My Little Repeats: Reflections on Season 8

Official FiM S8 trailer

The official Friendship is Magic season 8 trailer was, to be honest, not particularly fascinating. There was none of the experimentation of last season's "Fresh Princess of Friendship". Let's see how the season ranked overall. You can probably guess where S8 is going to place, but here's the list anyway:

1. Season 4: 3.42
2= Season 1: 3.38
2= Season 2: 3.38
4. Season 5: 3.27
5. Season 6: 3.23
6. Season 7: 2.96
7. Season 3: 2.92
8. Season 8: 2.65

I've said pretty much since this season first aired that it was comfortably my least favourite, and nothing seems to have changed that view. The main problem S8 had can be seen pretty starkly when you look at the star rating breakdown by episode, which you'll see beyond the page break.

★★★★★
none

★★★★
Surf and/or Turf
The Break Up Break Down
The Hearth's Warming Club
Road to Friendship
What Lies Beneath
Sounds of Silence

★★★
Grannies Gone Wild
Horse Play
Molt Down
Marks for Effort
The Washouts
A Rockhoof and a Hard Place
School Raze, part 1
School Raze, part 2

★★
School Daze, part 1
School Daze, part 2
The Maud Couple
Fake It 'Til You Make It
The Parent Map
The Mean 6
A Matter of Principals
Friendship University
The End in Friend

★ 
Non-Compete Clause
Yakity-Sax
Father Knows Beast

Well, it doesn't require a check-back to see what's happened here, does it? As I'd expected from the start, S8 had a pretty rough time of it. Indeed, the first four episodes were all only two-star instalments, even if some of them were better two-stars than others. I actually ended up finding "The Maud Couple" slightly more enjoyable than I had in 2018, for example, but it still didn't do enough for me to place it in a higher band. It was also the first season ever to have no five-star episodes at all in this rewatch.

It did have several four-star episodes. More than S7 had, in fact.  Mind you, it's notable I think that three four-star eps, a full half of the total six, come in the five-episode run from episodes 19 ("Road to Friendship") through to 23 ("Sounds of Silence"). This is by common consent the season's best stretch. What S8 didn't have was an exciting start. To be fair, few seasons burst out of the blocks with "The Return of Harmony" or "The Cutie Map" – but as I noted a moment ago, four successive two-starrers is not a great way to grab viewers' attention.

This was also the first time since "What About Discord?" – which I dislike so much partly for personal reasons – that I'd awarded the very bottom rating. And this year, there were three one-star episodes. "Non-Compete Clause" is widely regarded as the worst episode in the entire 200-plus collection, and without the students it might have ended up almost without any redeeming features at all. "Yakity-Sax" may even be worse, though: a fun setup completely wrecked by terrible execution and a terrible moral. Talking of terrible execution, "Father Knows Beast" completes the trio.

We continued to have no real oldies in the writing credits, at least not if you don't count Michael Vogel, who'd been there a fair while but not as a writer. I know Vogel isn't to everyone's taste, but he often is to mine. Admittedly his credits were a mixed bag this year. "What Lies Beneath" is generally recognised as a fine episode (even if Gallus got a raw deal) but the two-part season premiere was only okay and "The Mean 6" was disappointing. New writers had a... mixed time. Kim Beyer-Johnson gave us "Non-Compete Clause", but Gregory Bonsignore provided "Sounds of Silence".

Looking now at the old UK of Equestria episode rankings, we gave the gold medal to "What Lies Beneath", not an especially controversial winner. But next up was "School Raze", which at the time was very popular indeed. Disillusionment at discovering plot holes, together with the lack of a Cozy Glow backstory, has pushed it down the table for most people these days. Surprises? "Grannies Gone Wild" placing fourth-last, below "Father Knows Beast", is what looks most startling today. Most controversial was "Horse Play", ranked first by one UK of E member but 21st by another.

There were leaks and early international releases left, right and centre by 2018, made even more complicated by the decision to move Discovery Family's own showing of one episode up by some weeks. Sadly, the episode we all got to see early was "Yakity-Sax"! I think, from memory, that I mostly tried to stick with the sometimes rather theoretical American premiere of episodes. I can't be absolutely certain that I did it all the time, though, and I don't care to read back through screeds to find out.

Now, the big innovation of S8: The School of Friendship. This largely pushed map missions aside (although not yet completely) and the School itself was one of FiM's most controversial introductions. It doesn't make a great deal of sense, and nor does the decision to make the Mane Six professors. What the School did do was to introduce the Young Six. The students really lifted parts of S8, and more than one of the season's best episodes ("The Hearth's Warming Club", "What Lies Beneath") featured them in central roles.

Finally, a brief look forward to S9. My general feeling since 2019 has been that it was a small step up from S8 – not amazing, not to the level the show once cruised at, but a worthwhile step nonetheless. The problem with S9 is that it also has its share of disasters. I may change my mind once I've seen it again, but an episode like "A Trivial Pursuit", where meme faces and slapstick hold court over poor old characterisation, is not in any meaningful sense a story from the same series that gave us Scootaloo's swimming scene in "Surf and/or Turf".