Season 6 midway reflections

After this week's episode, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic will go on hiatus. When the show went on mid-season hiatus last year, I published my thoughts on the season so far. For season 5, these thoughts were mixed, but I largely felt frustrated and disappointed by the season, which continued right to the season finale. Thankfully, season 6 is a marked improvement, and while it's still far from perfect, it's the first time since at least early season 4 that I have been happy with this show's direction.

Episode review: "Spice Up Your Life"

The map is back.

I thought it was over. Season 5's pitiful excuse for a running storyline, the cutie map is nothing more than a poor excuse to get specific pairs of ponies in certain locations. The show has never questioned it, never explained it, and never explored it in any detail, and worse, it brings with it a deeply predictable formula which rarely provides any development for the main characters or delves into its settings beyond mere regional flavours. I hated it, and the fact that it has been brought back for another season of its horrors fills me with nothing short of dread.

And yet, even though the map is a plague on this show, each of its episodes is better than the last. "Spice Up Your Life," while even more formulaic than season 5's map episodes, is also much more charming than any of them, and lovely in its own right.

Episode review: "Flutter Brutter"

As early as season 5, news abounded about an episode where we learn about Fluttershy's layabout brother. Considering the increased prominence of Pinkie Pie's family since then, curiosity has been high about the families of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, the only members of the mane six whose families we haven't seen. Now "Flutter Brutter" has finally arrived, months after news of it first surfaced, and it turned out about how I expected it to: a solid Fluttershy showcase with an entertainingly loathsome new character and a solid moral. Perhaps next we can see Rainbow Dash's family!