My Little Repeats: Reflections on Season 5

Official Season 5 trailer

This one's been a long old ride, seeing as I posted my rewatch article about "The Cutie Map, part 1" way back on 13th November. Once again I have failed to stick to this series' original plan of rewatching an episode every few days and posting sketch-type thoughts rather than taking ages and trying to give a mention to every little thing. You never know, I might get that back on track for S6. I mean, stranger things have happened. Probably.

Looking at my average star ratings for the five seasons up to this point, here's the ranking:

1. Season 4: 3.42
2= Season 1: 3.38
2= Season 2: 3.38
4. Season 5: 3.27
5. Season 3: 2.92

Given that S5 is often seen as being amongst the very best seasons, I was mildly surprised by this result. I think it's largely that this season is more inconsistent, with some soaring highs but also a couple of really unimpressive episodes. Anyway, more waffle past the cut!

First, here's how I rated S5's 26 episodes:

★★★★★
The Cutie Map, part 1
The Cutie Map, part 2
Slice of Life
Amending Fences
Crusaders of the Lost Mark

★★★★
Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?
Rarity Investigates!
The Mane Attraction
The Cutie Re-Mark, part 1

★★★
Castle Sweet Castle
Bloom & Gloom
Tanks for the Memories
Appleloosa's Most Wanted
Make New Friends But Keep Discord
The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone
Canterlot Boutique
Brotherhooves Social
The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows
Hearthbreakers
Scare Master
The Cutie Re-Mark, part 2

★★
Princess Spike
Party Pooped
Made in Manehattan
The Hooffields and the McColts

★ 
What About Discord?

Seasons 2 and 4 each had ten episodes rating four stars or more. Season 5 managed nine, which is still a pretty solid showing. However, there are some less impressive signs lower down the list. We have the first one-star rating in the show's history up to this point, and five episodes rating two or below. No fewer than 12 in the three-star bracket suggests a lot of "good, but just good" episodes here, too.

Possibly S5 suffered a little from the sky-high expectations after the wildly popular (despite that castle) "Twilight's Kingdom" closer to S4. However, the premiere to the new season was what may well be the single best story Friendship is Magic has ever told. "The Cutie Map" was a triumph, one which gets better every time I see it. If S5 had produced nothing else, it would have been worth it for that.

I awarded three other episodes top marks. "Slice of Life" was a self-indulgent five, I admit, but I'm not remotely sorry. In terms of sheer silly escapist enjoyment, very little in any show I've watched has ever approached it. "Amending Fences", contrastingly, is widely and I think fairly seen as the pinnacle of this show's writing, with strong characters interacting in a strong story. "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" is back to unashamedness, but this time the sheer joy of seeing the CMC make it.

I've mentioned plenty of times how S5 marks the end of an era. With the exception of Dave Polsky, who himself would be gone in a year, the last of the original writers left after S5. No more Amy Keating Rogers or M. A. Larson eps from here on in.¹ New names would come and go now, but as a general rule they would not be the fandom household names that the aforementioned three or, earlier, the likes of Cindy Morrow managed to become.
¹ Okay, there's "Fame and Misfortune", but we'll leave that can of worms until I reach S7...

This season mostly saw the last of Twilight struggling with princesshood, although some people (including me) found her emotion over her destroyed old home in "Castle Sweet Castle" at least somewhat touching. The good episodes were quite well sprinkled amongst the Mane Six this season, although Fluttershy was rather underused and didn't have any outstanding episodes that she could really call her own. The CMC, on the other hand...

...which leads me to say that the Crusaders only rarely recaptured their magic after they gained their cutie marks. We'd followed along, sharing in their struggle, all these years and their new helper roles although often fun didn't quite have the same emotional intensity. "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", though a glorious episode, also saddens in retrospect due to Hasbro's refusal to allow the reformed Diamond Tiara even one speaking line thereafter.

And then, of course, there is Starlight. One of the greatest of all My Little Pony villains, but a much more controversial character as a reformed member of the Mane Six And A Half from S6 onwards. The core character dynamics would be irrevocably changed, and even though many people (including me) liked Starlight as a good guy, the show was inevitably slightly different from now on. We're about to enter a whole new era.

Back to S5, and "Rarity Investigates!" is but one example of the inventiveness we saw on screen at times. Its film noir segments were a roaring success, and the season's fairly frequent use of custom end credits music proved a lot of fun. (I'm sad that was abandoned later on.) Other striking examples included the storybook sequence in "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" and the dream segments in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?"

I don't really want to dwell too much on the outright failures, especially the dire "What About Discord?" Instead, I'll mention that I'll now be taking a short break from the My Little Repeats series, as I hinted the other day. And when I return for S6... I remember finding much of the early season rather meh, not terrible but just meh. It will be interesting to see whether my opinions on that have changed in the intervening years.