With Season 3 winding down, word began to spill out about what was coming: Namely Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn princess and that Season 3 would supposedly be the final season. Fans were shocked and many were outraged at the very idea, the debate over whether or not Twilight should be an alicorn divided the fandom and quite a few threatened to leave the fandom all together if indeed Twilight becoming an alicorn turned out to be true. Amidst all this drama, almost no one seemed to pay

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Although she had been seen frequently throughout the season, Twilight had yet to get an episode centered around her since the premiere. Well, that was all going to change. And it was also going to be a Discord episode and a sort of sick day episode. Suffice it to say, the title for the episode was incredibly accurate because there was a lot on this episode's plate. Ed Valentine was on tap to write it, but strangely enough Meghan McCarthy was helping him. Considering Meghan had already done a

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Season 2's second half was not looking so hot after Derpgate overshadowed "The Last Roundup" and "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" left no question in people's minds that M. A. Larson wasn't as on top of the world as he had appeared to be earlier. Cindy Morrow, coming off her forgotten episode "Family Appreciation Day" and still riding a high from "Sisterhooves Social", cranked out this episode centered not on Applejack but on Rainbow Dash even though she'd already gotten two focus episodes

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So, after only the original "Equestria Girls", there was a really long wait for Season 4 as fans were both anticipating it and dreading it, and it all stemmed back to one thing: Alicorn Twilight. There was a very big asertik about what (if anything) would be different now that Twilight had wings and a royal title. Meghan McCarthy, the show runner once again, was tasked with trying to answer those questions in this two parter. Was she up to the task, especially after "Equestria Girls" came and

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So we had what would be a key episode and an episode continuing the plot for the Equestria Games. An episode like this should've been a top priority, but for whatever reason it was given to relative newcomer Corey Powell who had never written a focus episode for any mane six member before. And keep in mind that Corey had gone from "Sleepless in Ponyville" which was highly praised to "Just For Sidekicks" which was rather forgettable and disappointing. So Corey was definitely out of her league

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By now Season 4 was starting to show signs of running out of steam. "Pinkie Apple Pie" was good but a noticeably low key episode, "Rainbow Falls" was a disaster riddled with plot holes and decisions lacking explanation and "Three's A Crowd" seemed to cram three different episodes into one overcrowded mess. Even "Rarity Takes Manehattan" and "Bats!" were only being talked about for one thing, and how much you loved or hated the episodes seemed to depend on that (Coco Pommel for the former and

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Season 2 seemed to be doing well for most people up to this point, and there's no denying that with "The Return of Harmony" through "Sisterhooves Social" they were showing a desire to be more bold and explore avenues and characters that hadn't been explored before. Lauren Faust's contributing presence likely helped, since now the writers didn't have to worry as much about trying to please both Lauren and Hasbro (at least for the time being). However, this is widely regarded as the first true

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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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With Season 8's finale having already been leaked, fans were already quickly moving on from it and had regarded the season as a disaster. But for those not viewing the leaks (which wasn't easy), it was hard to know how well Season 8 would do in the run up to the end. After seeming to finally get back on track with "The Washouts" and to a lesser extent "Road to Friendship", "A Rockhoof and a Hard Place" came along and brought Season 8 crashing back down in flames as it seemed to treat the

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Thus we come to Season 9, the season that some say was even worse than Season 8 which is no easy feat considering how much Season 8 seemed to drop the ball when it came to writing. It almost felt like self sabotage with how bad the School of Friendship was and how underutilized so many of its concepts were.

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We've only got a few episodes left to cover, especially since I'm going to be skipping over some that I've nothing new to say on. But anyway, with Season 9 having set things up for the finale (including a mostly stand alone episode after one last two parter) the remaining episodes were more or less dedicated to providing "closure" to various characters that hadn't already gotten them. The first among these was Fluttershy, who had been doing surprisingly well for herself in Season 9. Nick

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After getting off to a roaring start with "The Cutie Map" Season 5 had quickly gotten stuck in the mud with lackluster and downright terrible episodes. No one seemed to be able to bring about success, not new writers and not old writers. But Natasha Levinger, the woman behind "Pinkie Apple Pie" and "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" was going to take a crack at trying to get Season 5 back on track. This was a Fluttershy episode, but it was also very much a Discord one and in fact his first one.

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Usually by this point you can get a feel for how good (or bad) a show is going to be. If something engaging isn't happening you're probably not going to hold the audience's attention for much longer. But for this show it was still impossible to tell if it was going to last, quality was impossible to gauge because it had been all over the place and the show itself seemed unsure of what exactly it wanted to do. Nevertheless, with Amy Keating Rogers at the wheel we have an episode that marks the

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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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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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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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