G4.5 - Where Did It Happen? · 7:28am May 25th, 2018
I wanted to do this blog before EFN and am only now getting down to it. At EFN I asked Equestria Daily's staffers what they think of that perception, that the show has changed in the last few seasons and we've subtly entered G4.5. Their answer aside, I do feel this shift has happened. I want to strongly stress I do not think the show has gotten bad. We still have many great episodes in the newer seasons. Yet there is something different about the show now compared to say, Season 4 or Season 2.
I do think something has changed over the show's run. It isn't as simple as "this is when the show began to suck", because there is no such point. But I do believe there is a pivotal turning point when the show began to shift as a result of several smaller things combining together.
Get me below the break to see when I think pony began to go in a new direction and what caused it to shift course.
When do I think pony began to change? The short and simple answer is - Season 6.
STARLIGHT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
Starlight's addition to the show as a main character was not a cause of the show's change in focus. Indeed, Starlight has become the best character on the show these days. She was not the cause, just a symptom. The actual causes need actual analysis.
Reason 1 - Story Arcs
Now, some would say that Twilight completed her character development upon her ascension to alicorn status and she got boring afterward. I half-disagree: she's still interesting and likeable, but she did complete her character arc. We've had a few episodes pay service to the idea of Twilight not being sure how she fits into things now that she has a title, but they were mostly in Season 4. Come Season 5 Twilight has mostly just been Twilight With Wings, but now she lives in a castle instead of the library.
But, okay, let's run with that thesis, Twilight finished her character arc and got boring. Other characters followed suit.
Rarity now owns three boutiques across Canterlot, has been featured in magazines and prominent fashion shows, and has business associates in Sassy Saddles and Coco Pommel. Her journey is ongoing but it is complete, she has realized her dream of becoming a famous trend-setting fashion designer who can rub elbows with the big wigs. Rainbow Dash is likewise - she is a Wonderbolt, she went through training, became a cadet, and is now a fully member of the team and performs with them regularly. He character arc is complete. Fluttershy has become more assertive. The CMC got their cutie marks. Spike has evolved out of his baby dragon status into more of Twilight's kid brother and has grown stories and relationships entirely independent of his relationship with Twilight.
The only characters who have not seen their story or character arcs be completed are Applejack and Pinkie. Pinkie was always just the plucky relief who was happy to make you happy. Considering she works at Sugarcube Corner and is a famous party planner across Equestria, Pinkie has already peaked in her arc. Applejack, she never really had a story or character arc comparable to Rainbow wanting to be a Wonderbolt or Fluttershy trying to overcome her social anxieties. Applejack has always had potential in storylines concerning family, but we've gotten Perfect Pear, Somepony to Watch Over Me, and Leap of Faith. Any family-centric episodes Applejack could provide have already been done or aren't likely to be done (examining the stresses of being the pillar of a broken family).
When was the last time we got a legit good Mane Six episode? I don't mean a good episode featuring them, I mean an episode where one or more of the core six was the central focus of the story and the episode didn't feature a side-character prominently. Let's take it from Season 6 again: Newbie Dash, The Saddle Row Review, Applejack's "Day" Off, The Cart Before The Ponies, 28 Pranks Later, Buckball Season, P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View), and Where The Apple Lies. Eight episodes, of 26, focused solely on the Mane Six. 33%. If you include Spike's episodes Gauntlet of Fire and Times Are A Changeling, we get to ten. Every other episode focused on side characters, either in a shared role (Gift of the Maud Pie, Flutter Brutter) or a spotlight role (every map episode, every Starlight episode, etc). Season 7 scores even lower - Fluttershy Leans In, Honest Apple, Fame and Misfortune, It Isn't the Mane Thing About You, Secrets and Pies. Five episodes.
Now, ask yourself this - of all the episodes I just listed, how many would you say are actually good? How many were great? How many were lame or weak, or even bad?
The best episodes of the series no longer come from the Mane Six. We do get good ones sometimes, like Saddle Row Review and Mane Thing About You, but mostly the great episodes are focused on side characters. There's a good reason Trixie, Maud, Ember, Thorax, and Sunburst are supporting regulars - the Mane Six have little to offer now in terms of story, their potential has been milked dry, unless we want to rehash an old episode or regress their character development. We've had to branch out into side characters to get solid episodes. Even side characters that aren't supporting regulars now, they get to appear regularly, like Lyra, Derpy, Cranky, and Vinyl. Day was we'd get excited to see them in an episode. Now we expect it, because it's common.
Reason 2 - No Mysteries
Remember The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone? We were so excited to see the home of the griffons and see Gilda again. We loved Gauntlet of Fire for giving us a proper dragon episode and giving us Torch and Ember.
The problem is we got too many of those episodes. And it's ruined any sense of mystery and discovery the show once had. Griffonstone was treated like a big deal in its premiere episode, the entire first act of the episode was spent just getting there. Now, it's a train ride away for Rainbow to talk to Grandpa Gruff about Gallus.
This problem happened to the movie too, by the way. The drama of seeing the Storm King invade Equestria and the Mane Six quest beyond the kingdom's boarders for aid is lost with how often the show had already done this in the seven seasons prior to the film. The threat of a mysterious invader from lands unknown was diminished to just normal. The tension of the group leaving Equestria and seeing new races was lost since we'd already visited the Dragon Lands, Griffonstone, the Changeling hive, and Yakyakistan. The Season 7 finale was fantastic, but the show played its final cards by revealing the origins of the elements of harmony and Star Swirl's fate.
The last uncharted corner of the map is the Zebras, once we get them we're done. Every land has been explored, every rac has been visited. It used to be a big thing to leave Equestria and see other races. Now, those other races are regular characters. The other major question mark is alicorns, but the show may well get to that someday too. Mysteries of lore and backstory we once presumed would never be answered are being answered. The unknowns are knowns, the unexplored is becoming explored. Nothing is off the table now for what could happen. The show is going places we never thought it actually would. And maybe, for the sense of childlike charm and wonder it once had, maybe it ought to have stayed out of them.
Reason 3 - The Writers
Again, I want to emphasize that I do not think the show has gotten bad, it hasn't. Yet, it has changed, and I think a major element of that was the massive change in writing staff. Let's look at the list of writers for Season 6, using the wiki's episode list.
Josh Haber, Michael and Will Fox, Dave Polsky, Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco, Nick Confalone, Dave Rapp, Michael Vogel, Ed Valentine. Kevin Burke & Chris "Doc" Wyatt, F.M. DeMarco, Jennifer Skelley
You may have wondered why I bolded Dave Polsky's name. The reason is simple - he's the only one of these writers who was on the show prior to Season 4. Josh Haber, Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco, and Ed Valentine joined the crew in Season 4, Nick Confalone joined in Season 5, and everyone else joined in Season 6. Hell, DeMacro and Skelley each did one episode in Season 6 and apparently left after that, since they aren't on Season 7's list and aren't on Season 8's yet.
By contrast, notice all the names that aren't on the list. We;ve lost Mitch Larson and Amy Keeting-Rogers, and that same year as Season 5 aired, Meghan McCarthy was promoted to an executive position where she oversaw other franchises than MLP. Season 5 also saw the final episodes of Cindy Morrow, who was on the show since the first season, and Corey Powell who has been here since Season 3. On the way to Season 5 we lost Merriweather Williams and Charlotte Fullerton, who have been here since Season 2 and 1, respectively.
The writers of FIM as it exists today are not the same writers who helmed the show through its first five seasons. That is not an opinion, it's a statement of fact - all the old writers are gone, and no one on the writing staff now predates Twilicorn and Equestria Girls. Looking at the crew list, the early seasons had a small team of writers - Larson, AKR, McCarthy, Morrow, Williams, and Polsky. Pick and episode and odds are one of them wrote it. But they're all gone now. Season 6 has almost twice the number of writers for it as listed up there.
Now, again, this is not a bad thing, new talent is always welcome and plenty of these folks have done fantastic episodes. But when a massive change in crew happens like this, inevitably, there will be a shift in product. Is it any wonder that we tend to get recycled episodes so often that reuse an aesop or basic plot outline? How characters can repeat character beats several seasons old or have their development regress? Imagine writing a fanfic and halfway through the story, you pass it off to a friend who has read it since the first chapter. Sure, he's an avid reader and has your author notes to go on. But he will not write the story the way you would have. And readers will notice the shift in style even if the fic stays good.
The core cast of characters the show once centered around have finished their character and story arcs and have little left to do for centric episodes but repeat aesops and character morals they've already had in the past. Minor background ponies are recurring extras with scripted scenes and dialogue. Exotic non-pony races are commonplace and their homelands are well-established and visited often. And the show is helmed by a crew of writers substantially larger than earlier seasons and many of whom have spent less time on the show than Starlight Glimmer.
Perhaps I should just let these pictures tell the story simpler.
The cast is bigger, the core six are boring-er, the side characters get spotlight episodes regularly, regions beyond Equestria are a casual train ride away, and no one who writes for the show these days was there to see how it began or experience the growth of the show in its early days.
Welcome to G 4.5. Where the show is still good, but it isn't the same show it was just three years ago.
I don't really see the point of rebranding it G 4.5, shows go through different changes all the time, either by getting different Characters and writers and changing up the status quo. But the core of the show itself has still stayed the same, focusing on the magic of friendship and it's possibilities, only now we're capable of expanding that to other races as opposed to Simply keeping it limited to ponies and only the occasional non equine that appears. The World building itself has come along way too, from us simply assuming what happened in certain instances to now having concrete confirmation on certain events, such as the origin of the elements of harmony.
I would say it's just evolved and improved.
Yeah, this is apt. It does feel different. It's lost a lot of that fun charmed that captured me in the first two seasons and held me until the fifth. I think I liked it when we didn't get answers to all the mysteries. That was what fan-fiction was for, to fill in the lore and map the writers started.
It's not bad, it's just lost something along the way. Which makes it hard for me to continue watching it so avidly. Even the colors of the show just look duller than they did in the first seasons.
I called G4.5 at the end of S7/the movie, but more and more, lately I've been thinking that the end of S5 is really where the 'real' show ended and the new one began, for all that I did honestly like S7. And it probably is just because all the old guard writers are gone.
Are we really complaining about world building and character development now? I'd say the show has improved because it's made the decision to put more focus on side characters and exploring the larger world. The show is ending soon I say answer as many questions as you can before the end.
Calling it G4.5 feels like a bit of a stretch, by that logic any show that undergoes significant changes in development or focus, or has new writers join at the expense of old ones, is rebranded into a partially new generation. It's still the same show, it's just that some changes have occurred, for better or for worse is up for debate.
Edit: Also, Lewis and Songco joined in Season 5, not 4.
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Sadly, some people think it's objectively for the worst and anyone who says otherwise is delusional.
I feel like Equestria Girls should count as the G4.5 series.
Obviously this is all just my opinion, but I think we really entered G4.5, if we entered it at all, at the end of Season 3. Twilight ascended to Alicorn-hood and more importantly the series had enough episodes that it could be put out to pasture by being syndicated. Lauren Faust's direct influence on the show was at an end. The show was at an end.
And then (well I'm imagining this part, but I think it makes sense) someone in upper management at Hasbro had an epiphany...
"This show is popular, and it has fans with money. We could sell lots more toys if we just kept it going..."
So, enter 4.5, different creative talent, and a different vision for the show. No more trying to reach a limited point (syndication) it became an ongoing open ended "let's see how far we can take this" affair. It lost original people among the writers and among the directors and their replacements had different (I did not say worse, I just said different) ideas. Plus who really knows how much influence the Hasbro marketing team is bringing to bear ("Yes! We have toys to sell, "X" IS a thing..."), plus the influence of whoever runs around making sure the show is oh so squeaky Politically Correct (can't have FlutterMac and SugarMac supporters engaged in bloody battles to the death at the various cons now...lol
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So, without G4.5 the show would have been long over instead of being in it's second last season (with the mysterious G5 already looming in the background) like it is now. But with the decision to enter G4.5 it became a different show, and I suspect that even had they kept Lauren Faust and all the original writers and directors the show would have still undergone changes after season 3, and so, here we are. Neither better nor worse, just different, and starting to show it's age. As long as they are restricted to 20:00 minute episodes aimed primarily at young girls it is unlikely to change, they are running out of fresh ideas. A new vision might help, but what would that vision be? And can they implement it without going to G5 anyway?
I expect that what's going to happen is that they will spend the next two seasons trying to tie up loose ends to bring the series to a somewhat satisfying conclusion. They may introduce some things in season 9 that leave the series with an "open end" feeling that life in G4 will go on, but just without us watching, and Equestria Girls will likely spin out to it's own end, possibly with a rare cameo from Twilight or Starlight, but unless they somehow transmogrify the G4.5 world into the G5 world (Discord's doing I would presume...) it's reaching the end of it's life, and as sad as that makes me I am glad the series is being allowed to end with whatever dignity a cartoon show can achieve rather than being flogged to death to sell the last toy possible.