutie Marks and what sort of impact they really have on pony individuality and personality, but these are ultimately skipped in favor of focusing more on the characters as they quickly resolve the conflict; it's understandable, due to the young audiences, but still aggravating.
Would they have even answered these existential, philosophical questions, even if the timeslot were larger? Almost certainly not. Too advanced a concept to bring up in a show intended for younger audiences.
This rapid conflict resolution is evident in, among other episodes, The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone, where the conflict between Gilda and Dash is not only almost completely ignored, but 'resolved' under very odd circumstances, considering that literally the only thing that reformed Gilda was some scones and a flashback sequence. I don't hear apologies out of either of them, nor have I seen any conversation between them since Dash was deliberately avoiding Gilda by gallivanting off into a chasm, and yet *Poof!* suddenly, Gilda and Dash are besties again, despite having little to no interaction with each other up to this point. All this, despite Dash's deep-seated resentment against Gilda for her actions in Ponyville, which can't possibly be resolved in a single episode. Dash is not the type of pony that can let things go easily.
It's, quite obviously, asking far too much of the writers of a show like Friendship is Magic to expand the depth of their Saturday-morning cartoon storytelling to something more reminiscent of a prime-time drama (which, it goes without saying, would completely alienate younger audiences), it still raises a profound point about the costly restrictions that a small airtime slot imposes upon a show's writers, though Hasbro's approval-or lack thereof-and the TV-Y rating are also other factors to contend with here.
The 22-minute 'short attention-span theater' may satisfy the young, easy-to-please crowd, but leaves older audiences hung out to dry. It's the precarious point at which making the episodes too much longer risks alienating the younger audiences, but the episodes as they are may not necessarily be long enough to satisfy an older audience's desire for deeper storytelling. It's difficult to reach compromise on this sort of conundrum, since trying to satisfy one side will disillusion the other. Maybe I'm not giving the younger audience enough credit, who knows.
There's nothing wrong with the episodes as they are, per se, but it does leave older viewers wanting more than what the show is giving them, even with standout episodes like the Cutie Map, which touched upon very daring topics for a children's program as it is.
As an example...
Part one of the S5 opener had a great cliffhanger setup that could've gone many directions, but was ultimately brought down by the painfully contrived and disappointingly predictable second part, which rushed to turn everything back to normal just in time for the credits to roll in true episodic cartoon fashion, glossing over many excellent directions the story could have gone in the process. Yes, I am aware this is an unavoidable consequence of the "22-Minute Conundrum," but I can't help but be disappointed by it all the same.
I still feel Mare Do Well was a good story about the mane six saving RD's rear from herself. Before her ego and recklessness got someone hurt who wasn't her. And Mare do well kept appearing ONLY after things got over Rainbow Dash's head (or she wasted time grand standing instead of saving lives). This kept RD from thinking her friends were trying to steal her spot light and instead focused on the Mare Do Well.
MMC was just rushed and would have worked better as a two parter as a friend of mine has said often. (Much like Magic Duel.)
3112622 On further reflection, I think I'll have to agree with you here. The Mane Six weren't being spiteful, which seems to be the angle a lot of 'fix Fic' authors play (and what the episode only seems like on the surface), they were intentionally acting like that to give Rainbow perspective on her own behavior. I hadn't realized that until now, oddly enough.