Does anyone notice that season 1 tended to have more ensemble pieces for the entire mane 6?
As well as Spike being more directly relegated to an assistant to Twilight rather than the 7th team member?
Even though A Dog and Pony Show was a Rarity episode, I feel had this idea been written season 3-onward, this would have been more strictly a Rarity-Spike episode.
>>27470625
We even have episodes like these that really can be classified as Mane 6 episodes, even those that focus more on a specific character (A Dog and Pony Show, DragonShy, Over a Barrel) still keep the team in view and not as just some kind of reminder that it exists.
>>27470625
Fuck, this episode is really one of the more enjoyable episodes in S1. Every contributed in some way to the humor, Spike almost kissed Applejack and this is one of the defining episodes of Rarara's development from being just a bitchy high-class pony(to the eyes of the viewers) to a more fully pledged character that has wit, elegance and charm no matter the circumstances. Suited for Success is a more powerful episode that further solidifies Rarity as a character but one cannot deny aDaPS contribution of making Rarity as one of the best of the main six.
Also they introduced diamond dogs, the perfect hench men villains that can be easily molded to being non-threatening goofballs that they are to one of the more dangerous races that roams the Underdark of Equestria. Fucking shit Hasbro show us more diamond dogs you fucks.
>>27470625
Spike was a lot more snarky during season 1.
>>27470668
Season 4 does make an attempt to return to this with episodes like CastleMania, Bats!, Power Ponies, and Trade Ya!
But for all of these (Power Ponies might be a better example than the rest) they fail to have the whole team present, essentially having a frame work for multiple subplots going on at the same time to the point where they can't really be Mane 6 episodes.
This episode really could be seen as the start of more character based episodes. By removing the team leader requirement from the friendship learning escapades, and by requiring each team member to submit their own friendship lessons, we turned a team based exercise into an individual exercise.
We only lasted one season before we essentially decided that the team shouldn't be learning friendship together. We quickly see the results to this day that having episodes where the entire team is present is rare, and often most of them are essentially background characters. If you try to find episodes where at least 4/7 of the mane cast has even anything beyond a few lines, you will realize how rare that is, Newbie Dash barely meets this requirement and only because we had a subplot about Pinkie and Spike getting cotton candy. It is easy to write fewer characters, but that comes at a price at killing part of the magic of their friendship.
>>27470718
>Hasbro show us more diamond dogs you fucks.
>Tfw they literally never returned ever again.
Fuck it it's too late now but a Bowie tribute episode could have involved them
I also want to suggest that had Dog and Pony show been made now they probably would have forced a song into it and made the whole 'diamond dog' thing way more obvious. I liked how there were some subtle visual references to the song and little else
>>27470931
I really hope they dont push the David Bowie tribute part that much if they ever showed the diamond dogs again. I want the race to stand on its own rather than be a meme race. Lauren Faust has created a great and(more importantly) original race of jack-asses that is greeds incarnate that digs and are also dogs. Its just a shame that the race has just shown up in one episode and just one or two comics ever since.
Though while I appreciate what they did, season 2 making the friendship lessons an individual journey for all major characters as well as the increased significance of Spike and the CMC (particularly Apple Bloom) lead to the writers starting to focus on their families.
We have seen a great deal of focus on the characters' families. With it practically becoming an expectation now to see Apple Family or Twilight family episodes. We practically regressed to the relationships these characters had before the pilot, and felt they were more important. While this may be treated as a good thing, it is odd when AJ has probably had more significance in the series being the leader of the Apple Family than as a member of the mane 6, and after Twilight made all these new friends the fate of Equestria is better determined by all of the friends she made as a child (Spike, Shining Armor, Cadance).
It is beginning to seem like the Pie family is going the same route now, and Fluttershy will go the same route if the fans love her brother.
The show is dead, you hear me??
DEAD
D E A D
E
A
D
>>27471081
wew lad
>>27470625
S1 was weird like that
