Poll: MLP Has Jumped the Shark

[Drathnoxis]

WARNING!! DISCUSSION OF MULTICOLORED MINIATURE HORSES IMMINENT! THOSE WHO ARE EASILY DISTURBED BY BRIGHT COLORS PLEASE PLACE YOUR HEAD INSIDE OF A MILITARY THEMED DUFFEL BAG AND BEGIN TO HYPERVENTILATE!

...ALSO THERE BE SPOILERS!


So the show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has been pretty hot stuff for a while now. I myself was a pretty big fan, having watched the first season at least 3 times. It was quite above par. The show had an endearing art style, likable characters, decent plot, and a cute charm that one couldn't help but adore. But then the creator, Lauren Faust, left the show. I, like most fans, hoped that this wouldn't mean that the good times were over -- one person doesn't make a show, right?

Well, as season two ran it's course it became more and more clear that the show I loved was dying. Characters that had always been so well defined became inconsistent. In fact, Twilight Sparkle was horribly flanderized in the very first episode not directed by Faust, Lesson Zero. She goes so absolutely batshit insane over the fact that she missed one little deadline (that I might add was never specified in her original assignment) that she actually puts the town in danger and Celestia has to step in to clean things up!

Now, if this had been an isolated incident I would have just chalked it up as the one bad episode that every show has, but it set a precedent of sloppy writing and asinine plots that snowballed as the season went on. Baby Cakes: two babbys that -- straight from the womb -- could give Twilight and Rainbow Dash a run for their money in magic and flying respectively. A Friend in Deed: Pinkie sets out to absolutely *ruin* an innocent donkey's life just so he would be her friend and actually manages to get her way at the end. Putting Your Hoof Down: the entire town decides that it is cruelty to Fluttershy day, and Fluttershy responds by getting lessons on how to be a complete asshole. MMMystery on the Friendship Express: half of the mane six prove themselves to be complete jerks with no regard for anyone or anything than full-filling any desire that pops into their selfish little heads as the completely destroy the cake that the, er, Cakes poured hours of blood and sweat into for the competition. And then there was the Canterlot Wedding. Oh man, here we find out that Twilight has a long lost brother who actually wasn't lost and that she loves so very dearly that she never thought to even mention him *anyone* before this time, even in passing.

The finale of season 2 was the point that I decided I couldn't be a fan of MLP anymore, the show had just become too ridiculous to watch. All of the charm is gone, and the characters are exaggerated shells of what they once were. The plots, while they were never fantastic, are now completely ludicrous -- yes Celestia, let's take the God of Chaos that took two whole episodes just to wrangle back into his stone shell and just for the heck of it let's turn him loose in the vain hope that he can be converted into a good guy.

To wrap things up, I want to know what the bronies and ex-bronies of the escapist think of MLP now. Has it jumped the shark or is it just as good as it ever was? If you feel it is past it's prime, is the departure of Lauren Faust responsible for this decline in quality?

 

[Eddie the head]

I don't know why but I like the broken poll more. I don't know why but I found it funny.

 

[ohthatandy]

I agree that the show has definitely been on something of a decline after season 1. Although season 2 had many good, redeeming episodes that kept things very watchable for me, the examples you pointed out were times that really made me feel like something was off. I don't know how much of season 3 you've watched or heard about, but there was an episode called "Spike at Your Service" that completely trashed Spike's character. All the previous development of Spike as a dependable... er.. homemaker, (good at cooking, cleaning, dependable) was totally thrown out the window for a plot and moral that really wasn't impressive. There's other examples of bad writing in S3, but that was my first time feeling like I was watching a cartoon specifically for children rather than the all ages attraction I've come to expect from MLP:FiM.
It's not all bad though. "Sleepless In Ponyville" was a good episode for sure.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

That is probably the single most greatest broken poll I have ever seen. Simply outstanding.

 

[Miles000]

The problem is the apostrophes.
That's where it cuts off poll options.

OT: I agree with you completely.
The show has been getting worse since Discord (best episodes)

Now it just seems to be cheesy fan service. Not even close to the quality of when Faust was in charge.

 

[Giftfromme]

The problem is the apostrophes.
That's where it cuts off poll options.

OT: I agree with you completely.
The show has been getting worse since Discord (best episodes)

Now it just seems to be cheesy fan service. Not even close to the quality of when Faust was in charge.

They fucking better keep the show going in the direction I like or else I will send them death and bomb threats, sign petitions, make YouTube videos about it, start a blog and complain on forums. I will not stand for them taking the show in any other direction

 

[Miles000]

They fucking better keep the show going in the direction I like or else I will send them death and bomb threats, sign petitions, make YouTube videos about it, start a blog and complain on forums. I will not stand for them taking the show in any other direction

Alternatively, I could watch one of the million other decent shows out there instead, and not be a whiny fanboy.

 

[Luna]

I think this all stems from you taking the show a little too seriously.


...I'm aware that the person telling you this has the username 'Luna' as well as the matching avatar.



I agree with your point on everyone being a dick to Fluttershy, the eating of the cake, and Twilight never mentioning her brother previously being issues, but it's just not a very big deal to me.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Why am I reminded of this:
This is why I don't follow the brony fandom all that closely, despite being a brony myself. I prefer watching the show on its own merits instead of over-analyzing and picking apart a simple, innocent children's show.

For the record, I liked Season 2 more than Season 1. Also, "Keep Calm and Flutter On" was awesome (Discord/John de Lancie makes anything awesome). I think they handled Discord's reform quite well given what they had to work with. Those are my personal opinions, of course. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

 

[Pinkamena]

Season one and two were good, but I feel that season 3 has been rather different. It's had a lot of episodes I didn't like (The first two episodes, Spike at Your Service, One Bad Apple). Keep Calm and Flutter On was good, but suffered from a terrible ending. But on the other side, it had some of my favorite episodes, such as Magic Duel and Too Many Pinkie Pies.

I'm just getting the feeling that Hasbro is getting more and more power of the show.

 

[Giftfromme]

They fucking better keep the show going in the direction I like or else I will send them death and bomb threats, sign petitions, make YouTube videos about it, start a blog and complain on forums. I will not stand for them taking the show in any other direction

Alternatively, I could watch one of the million other decent shows out there instead, and not be a whiny fanboy.

Not acceptable, there are no other shows as good as MLP, so kinda moot point lol

 

[Arcadian Legend]

They fucking better keep the show going in the direction I like or else I will send them death and bomb threats, sign petitions, make YouTube videos about it, start a blog and complain on forums. I will not stand for them taking the show in any other direction

Alternatively, I could watch one of the million other decent shows out there instead, and not be a whiny fanboy.

Not acceptable, there are no other shows as good as MLP, so kinda moot point lol

In your opinion perhaps.

The problem is the apostrophes.
That's where it cuts off poll options.

OT: I agree with you completely.
The show has been getting worse since Discord (best episodes)

Now it just seems to be cheesy fan service. Not even close to the quality of when Faust was in charge.

That's the thing though, episodes that some consider to be fanservicey like Magic Duel and Lesson Zero were actually written back when season 1 was airing the first half of the season, and the fandom was very small back then. It's really jsut coincedence. The only thinng that they could do which would be fanserivce to bronies is visual gags.

Aaaanyway...

Dem broken poll options. I don't think it's has jumped the shark, no. At least not yet. Season 1 is great obviously as it was what got me into the show in the first place, while I felt season 2 didn't really skimp on the quality either save for a few blips. A good amount of my favourite episodes alone are from S2. Season 3 feels... Different, not bad necessarily, but some of the episodes like Magic Duel and Keep Calm and Flutter On feel rather "grand" for standalone episodes. (Saying that though Magic Duel is proably my favourite episode in S3 so far next to Sleepless in Ponyville and it rivals faves outside S3 even) Basically I just chalked up the way some of the characters acted in S2 to be character development, and that's usually a good thing. I will give you though that presenting the fact that Twilight has a brother out of nowhere in the S2 finale without giving the slightest hint otherwise was quite bad.

Then you have episodes that just seem dodgy in the quality and/or writing department such as Spike at your Service. (Spike suddenly developing an OOC level of incompetence with no real explanation despite him being quite competent at doing simple tasks otherwise) KCaFo also had a surprisingly abrubt ending that felt a bit jarring but the rest of the episode was pretty damn good so I give it a pass. Maybe it's Hasbro having a tighter grip on the writing staff or what I don't know. However no episode in S3 so far has been worse than S2's The Mysterious Mare Do-Well. That episode was a near-travesty.

If anything might be a sign that the show could be jumping the shark (in seeingly popular opinion, not my own) it's this whole rumour thing about Twilight possibly being turned into an alicorn for the "next level of her studies" that was hinted at in the second part of the S3 premiere, as well as a ton of offical promo stuff popping up since the season 2-3 break. It's pretty much led to a whole subset of people who say they'll jump ship from the fandom if DHX turns her into one without even waiting and seeing how they'll even execute such an episode.

As much as I hate to generalise, these same people also started decrying her as a God-Mode Mary Sue. I'm sorry, but like the others in the main cast she's far from the "perfect" or near perfect requirement to be such a trope.

Spoiler: Since when does Twilight Sparkle ever fail?

She just happens to be the unicorn in the Mane 6 with the superior skill in their racial ability, just the same with Rainbow Dash in the case of Pegasi and Applejack in the case of Earth Ponies. The only difference is that Twi happens to be the main protagonist. Woah, I never planned to make such a wall of text when I started typing this post.

 

[Lazy]

While there are a couple of episodes I'm not so fond of, I've found season 3's quality to be more consistent than 2. Even the few episodes I don't particularly like are still quite watchable.

Rainbow Dash's character especially has been handled a lot better than she was in season 2, where she was just straight-up unlikable a lot of the time.

 

[Moth_Monk]

Well remember that that cartoon is aimed at children, so they probably don't see it as overly important to maintain high artistic standards. Kids are usually satisfied with any that seems exciting enough.

 

[Arcadian Legend]

While there are a couple of episodes I'm not so fond of, I've found season 3's quality to be more consistent than 2. Even the few episodes I don't particularly like are still quite watchable.

Rainbow Dash's character in particular has been handled a lot better than she was in season 2. I actually like her again.

Yeah, Wonderbolt Academy redeemed any negative traits about Dash shown in TMMDW by tenfold. Out of all the characters next to probably Fluttershy, she's had the best development yet IMO.

 

[Legion]

Well remember that that cartoon is aimed at children, so they probably don't see it as overly important to maintain high artistic standards. Kids are usually satisfied with any that seems exciting enough.

Indeed, ask the average person the show is aimed at whether or not they think the characters are consistent or not and they'd probably stare at you for a few seconds before going back to doing whatever they were doing. It's not really a priority when it comes to kids shows.

 

[Therumancer]

Not a MLP fan, but it seems like it suffers from what I like to think of as "The Authority Complex", though it wasn't the first problem of it's kind. Basically right around the turn of the Millenium this incredibly gifted comic writer named Warren Ellis took a then flagging title from Wildstorm called "Stormwatch" and turned it into a powerhouse series before using it as a springboard to launch a comics series based on it called "The Authority" he left after about a dozen issues (2 story arcs) and passed it over to some other writers who just did not get it and really played havoc with a lot of the characters and themes, you did have an upshot for a while where it seemed like it might recover, but it never did, and it more or less died with the rest of the Wildstorm universe even if they did bring some of the characters into the main DC Universe continuity.

The way it sounds to me is that they had a really good writer for MLP, who left after the first main arc and passed it over to other writers who had no idea what to do with it. Your seeing some recovery in the third season as they learn a bit, but at the end of the day there is no accounting for talent and they just aren't going to get back the magic that started it.

It happens accross almost all mediums, enjoy what embers are left until it finally dies for good.

I'll also say that I wouldn't be surprised if we were to learn that Hasbro execs are killing the show in the eyes of Bronies intentially by focusing in a kiddie-centric direction at the expense of the things Bronies like. To be honest the whole "Bronie" movement creeps people out, especially when it becomes obvious IRL with wierd 40 year old dudes chatting up little girls in Toys R Us or whatever, whether this is deserving or not, I can see why Hasbro might want to move away from the Bronies, by changing the show slowly, rather than declaring a flat out intent and generating tons of nerd rage in their direction.

Also, having gone on 3 seasons is actually pretty good for an animated children's show... so even if it DOES die, it had a pretty good run. It's not like it was something that you'd reasonably expect to last forever.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Season 3 has had some rough patches, but it's still good. You can't expect them to knock one out of the park with every single episode, and some of the writers are better than others. "Spike At Your Service" was pretty painful to watch, but "Wonderbolt Academy." You have to take the good with the bad. Keep Calm, and Flutter On... so to speak.

 

[Lugbzurg]

I used to love this show, because it was so unconventional, with incredible writing, fantastic characters, and a broad audience range right from the get-go. It was never intended to be just for kids. No one was aware that it would hit the way it did.

However, it's been becoming the one thing I thought it could never be: Generic.

 

[Worgen]

I do miss the more character focus that season 1 had but honestly I've been enjoying season 3 more than any of the previous ones even though it wont have a FUCKEN RARITY EPISODE!!!
Anyway, I'm still enjoying it but given what it is I am always suspicious that it will turn into something bland and used simply to shill toys. I had many doubts going into season 3 but the crystal empire arc was pretty awesome and turned Shining Armor and Princess Cadance from boring non characters into something more interesting, they still didn't get enough screen time to really have much of personalities but they had nothing in the royal wedding.