Unpopular opinion time

@Brass Beau  
And Twilight lives in another city away from them, and possibly Rarity in another country.
 
I was talking more like in S1-2, we saw them spending the night together stargazing, having a picnic, at the spa together, or hung out at Rainbow’s house waiting for her to get her acceptance; just hanging out. Feels like we got less of that as the show went on.

@Background Pony #01EC  
Might be interesting to do a study…

@Background Pony #01EC  
Wait, there’s another one?

Daring Doubt? Yeah, it’s in S9.

So I recently watched School Daze because my curiosity was bigger than what I can hold.
 

 
It’s a very looong and boring episode with predictable details, such as an annoying Pinkie Pie, but I have the feeling that the writers want to repeat the exact same premise of the show with new characters… a premise from 2010.
 
The original premise was Twilight Sparkle, the Mane 6 and the Cutie Mark Crusaders learning about friendship. Then, when we got Rainbow Rocks, it was about Sunset Shimmer learning about friendship. Then, after Cutie Re-mark, Starlight episodes were about learning about friendship and some of these episodes have the same narrative structure of Twilight episodes from season 1 (and you can tell in episodes like The Crystalling).
 
And two seasons later, we got a new school with new characters that are gonna learn about friendship.
 
Is it me or is this season gonna be repetitive? At least I’d like to see some originality and some interesting concepts. Twilight Sparkle as a teacher was something I thought back in 2011, but if this is where they’re going with now, I wanted to see that much earlier.
 
By the way, quick random thought I had: The ponies who need to aprove Twilight’s school, why do they need to look like a villain? I kinda see that design in a villain, not in a group of ponies to have to aprove some school ideas.
 
Anyway, hopefully the season 8 will have some interesting episodes. I won’t expect it to be better or worse than season 7, but School Daze is not a very good first impression for a 26 episodes season.

@Ring Team  
Because the school has no opposition except reality, so they needed to justify it by making up a “EVIL” bureaucracy that literally didn’t exist for the entirety of the show and will continue not to after this season, to justify the new gimmick that will be boring as fart.

@Ring Team  
These next two seasons are gonna be fun for you. The season eight finale especially.

The school concept is really weak, but I liked it as being part of Twilight’s princess duties, cause it finally gave her a more tangible role to work with like the other princesses.

@Background Pony #01EC  
While I’m more of a fan of high stakes adventures and settings heavy stories, episodes that’s just them hanging out would’ve been a great change of pace.

Its S8. Just put your brain on autopilot, set your expectations low and be pleasantly surprised by the occasional good episode and funny moments.

@Myoozik  
The episode wasn’t entirely just them hanging out though. Like when I mentioned the star gazing thing, it was during Owl’s End That Ends Well, which is a Spike episode. The picnic thing happened in Lesson Zero, and the whole hanging out waiting for Rainbow’s acceptance letter was just the beginning. The whole episode doesn’t have to be them just hanging out, but I feel as the show went on, we got less and less moments like that.

@Background Pony #01EC
 
Running a school and travelling across the country solving problems isn’t quite as good at displaying friends hanging out like friends like a sleepover or picnic would.

I’ve recently watched Maud Couple, Fake it ‘till you make it and Grannies gone wild. None of them were bad, but all the three episodes were boring, filler episodes and overall unnecessary.
 
I have some complaints, but it’s not that big of a deal, probably because the show has gone to a point of no return or no fix. It’s not like I should be that invested in Friendship is Magic.
 
The good thing is that I’ve watched 5 episodes out of 26 at this point. I can finish watching the whole show before 2022. :P

@Ring Team  
Better than I did. I dropped the show after seeing the preview description for the father knows beast episode. The plot was so predictable from just the snipet synopsis given before the ep that I could already see all the plot points coming and realized it was bad. That, along with an already underwhelming S8 made me uninterested to get back into it. I hope your journey ends better than mine did. Just remember to keep those expectations as low as possible for the last two seasons.

@Background Pony #563A  
Still better than me, I quit halfway into season 9 just before the finale, right around 246 great and Trivial Pursuit when it it was just going back to pulling the same shit they knew everyone hated back in S6 and S8. Reading the leaks afterwards just solidified my choice :/

Unpopular opinion: MLP should have ended at the S5 finale. Despite me not liking S5 as a whole that much, I still think the season finale was the perfect episode to go out on.

If we have to go with that with season 5, I think Crusaders of the Lost Mark could have been the perfect ending for the show. The CMC would get their cutie marks and that’s it. The episode ends like a TV show would end.
 
About the show being predictable, I started thinking about that during season 4. The overuse of superlatives in the dialogue, some plot twists, some other details, the usual ending of many episodes, etc.

@Ring Team  
That would still leave Starlight loose on the world with no closing to that arc. As much as that ep may be hype with fans, it cretainly wasn’t a series finale worth episode.

@Background Pony #563A  
“Crusaders of the Lost Mark” could, however, have been a fitting sendoff for the CMC - just not the entire show.

Honestly would have just taken S4’s finale and moved it to S5, or probably just made a new finale all together. I really didn’t like Cutie Remark and I’d probably like it even less as a finale

@Kiryu-Chan  
S4’s finale was too much DBZ and new powers, not enough friendship emphasis like S5’s had.

@Background Pony #563A  
I felt Cutie Remark focused too much on really edgy alternate universes. Coupled with a really bad redemption angle, I’d still prefer S4’s finale.
 
Of course the best alternative imo is a new story all together

I think I’d take Remark over Twilight’s Kingdom. I always thought the DBZ fight was very overrated.

I don’t know, I like Twilight’s Kingdom more than Cutie re-mark. The first episode had a nice length, with two parts, interesting conflict and relatable motivations.
 
Cutie re-mark, however, a big part of that episode was Starlight Glimmer. And she was barely developed in season 5.
 
I really like season 5, but not for Cutie map and Cutie re-mark.

@DoctorWTF  

 
right