Season 1 - Short Reviews and Ratings

Well, I asked about blogs, but only one way to tell for sure. And I'll start by reposting some stuff I've said in somewhat obscure places. Here's some things I wrote about Season 1 last year - 2 and 3 to follow!

Okay then, Season 1! Before we get started, a few ground rules.

• I'll be listing the episodes in chronological airing generally acknowledged order - simpler for my autistic mind. Might compile some kind of "bests-and-worsts" at the end.
• Unlike most of my other pleasures in life, I very rarely rewatch pony. So the impressions here are based off single viewings 8 years ago (half of them in one "what-the-hell-is-this" rush) and fan osmosis since.
• I'm going to try and stick to judgement of an episode's overall quality rather than breaking down all of it's elements, or I'll be here all week. If you want my opinion about anything more specific, ask.
• My ratings - well <I like the whole first season, so in this post all eps will be Excellent, Good or at worst Fine> - in future reviews they will unfortunately be joined by their discorded counterparts, Mediocre, Bad, and Terrible.

• And <since I originally posted this as comments on one of SuperPinkBrony12's blogs, you'll see some references to his own opinions of the episodes from way back in 2013.>

  So without further ado...

  Friendship is Magic Part 1
  The (mostly) slice-of-life half of the pilot, it gives a decent introduction to our basic characters and settings while building hints of mythological doom for the second half.

  Rating: Good. (Although given what most viewers were comparing it to - the tail end of G3 - it's no wonder it felt Excellent at the time.)

  Friendship is Magic Part 2
  And the adventure half! In retrospect it's pretty rushed (and some of the "trials" kind of dubious) but at the time it stretched the imagination with regards to what you could do on My Little Pony.

  (I do sometimes wonder if it might have been better to save the villain/quest for the end of the season, after the Mane 6 had grown together more naturally - but if there hadn't been action, adventure, eternal night and rainbows, would it really have been popular out of the gate? Somehow I doubt it - you need a "hook", and this was the one that got people to care about these characters enough to watch them in anything.)

  Rating: Good. Although among two-parters, it's ahead of the curve.

  Ticket Master
  If the pilot is the in-universe introduction of these characters to each other (with a focus on their virtues) then this is an alternative introduction of them to us, the audience (focusing on their vices and desires). And of course, with plenty of comedy and the seeds of our first "arc" of sorts.

  Rating: Good. I think it complements the opener well, and by watching them together you should hopefully have a basic understanding of this world and set of characters while still wanting to see more of them.

  Applebuck Season
  And here the show delivers, shifting focus to one of the other characters (at the cost of their opposite going out of focus). It certainly took Applejack's biggest flaw head-on (although perhaps not as head-on as Faust first intended) and let us know early on such important facts as that cows could talk and ponies vomit.

  Rating: Good. I'm really starting to sound like a broken record here, but I did warn you - and I think it's the sheer freshness the show still has at this point that appeals to me. You're only young once, as they say... This is the first episode where SPB12 agrees with me, though.

  Griffon the Brush Off
  Okay, first you take what would have been a solid episode in it's own right, with two of the remaining unexplored characters bonding and a surprisingly mature moral about pranks, and then you just fold it up into an opening act without even making it seem rushed? And this is so you can spend most of the episode showing off the show's first "social villain", who's not even a pony but a cool mythological creature instead? Yeah, at the time it felt more or less of a kind with the others, but looking again at just how structurally elegant this is...

  Rating: Excellent. I guess I couldn't tell the first time round because so many good episodes were just blurring together... SPB12 liked this one too, for some of the reasons I didn't bother to mention above.

  Boast Busters
  So Gilda set a high bar for guest characters/social villains/character foils, one you might expect to go unsurpassed for a while... so the show just goes and tops her in the very next episode! Trixie might not bring a whole new species or backstory links to the table, but she has character and style in spades, moral ambiguity... you can see why she was so popular in fandom even before they brought her back.

  And it's not even as if she's the only thing this episode has to offer - we have magic lore and spectacular practical demonstrations, fantastic beasts, Twilight/Spike dynamics, Snips and Snails... Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't get lost in individual elemnts, but this ep has just so many wrapped around a decent and multifaceted moral to boot.

  Rating: Excellent again. Which makes for my biggest difference yet with SPB12, who didn't like this one - I notice there are a lot of Trixie fans who don't, which is a bit weird, because without it she wouldn't exist!

  Dragonshy
  A very influential episode. Two of the reasons are right there in the name - we learn a lot about FIM dragons (so an important episode for Spike fans even though he's not in it much) and Fluttershy gets some exposure (even though she'd have been quite happy not to). But there's also a subtler one - it's the episodes unique "quest" structure in a standalone episode, which was never really repeated again in the show but produced countless fanfics in which the gang served as Celestia's troubleshooters. (Personally, my retroactive interpretation is that any "misson" was mostly in Twilight's head.)

  Rating: Good. Which seems to be separated from Excellent by the presence or lack of a strong guest... SPB12 likes it too.

  Look Before You Sleep
  Our first bottle episode - three characters, one building, one night! And what a pair of polar opposites (and neutral, oblivious mediator) they are! Even if this pairing is a little overused sometimes and maybe shouldn't have been Rarity's first spotlight, it still works well.

  Rating: Good. SPB12 doesn't agree, but I think that's just Pinkie withdrawal.

  Bridle Gossip
  Okay, Zecora is totally a Magical Negro and I can see why some people might have problems with that, but for me she's just too good at it for me to complain. And she's not our only new face this episode - we may have glimpsed the adorable Apple Bloom before, but it's here that she really comes into her own. And if you prefer to focus on the main cast - well, they each have an amusing affliction to display for your (and Spike's) enjoyment. Plus an anti-prejudice message too!

  Rating: Excellent. (At this point, I don't know if it really is the guest characters which make the difference, or if I'm just using that rule to differentiate among an endless parade of top-class episodes.)

  Swarm of The Century
  A bit of an unusual episode, with the usual character interaction sidelined as everypony tries to deal with a crisis - flying tribbles! I liked the change of pace - so much so that...

  Rating: Excellent. The first one not to introduce a recurring guest character!

  Winter Wrap Up
  Our first winter episode - sort of. And our first real musical number - and our introduction into the full scale of pony control of nature... Yeah, the season is moving into high gear here! (Although speaking of seasons, if they were barely ever going to show winter again then they might have been better off not fixing it to a 3-month length.)

  Rating: Excellent. I guess I'm on a high here - no wonder I became an obsessive brony pretty quickly!

  Call of The Cutie
  All the hallmarks of a Poorly Disguised Pilot here, down to the character who will be dropped for the actual show (poor Twist, we hardly knew ye). It also kind of reminds me of how the Babysitter's Little Sister books related to the main Babysitters Club ones - although the Crusaders are IMO closer to the age of the latter.

  Rating: Good. I know it introduces a lot of new characters, but there are *too* many of them to get the guest star bonus.

  Fall Weather Friends
  The first episode I watched new! And that's about all to say, as it's a pretty straightforward story - two leads, two acts, two commentators... Definitely one for the athlete (or sports fan) in all of us (mine is buried pretty deep down).

  Rating: Good. I consider this probably the most average episode of the season, but it's a heck of a season!

  Suited for Success
  Okay, so Rarity had to wait a little longer for a (pure) focus episode than most of her friends, but does this one deliver or what? It probably helps that it's essentially the lament of a creative leashed by various arbitrary constraints, forced to turn out a flawed product with their name on it and take the blame... No, I can't imagine how that might be a resonant theme for staff working on a kids toy show.

  Rating: Excellent. (Probably even without the song, but it sure didn't hurt.) And like SPB12 says, it's way better than a fashion episode "should" be - much like Rarity is far too awesome to be a fashionista. Or perhaps it's just our perceptions of things which are narrow...

  Feeling Pinkie Keen
  A bit of a zanier episode than usual, and quite controversial at the time due to an awkward delivery of the moral. (This controversy seems to follow the writer, Dave Polsky, around.) Still, there's plenty to enjoy here (titbit: what Twilight is missing is that to have arrived at the codifed Pinkie Sense she has now, Pinkie must be a pretty good scientist).

  Rating: Fine. The lowest any episode will drop this season. And I do think that this is a real side of Twilight's character - see Bridle Gossip, where she handles a similar (but better delivered) moral.

  Sonic Rainboom
  Probably the first episode of several where I have "love/like dissonance" - I have nothing against an episode the rest of the fandom (including SPB12) considers the hottest thing since sliced bread. There's certainly plenty to enjoy here, from our first real sight of Cloudsdale and pegasus culture to some great character stuff for Rainbow, But I can't help but be thrown off by some bits, like Rarity's OOC-seeming behaviour and how some things that happened here (like Rainbow's prize) seem to be forgotten later. (I suppose that isn't actually this episodes fault...)

  Rating: Good. I may not like it as much as many, but it at least deserves that.

  Stare Master
  What stands out most to me about this episode (besides Twilight's grisly near-fate - I bet she was an inch away from telling Rockhoof "it's not as fun as it looks.") is how single-mindedly devoted to it's moral it is - I don't think there's a single character, from Rarity to Elizabeak, who doesn't bite off more than they can chew and face the consequences.

  Rating: Excellent. A good first outing for the CMC, even if it probably shouldn't have been (see below).

  The Show Stoppers
  Following on from our earlier Poorly Disguised Pilot, we now have our first actual episode of My Little Pony: Cutie Mark Crusaders, which should probably have aired before the above "crossover" with it's parent show. (But it doesn't really matter, because this "spinoff" is to a normal one what conjoined twins are to the regular sort.) We establish the characters, (some) of their talents, their obliviousness to same, a headquarters... Yep, after this one the CMC are ready to roll!

  Rating: Good. A lot of folks felt that this and other CMC episodes were weaker than the ones focused on the Mane 6, but I didn't see why... yet.

  A Dog and Pony Show
  An episode with many interesting parts, but not quite a flawless gem. The Dogs are adequate villains (and a lot better than the show bible versions) but seem to lose almost too easily (have they never heard of a gag?), and all in all the whole thing comes off less of a moral about how ladies can be strong even without fighting and more of one about how whining at violent kidnappers leaves you better off instead of worse - a bit of a dangerous one even if few viewers will ever have a chance to apply it, no?

  Rating: Fine. The good parts more than balance out the weaknesses.

  Green Isn't Your Color
  A nicely multilayered episode, with the problem between best friends Rarity and Fluttershy in the foreground while in the background friendship newbie Twilight Sparkle and omnipresent Pinkie Pie clash over the ethics of secret-keeping. Photo Finish is a bit of a jerk, but she's kind of the antagonist so I don't mind it like SPB12 did - and I don't even understand his problem with the whole secret-keeping theme.

  Rating: Excellent. A good example of how different layers of the plot can feed into each other.

  Over A Barrel
  Definitely one that will ruffle a few feathers with it's Old West "Cowboys and Indians" theme. I'm not American though, so to me it's just a new setting with a new race and new characters - and I like expanding the toybox. (In retrospect, it also makes a refreshing contrast to the Map missions - the Mane cast just exacerbate the problem, which the locals eventually resolve among themselves without help.) And we get our first train, with less colour but more horsepower than it's successors.

  Rating: Good. I had fallen into the trap of thinking of this as one of the worst Season 1 episodes (and therefore a Fine) but there's actually a lot of good stuff here ("I'd like to be a tree...) so I think I'll swim against the crowd here. And apologies to SPB12, but just because Pinkie means well doesn't mean she can't make things worse.

  A Bird In The Hoof
  A nice little Fluttershy showcase, which also gives us the most of Celestia we'll get this season - albeit mainly via the old adage that people and their pet's tend to resemble each other. Philomena may not look like much to start with, but that's the trick - and the reveal IMO works well both for those of us who already know about phoenixes and young viewers first discovering the concept. (Although I hope that they don't jump to the conclusion that their pets will just come back to life no matter what they do to them...)

  Rating: Excellent. An episode as quietly beautiful as it's star (no, not you Philomena). SPB12 seems to agree.

  Cutie Mark Chronicles
  Oh boy - one thing you should know about me is that I'm kind of a backstory fan, and I thoroughly approve of laying out the key points of the Mane 6's here (while still leaving plenty of room for later elaboration). To go through each vignette in order:

  • Applejack's gave us our first glimpse of Manehattan - who knew it would one day become a recurring setting?
  • Fluttershy's was cute, with a very Disneyesque song.
  • Rarity's increased the mysteries around unicorn magic and gave us a glimpse of Ponyville in this era.
  • Twilight's foreshadowed her destiny and established both the scale of her true power and the roots of her connection with Spike.
  • Pinkie's introduced her home and family, and showed both how different they were from her and that they did not reject her for it.
  • Rainbow's brought nothing new on it's own - we'd heard the story in Call of the Cutie - but it was the one that tied all of the others together.

  And having them all tied together meant that it wasn't just the viewers and the CMC learning things this episode - the Mane 6 also learned that there was more destiny to their friendship than they had thought. Might have worked well with the "Elements at end of season idea"...

  Rating: Excellent. As if there was any question. (And I agree with SPB12 that the Filly Six were adorable - did you know that my idea for the Season 5 finale would have featured them all in a teamup with Spike and the CMC?)

  Owl's Well That Ends Well
  Our first Spike episode, and everybody knows that he didn't get a good one until Season 4 or even 6, right? Well. everybody except me, who never had any problems with this one (although retroactively, you'd think a dragon living nearby would matter more). A neat way of playing with the assumption that Spike was Twilight's pet - just don't ask me to spell that bird's name.

  Rating: Good. Seriously, I don't see what's so OOC about them.

  Party of One
  This would have been a creepy episode even if most of the fandom hadn't at least heard of that fic, Can't really think of much else to say about it, though.

  Rating: Good. Or maybe Fine - it's surprisingly unmemorable. But I can't remember anything wrong with it either, so I'm inclined to be generous.

  The Best Night Ever
  A rather ironic title for a finale which stands out from subsequent ones in a few ways. Firstly, it's not focuses on any great crisis or big changes - perhaps because it was designed as the penultimate episode, a mirror to Ticket Master just as the first two two-parters would play off each other. (I think that makes it the first sequel episode also, with the addition of Suited for Success in the middle forming the first "arc".)

  Secondly, it focuses mostly on the other 5, with Twilight in the smallest role. Of course, the portrayals here aren't the most flattering - like it's mirror, the episode uses their wishes to excite their vices - contrast how the following episodes invert their virtues instead.

  And lastly, there is really no lasting effect (unless you count Rainbow meeting the Wonderbolts, which she was supposed to have done already offscreen).

  Rating: Good. A solid if somewhat cynical close-out to the season - wouldn't have been so good for closing the series, but then that was what the following episodes were for.

  Season 1 Overall

  10 Excellent +14 Good + 2 Fine = an overall rating of Excellent.

  The season that most of us fell in love with, as well as many who have since left the fandom because they felt subsequent seasons didn't measure up. I'm kind of in between - I don't think that any other season has been as consistently good as this one, but plenty of individual episodes have surpassed the ones shown here. Partly, this is because this era is simpler and fresher - the world is still unfolding for us bit by bit, and it's still amazing that My Little Pony can be this good. Did this quality create standards that the show would struggle to measure up to or surpass? Or was it simply the magic touch of Lauren Faust and Rob Renzetti? In the end, we may never know - but even pony could only be young once, so we should appreciate this era whether we feel it gets better or worse from here on out.

Comments

[Loganberry]

Well, that was nicely uplifting! I'm not quite as kind as you to S1, though I do like it a good deal more than I used to think I did. Still, you gave "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" an Excellent so all is right with the world. (Actually, I've barely ever come across anyone who doesn't love that episode. Seeing Filly Fluttershy singing pretty much guarantees top marks from me on its own!)

[Latecomer]

I do like it a good deal more than I used to think I did.

Oh? Did it's good points stand out more on a rewatch?

[Yosh-E-O]

This was a fun read. It brought back a lot of memories that make me want to grab my iPhone and listen to the episodes that I downloaded through iTunes.

For me, Season 1 was tough but gripping. However the reason I had some trouble with it is, upon getting into the series during some very traumatic times in my life, I became very sensitive to Spike and would often feel a tad 'extreme' when he was made to either 'hold the fort' while the girls did their thing, or was expected to act more like an adult instead of the child he was. (I still wonder why we never saw him fight Twi on being able to go out and live life like the CMC. I really feel the poor guy was made to grow up too fast.)

My favorite episodes in Season 1, outside of the series premiere, were "Ticket Master""Apple Buck Season", "Bridle Gossip", "Stare Master", and #1 being "Cutie Mark Chronicles".

Why I liked these episodes is largely in how nearly every key character had some part and/or side story that worked to add to character development, world building, etc. There was more to gleam than a linear plot that took one, or two, ponies and put a magnifying glass to them while either keeping other characters 'off screen', or minimally involved.

I wasn't a fan of "Griffon The Brush Off" as, largely, I saw Pinkie Pie antagonizing Gilda to the point that, knowing what we know of griffons, brought out her 'mean side'. If Pinkie would've allowed Gilda and Dash to have their time together, I believe it could have been a starting point to showing how other creatures can be a part of Equestrian life.

"Boast Busters" was also a tad unfair to Trixie. Though it did establish her ego. So not as bad, to me, as "Griffon The Brush Off".

"Feeling Pinkie Keen" was confusing. Especially as, until this episode, we never got to see her openly do particular actions when, in this episode, she did. However, as Pinkie is a force all her own with 4th wall breaking abilities, it can be excused that 'Pinkie sense' comes-and-goes.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It was fun to look back as, for me, I was able to physically see Seasons 1 thru 5. Season 6 was very hit-or-miss based on ongoing surgeries, and 7, 8, and 9 are all imagination built.