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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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 the bookworm arc didn't start out very good, but Friends Forever was off to a somewhat rocky start with subpar art and a story that got hijacked by an OC. So maybe there was still a way to turn this arc around as the Friends Forever series seemed ready to kick off in high style with a DiscordxCMC issue. But did the arc here in the main series turn it all around? Well, let's find out.

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Fun fact about this episode, it aired in the U.S. about a week after Mother's Day and about a month before Father's Day. Of coruse, by now much of the fandom's attention was on early episode airings coming out of Treehouse T.V. in Canada, and on what was announced for further down the road. Interestingly, this episode marked the debut of a new writer in the form of Josh Hamilton, whose previous writing credits included both Avatar cartoons (The Last Airbender and The Legend of

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This is it, the big one. The penultimate episode/episodes of the show and the final two parter. Originally, this two parter got bundled back to back with "The Last Problem" to be part of a prime time finale for all of FiM, on a Saturday night in October when most people were likely watching college football games (it's almost like Discovery Family wanted to kill the show by ensuring it got as low as possible in ratings). Much like "School Raze" this two parter has two different writers with

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Well, the next several episodes to be re-reviewed are going to be tough to get through, many of them contain some of Season 8's worst missteps or otherwise blunders. But I gotta get through them. This episode marked the debut of yet another new writer in the form of Kim Beyer-Johnson, who among her previous writing credits wrote for Transformers: Rescue Bots, which aired on The Hub and Discovery Family between 2012 and 2016 before Hasbro pulled the plug on it. She would go on to write

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So it has finally been rewritten!
Something Magical This Way Comes is back up and running! Or at least cantering gently along!
Been looking forward to getting some fresh momentum going on this story, it was my first one, and I set it on a back burner after a break up with my special somepony of the time. But that was then and this is now, so let's ride this train!

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I've decided to re-write and edit older chapters before continuing the story.

So when the second arc of the comics got off to a promising start only to immediately squander it on contrivences and continuity errors, was this second issue of it able to get things back on track or only serve to throw everything further away? Well, let's find out.

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This is it, folks! We've hit the big one! The one many of you have probably been waiting for! For those of who you joined the fandom at a later date, it cannot be stated enough that in 2014 this four part comic arc in the main series took the fandom by storm! It was everywhere, and coming off of more than a few less than stellar issues and arcs ("Neigh Anything", "Pirate Ponies", "Book Worm") the fact that the comics in the main series were going back to a four parter was quite shocking. And by

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Now it was time for another new writer to debut, Scott Sonneborn. His writing credentials were not as well known, making him something of an enigma. Considering Sweetie Belle had taken the lead more or less for "Twilight Time" that meant it was now Apple Bloom's turn to be in the spotlight. But this episode was and still is widely regarded as a disappointment among fans. Has it deserved that reputation, or perhaps is it overhated? Well, let's find out.

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