So after "Castle Mane-Ia" established a new method for delivering the aesop and also teased the prospect of a continued search for the keys, what was next for Season 4? Well, the short answer was not much. The search for the keys would not in fact take up every episode even just in the background, and in what was ultimately a sign to come the show would not commit to the possibility of a story arc. Dave Polsky was brought on to write again despite his track record in Season 3 being rather mixed

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So the writing team had been assembled and every writer had written at least one episode by now. But after ten episodes the show was all over the place, quality was impossible to pin down and the show still didn't seem to know what it wanted to do. For the last episode to air in 2010 the show decided to do an episode involving winter, or rather cleaning up after winter. Cindy Morrow returned to the writer's chair here, but all anyone ever talks about is the song of the same name? Is there a

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It looked like Season 7 had finally found what could be said to be a central theme for it with "Forever Filly" and "Parental Glideance", family. We had an episode of Rarity going through a mid-life crisis and accepting that Sweetie Belle was growing up which turned out to be better than it had any right to be. But then we had a painfully annoying episode in "Parental Glideance" that way overdid it on the embarrassing parents trope and suggested Rainbow Dash was in the wrong for being mad at her

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Season 7 finally had a hit on its hands with "Rock Solid Friendship", but there was still no clear direction for it after four episodes. What (if anything) was the overall theme? Where was this season going to take our characters? Well, this episode wasn't going to offer up much in the way of answers. What it would feature was another "achieving the dream" episode, in this case it would be Fluttershy achieving her never before mentioned dream of opening an animal sanctuary. And who was

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So it was that Twilight was now freed up from having to be Starlight's teacher, which meant her character could hopefully get back on track after Season 6 seemed to exaggerate her flaws more than was necessary. And for the sake of fanservice, this first episode to focus on her as an individual in over a season would involve a concept so many fanfics had been written about: Twilight foalsitting her niece, Flurry Heart. However, much like "Castle, Sweet Castle" we had two new writers making their

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And so we come to the finale of Season 7, the salvaged plans for the pillars after Hasbro insisted on ending the show at nine seasons and just over 220 episodes. By now, Josh Haber had taken back the reigns of story editor completely from Lewis and Songco, beginning with "Secrets and Pies". The IDW comics had been promoting the plans for quite a while now via their Legends of Magic comics, and Nicole Dubac was being brought on to help write this two parter with Josh Haber (Haber retained solo

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Because a Christmas episode in May is totally not out of place or anything like that. Yes, I know the episodes are not set in any particular order, but seriously why is that we only got one Christmas themed episode that aired in time for Christmas and the rest all aired far in advance? Well anyway, Season 6 really needed something to get it back on the right track after "Newbie Dash" bombed and even "No Second Prances" was hotly contested, almost like the opposite of the one two punch

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Fun fact about this episode, because it got bumped around in production order it ended up airing a day after the big 2017 movie premiered in theaters. Coincidentally, this meant we got to see an interesting comparison of Twilight's character because of this episode. Her last two focus episodes had involved "A Flurry of Emotions" and "A Health of Information", largely seeming to pair her up with others even though she was now freed from being Starlight's teacher. A new writer in the form of

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By now, Season 7 was having its episodes aired early on Treehouse T.V. in Canada, so spoilers were a plenty in this season. Meanwhile, in what seemed to be a common trend for the season, it would go from something good or even great to something equally bad as we went straight from "Hard to Say Anything" to "Honest Apple" and one of the worst OOC performances Applejack ever had. To get things back on track, Lewis and Songco were writing this episode which was to be the very first royal sisters

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So, after Season 2 had its first true dud in the form of "The Cutie Pox" what was next? Apparently this, an episode about Rainbow Dash wanting a pet, which is something fanfic writers had already explored (not much but it was there). And who did they pick to write the episode? Charlotte Fullerton, whose track record consisted of "Look Before You Sleep", "Suited For Success" and "A Bird in the Hoof" in that order. Not exactly a record of high quality, but then again maybe she could turn in

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With Season 4 half over it looked like things were on a roll, nothing could possibly stop it. This episode was heavily touted ahead of time for what it was, a return appearance by Flutterguy. And it was written by Amy Keating Rogers, the very same Amy who had rose to new heights with "Pinkie Pride". But by the time the dust settled on this episode, controversy would rear its ugly head once again with Amy at the center of it. Has that controversy overshadowed the episode? And if so does that

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If you thought my opinions on "The Return of Harmony" and "Luna Eclipsed" were unpopular, just wait until you see my opinion on this two parter. So many people still hold it in high regard, I daresay there's not a two parter more popular than it or more highly praised than it (the only one that comes close is "Shadow Play"). Happening to coincide with the MLP franchise's 30th anniversary, many still say this is where the show reached it peak and where it should've stopped. And this is despite

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With the Cutie Mark Crusaders having started to mature in Season 4 and move away from obsessing over their cutie marks, Season 5 looked as if it were going to revisit that. Josh Haber was picked to write this episode, but his most recent writing endevor at the time had been the utterly bland "Leap of Faith" which had starred Applejack. So, was Haber more comfortable working with Apple Bloom, or did he only end up proving that Apple family characters were not his forte for interesting stories?

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So after the 100th episode came and went it was back to business as usual for Season 5, in more ways than one. And by a stroke of misfortune, the episode now having to follow up on the fandom love letter was a Spike episode. Considering even "Equestria Games" had been met with criticism over its abrupt shift to Spike, it seemed like a lot was working against this episode already. Not helped by the fact that a brand new writer in the form of Neal Dusedau debuting here, though the story was being

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As word started to spread about what was in store for the show at the end of Season 5, and word of the big theatrical movie continued to slowly be released, Season 5 itself welcomed another writer into its ranks. This one wasn't quite a newcomer though, Gillian M. Berrow had previously written various chapter books for the show with her first name shortened to G. Her books had been of varying quality, though she had also briefly done a Daring Do series that only lasted for three books. But she

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So, after the map called all of the mane six to a village in the middle of nowhere, and then called Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to Griffonstone, what was next for the map? Calling Applejack and Rarity back to Manehattan, a familiar location. This episode actually has a very interesting production history, because it was originally going to involve Flim and Flam again. One of them would become mayor and ban all apple products within the city. However, it would all turn out to be another

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So the show got back on track with "Dragonshy", well it wasn't going to last. This episode is the start of a small dry spell that, again, I'm so glad it didn't get the show killed or cause people to completely lose interest. Charlotte Fullerton wrote this episode, and it's rather weird because she is the only one of the original writers who had never worked with Lauren Faust before. I would assume she was either recommended by Hasbro, or one of Lauren's assembled writers knew about Charlotte

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And so it was that, after a season of several unexpected shake-ups as the show seemed to be maturing (or at least trying to), we would come to a finale where spoilers had already given away what was going to happen. A sign of how things would not be as tightlipped for future seasons as they had been in the days of The Hub. So instead of another "Twilight's Kingdom" that everyone was looking forward to, it seemed like the finale would be another "A Canterlot Wedding" or "Magical Mystery Cure"

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So we're closing out the first half of Season 1 with what by all accounts is a classic, even by the show's standards given how much they seemed to love trying to call back to this in later seasons. It's also an episode that I think almost singlehandedly launched the ship of AppleDash, which alongside FlutterMac used to be all over the place in the fandom's early days. Amy Keating Rogers wrote this episode, so we should be in for a good time, right? Well, let's find out.

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So another comic arc had to wrap up in four issues, and this one was just full of problems and questionable continuity nods/errors. But considering the previous arc was able to kind of get back on track at the very end, maybe there was hope for this one to do the same? Well, let's find out.

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