Thoughts on the mid-season hiatus

The other day, Discovery Family announced (via EQD) that there would be a mid-season hiatus interrupting Season Six, just as we had last year. It shouldn't really have come as a surprise, given what happened with S5, but a lot of people did seem to be caught out by the announcement. The fact that the break is occurring after 12 episodes is a little odd, but can be explained by the previously-announced movement of the original episode nine to later in the season for as yet unknown reasons.

That's the small stuff. The big question is what this may tell us about the future of Friendship is Magic as a whole. In particular: does this make it more likely that S6 will be the last season of the show? What with the movie having been brought forward to October 2017, there's not going to be a huge amount of space left over for any putative S7 – although there would surely be enough, if the powers that be wanted there to be one.

My hunch for some time now has been that the film will act as the closing chapter to the FiM story as we know it, whether that follows on from S6, S7 or something else. By "something else" I mean some non-series specials, something that Doctor Who has done occasionally ever since its reboot began. It wouldn't surprise me all that much if we had S6, then a few specials, then some film preview shorts, then finally the movie itself.

There's also the fourth Equestria Girls film to consider, although we know from the example of Friendship Games that those are allowed to overlap with FiM seasons if that's how the scheduling ends up working out. Whatever the case, I don't think anyone believes the current show has all that long left to run – although some sort of show based on the franchise will surely continue with a G4.5 or G5 series.

Way back during S3, I said that I thought five seasons would be a reasonable run for Friendship is Magic. We're going to get at least one more than that, but I really won't be heartbroken if it ends there. Disappointed, yes, as the show is still very enjoyable, but a run of well over 100 episodes – and a Hugo nomination – for a glorified toy advert is some going. My Little Pony as a franchise isn't going anywhere, but the movie may mark the end of an era.