This was the one arc in the comics that I intentionally avoided even back in the day. What I saw of it convinced me to give it a hard pass. Yet it exists, and the sad truth is that the comics would subsequently sink to lows even deeper than this one. So has time lessened the sting of this arc, or is it still as bad it's always been perceived as? Well, let's find out.

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When Season 5 rolled around, Diamond's VA (Chantel Strand) put out a rather vague social media statement about how we would "See a different side of Diamond Tiara". Most long time fans (myself included) were quite skeptical of this considering what Diamond Tiara had been like up to this point, especially after "Flight to the Finish" and "Twilight Time". But Season 5 had managed to surprise everyone before and already had a lot of hits under its belt (though arguably just as many misses). Amy

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And so, Season 3 came to an end and with it the show writers were led to believe the show was wrapping up for good at 65 episodes. In fact, that was Hasbro's plan for the longest time, just hit that magic 65 number and sell the show in syndication (even though that practice had long since fallen out of style). And the one tasked with basically making Hasbro's wishes come true and turn Twilight into an alicorn princess, was none other than fan favorite writer M. A. Larson whose most recent work

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"Pinkie Pride" had brought Season 4 back to the heights it had flirted with at the start of its run, many were ready to start calling it the best season of all. So to close out the first half, Josh Haber returned to pen this episode involving Rarity and Applejack. Romance had been a weak point of the show stretching back to at least "Hearts and Hooves Day", but was Josh Haber as a new talent able to succeed where others had failed? Well, let's find out.

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Because two surprise siblings never mentioned before apparently wasn't enough, I guess they wanted to ensure Rainbow Dash was the only mane six member to be an only child. At least this time it was a younger sibling instead of an older one. Dave Rapp returned to write for this episode, but Meghan McCarthy is credited with the story. So I guess that means she at least started working on this before she had to be called away to work on the movie? I mean, Dave had debuted quite horribly with

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So, just a season after Rarity got her dream boutique opened (and nearly closed) in Canterlot, and just a few episodes after she went hunting for a location to establish a Manehattan boutique, we would get to see said boutique open. Nick Confalone was picked to write this episode, coming off his contested performance in "No Second Prances". So, was he able to redeem himself in the eyes of those who hated what he brought to the table for "No Second Prances"? Well, let's find out.

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Season 5 had briefly soared to new heights by the time "Slice of Life" came out, but "Princess Spike" brought it all crashing back down to Earth. Yet we had another new writer immediately making their debut in the form of Nick Confalone, a writer who would prove to ultimately have staying power but also one who would tarnish his reputation in the fandom by penning some forgettable stories and bringing the Equestria Girls spin-off franchise to a low it never really recovered from. Just like

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Hey, remember "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" and how bad that episode was? How it became the first episode of the show to be truly despised? Well I guess someone thought it would be a good idea to revisit that and try to "fix" it. The story is credited to Meghan McCarthy, just like in "Flutter Brutter". But to actually write the episode a new writer was brought in in the form of F. M. DeMarco who had previously worked on the 2012 Littlest Pet Shop cartoon (FiM's sister show, it

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So after an insanely long stretch of not being focused on or even being mentioned, Starlight Glimmer was finally going to get an episode to herself. And this time she wasn't going to be sharing it with Twilight, or Spike, or Trixie. This was Starlight's first true solo outing since her redemption, which was still looking questionable to many. Michael Vogel was going it alone on this episode, and his previous solo outing had been the quite enjoyable "A Hearth's Warming Tail". Yet many regard

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Hasbro didn't even bother with fanfare for this one, they just dropped it on Netflix and that was that. Interestingly enough, this movie came out on Netflix before Season 6 had finished airing, kind of funny how that works. But there were no pony spoilers this time around so everything was all good. The Equestria Girls franchise was changing hands once again, this time passing to Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco who were just starting to come into their own as a result of "Gauntlet of Fire".

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So now we have the other half of Season 7's "premiere", an episode that was written by Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco and starred Starlight Glimmer, but aside from that there is nothing that would link it to the previous episode. "Celestial Advice" had certainly been different, but for the most part it had just felt like it was shilling Starlight Glimmer and offered up nothing new, no season of direction for Season 7. This episode would offer up something potentially more exciting, though in

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Season 7 finally found some consistency (and good consistency at that) right at the end of its first half with the back to back successes of "Discordant Harmony" and "The Perfect Pear", the latter of which became everyone's new favorite episode. It also cemented Season 7 as a season of fanservice. Think about it, we had: A Princess Celestia episode, Starlight and Trixie hanging out, Twilight foalsitting her niece, Maud Pie returning and getting a day in the limelight, finally acknowledging the

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Because having one dream episode per season wasn't enough, now we had one focused directly on Princess Luna. Scott Sonneborn was writing this episode, though the story was credited to both Jayson Thiesen and Jim Miller like with "Princess Spike" and "Party Pooped". Considering how bad the former turned out and considering the latter had received a rather lukewarm reception, that wasn't exactly a formula for success. But hey, Scott had worked well with M. A. Larson and Meghan McCarthy for "The

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Right as Season 5 was at last hitting some consistency of quality, we had a Discord episode. Granted, he'd been pretty good in "Make New Friends, But Keep Discord" so maybe that wasn't automatically a death sentence despite the synopsis. However, the one writing it was Neal Dusedau, now on his own after he had previously been "helped" on "Princess Spike" by Jayson Thiesen and Jim Miller. But hey, Nick Confalone was able to do well enough on his own (even going on to last until the end of the

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Fun fact about this episode, it originally aired about a week before Halloween due to being bumped around in episode order and that made it a sort of The Nightmare Before Christmas situation, having a Christmas themed episode before Halloween. Yes, that's right, we got our second bite at a holiday episode after "Scare Master" was another attempt at the Halloween episode (which sadly still fell flat). This time around, rather than focus on the entire mane six we were just going to focus

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After a Rarity episode where Spike was inexplicably absent when the rest of the mane six showed up, Spike got an episode to himself once again. People had actually been joking that, up until "Sweet and Elite" Spike was the new main character owing to him appearing in even "Sisterhooves Social" when Twilight was absent completely. And there's no denying that with performances such as "Lesson Zero" under his belt Spike seemed to have become a character that the writers were beginning to

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Season 4's second half really needed some good episodes under its belt if it didn't want to drag down the entire season with just two truly impressive episodes. Rarity was the next to get a focus episode in a season where she'd already notched two rather interesting ones, including her long overdue return to the spotlight in "Rarity Takes Manehattan". However, Corey Powell was writing this episode and she had been associated with "Rainbow Falls". Perhaps because of that, Meghan McCarthy was

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So right after an insult of a Discord episode, and with all eyes slowly drifting towards what was now on the horizon for the Season 5 finale, it was time for the third and final map mission of the season. And by process of elimination it was going to involve Twilight and Fluttershy who had last truly worked together in "A Bird in the Hoof", not a very memorable episode. Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco were going solo this time, after their last writing endevor had been a collab with Meghan

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If "The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well" was the first true dud of the show and "Hearth's Warming Eve" is the most pointless episode of the show, then this is the most forgotten episode of the show. It seems like an episode that a lot of people forget exists. It's written by Cindy Morrow who had just come off her high from "Sisterhooves Social", so that should've been a sign of something, right? Well, let's find out.

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At long last, Season 7 decided to settle on a theme that would define it: These "pillars" from ancient Equestria, a sort of mane six before the mane six. The IDW comics had already begun promoting this theme with a stand alone series entitled "Legends of Magic" which had replaced their long running "Friends Forever" series in early 2017 (by a quirk of release schedules the first "Legends of Magic" was actually released before the last "Friends Forever"). Yet it was only now, sixteen episodes

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