Season 9A – the UK of Equestria rankings

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!