Since we're in the mid-season hiatus, it's also been time for the members of UK of Equestria to vote for their favourite and least favourite episodes of the first half of this final season. As in previous years, voters were required to rank all the episodes, with no ties permitted. The double-length premiere was treated as a single episode for these purposes, and Rainbow Roadtrip was not included. We had 13 voters this year, which is fewer than for 8A but more than for 7A.
I've divided the episodes into tiers on the basis of their mean rankings. One notable feature this year is that there are no one-star episodes, which I informally defined as eps with an average rating below 20. ("Sweet and Smoky" scored 19.846.) My own rankings are in brackets after the episode name; as you'll note, the one really major difference I have from the average is that I ranked "Sweet and Smoky" much higher than the average (Fluttershy bias? What Fluttershy bias?)
★★★★★
1. Frenemies (1)
★★★★
2. Between Dark and Dawn (5)
3. The Beginning of the End (2)
4. Sparkle's Seven (3)
5. Student Counsel (4)
★★★
6. The Last Crusade (7)
7. Common Ground (8)
★★
8. The Point of No Return (10)
9. Going to Seed (9)
10. She's All Yak (12)
11. Uprooted (11)
12. Sweet and Smoky (6)
Number of times each episode placed first
9: Frenemies
2: Sparkle's Seven
1: Between Dark and Dawn
1: She's All Yak
Number of times each episode placed last
4: She's All Yak
4: Sweet and Smoky
3: The Point of No Return
2: Going to Seed
Most controversial (highest standard deviation)
1. Sparkle's Seven
2. She's All Yak
3. The Last Crusade
Least controversial
1. Between Dark and Dawn
2. Frenemies
3. Uprooted
There's no doubt about UK of E's favourite episode: "Frenemies" has a clear lead over anything else, and apart from one person who placed it seventh everyone else put it in their top three. "Between Dark and Dawn" made everyone's top six, though only one voter picked it as their winner. At the other end of the table, I was really surprised (and frankly more a little disappointed) to see "Sweet and Smoky" get the wooden spoon. No fewer than seven of the 13 voters ranked it in their bottom two. (I had it in sixth spot.)
This half-season's "most controversial episode" award was also one that startled me. "Sparkle's Seven" did not get the unmixed praise on UK of E that it did in some other parts of the fandom, with four voters placing it in the bottom half. "She's All Yak" also split opinion, as did "The Last Crusade", whose controversy centred on Scootaloo's parents rather than her aunts. Meanwhile, the top two's consistent placing won them the top two spots in the "least controversial" list, too. "Uprooted" was the other ep to appear there, with all but two voters ranking it between eighth and 11th.
I get the sense that S9A has been quite well received so far – that's a British "quite", not an American one! – and that, while there's only one episode that seems set to be counted among the classics ("Frenemies") there haven't been any "Non-Compete Clause"-style disasters either. The season so far seems to be being seen as solid and better than S8, but perhaps falling a little short of the blockbuster feel that you might hope for from the very last season we'll ever see. Perhaps part two will provide that!
I absolutely should join up at UKoE at some point...! If I'd been around to vote, and I totally would have participated, then I'd have gone as follows:
ReplyDelete1 Frenemies
2 Between Dark and Dawn
3 Common Ground
4 Student Counsel
5 The Beginning of the End
6 Sparkle's Seven
7 Going to Seed
8 Uprooted
9 Sweet and Smokey
10 The Last Crusade
11 The Point of No Return
12 She's All Yak
Thanks! I don't have the spreadsheet to hand right now, but I don't think that works have changed the overall table. "Common Ground" had too much ground to make up, I think.
DeleteI would be mad, but 13 votes is really nothing worth making statistical observations on. <.<
ReplyDeleteNo, though everything I've seen elsewhere suggests that "Frenemies" would probably be top even if there were 13,000 votes. Not so sure about some of the others.
Delete> that's a British "quite", not an American one!
ReplyDeleteThis is a new one on me, so I have to ask, what's the difference? Over here it's roughly equivalent to "pretty" (in its adverbial usage) or "rather".
"Quite good" over here means "fairly good". It's not especially strong, so telling someone you think their story is "quite good" is only mild praise.
DeleteAh, got it. Thanks!
Delete(I only now saw this comment because I was away all weekend at Otakon in Washington, D.C.)
I keep forgetting UKoE is a thing, I would have cast my vote too! Ireland is close enough for matters like this as far am I'm concerned - lord knows we don't have our own equivalent!
ReplyDeleteAs for the ratings, I don't deviate too much from the standard or the rankings given by you or Cloptimist above. As follows, though given I've only seen most of these once or twice, time could change a placement here or there:
1. Frenemies
2. Sparkle's Seven
3. The Beginning of the End
4. Common Ground
5. The Last Crusade
6. Sweet and Smokey
7. The Point of No Return
8. Going to Seed
9. Student Counsel
10. Between Dark and Dawn
11. Uprooted
12. She's All Yak
Being honest, while I only really hate the bottom two, Frenemies is the only one I can see living on as a show classic. The first half of the season started out strong, with the Premiere and Sparkle's Seven forming a tight duo marred only somewhat by an expectedly flimsy Student 6 episode. After that, The Point of No Return was decent, if unremarkable, and Common Ground was pretty good (my stance of finding the middle content of the episode to drag it down is soemwhat less severe by now), and even if She's All Yak was another dud, it was again an expected one. And then Frenemies went and did its thing (plus, it had the only song of the four this season even somewhat memorable).
But then the following five episodes took the wind out of it a good bit: even the best of episodes 9-13, The Last Crusade, still falls far short of the fandom classic it should have been. Otherwise, we have three in the decent-to-mediocre category (Sweet and Smoky, Going to Seed, Student Counsel) and one episode so baffling and incoherent (Between Dark and Dawn) that even now I don't know quite what to say about it, except that it's a right mess.
So while Season 9 is defo faring better then Season 8 through the same point, the margin's a lot closer then it seemed midway through this first half.
That's a list that is generally very much in line with the UK of E consensus. The one big exception is "Between Dark and Dawn", which as you'll see above was vastly more popular on the forum than it is with you. I was actually surprised it did so well -- I'd have expected "Sparkle's Seven" and maybe the premiere to rank above it. Mind you, pre-hiatus episodes often seem to score well, so I won't be totally surprised if it drops a bit when we come to do the all-S9 voting.
DeleteFor the last four seasons, right now I'd go 7 > 9 > 8 > 6, though it's close between the last two. I really want to be able to end S9 thinking it's been at least as good as S7, ideally as good as S5 though that may be too much to ask for.