Now that a few weeks have passed and all the judgements have been rendered, the results are in. Season 4 of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, experienced the most widely inconsistent swings in episode quality of any season, scoring with both the highest-ranked epsiode of the franchise, as well as the lowest.
The graph above, which was rendered on this site pulls its data from the IMDB ratings provided by users.
The highest rated episode of the season, as well as the series, went to Pinkie Pride (the Weird Al Episode) with a rating of 9.2 out of 10. The season also had 5 other episodes ranging ABOVE the previous record of 8.7 (held by Winter Wrap Up, Party of 1, and the Canterlot Wedding). This would have made Season 4 the best season ever according to ratings, however it was also offset by the 6 episodes that were ranked as some of the worst of all time, including the Breezies episode, which set a new record low score of 7/10 among IMDB users (beating out the previous lows set by Mysterious Mare Do Well, and Spike At Your Service).
The average set by these episodes set it considerably higher than the previous season, though still lower overall than Season 1 and Season 2. It most closely resembles Season 1's average.
In addition to the IMDB rankings, the Poniflix rankings have also been released, showing a much more critical response to the episodes on the part of the stream audience (composed largely of /mlp/ users).
Despite the fact that the episode ratings trended lower than those ranking on IMDB, both sets of data agree on the rankings of episodes within the season for the most part.
Season 2 still holds the title as the best season of the series. Though none of Season 2's episodes can compete with the best of Season 4's, Season 2 had the most consistent quality throughout, trending generally between 8 and 8.5 out of 10 for most episodes.
Season 4 is also the first season since Season 1 that has trended upward as time went on.
How will Season 5 fare?
Can we expect as wild inconsistancy?
Will things get better?
How would Equestria Girls rank in this?
(Actually we can answer that one, Equestria Girls is rated 6.4 out of 10, making it the lowest rated program in the franchise).
Onward into the hiatus.
Makes sense I suppose, though I don't think any of the episodes in season 4 comes close to Mare Do Well and half of the gutter trash that was in Season 1. The only episodes in Season 4 that I would call terrible are Breezies and Somepony to Watch Over Me. Otherwise, it was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI'd rank them like this.
4=2>3>1
Yes, season 1 is last. First attempt is worst attempt. Lauren was executive producer, and still they had problems writing the characters. It picked up during the latter half and ended on a high note, but the show really found itself in Season 2
Yeah, in S1 the characters were very problematic. A lot unlike in S4, now that Pinkie has been established as a randumb moron who is sometimes not a randumb moron at all or Twilight as Cadance v2: books edition. Thank fuck they finally got the hang of writing good characters.
DeletePersonally, I think the worst episodes of season 1 didn't come close to the worst episodes of the other seasons, but I'll also admit to not being fond of season one as a whole in comparison. For me, 2>4>1>3. I don't especially hate season three like a lot of people do, but it had half as many episodes as all its competitors, and one of them was Spike At Your Service. That's a crippling disadvantage right out the gate. It's like having a foot-race where one of the contestants is recovering from a recent leg amputation.
DeleteBut I guess this is the sort of weirdness we end up with when a show gets as episodic as MLP. Season two is the best season for me, even though it contained the worst episode by far (MMDW). And I'd call season one better than three even though I can definitely name at least two episodes in three that I loved, while season one has sort of blended together in my mind at this point and I'd be hard-pressed to name a specific episode that was a real stand-out for me. I guess there are some that I'd call high-quality episodes, but that doesn't always translate exactly to personal enjoyment. I mean, I really liked Bats!, even though if you look at it objectively, it kinda falls apart. And then there's Sonic Rainboom, which is probably a really good episode, but which I just didn't like that much, for reasons that I admit are probably not entirely fair.
Overall, I think Capper got it right. This has been a season of ups and downs. In that sense, it's hardly unique for the series.
I just don't know how can people rate the last episode that high. That was complete trash, though not as bad as MMC.
ReplyDelete>Breezies worse then Mare-Do-Well
ReplyDelete>Pinkie Pride better then Canterlot Wedding and Tirek
Fuck these stats.
tirek was ass anime bullshit and you know it. At least you can lord it over /a/ now that it really IS like their chinese cartoons.
Delete>hating anime
Delete>watching a show as steeped in anime tropes as MLP
The pilot was basically a Sailor Moon fanfic with horses. Quit fooling yourself, anon. MLP is the finest of all goat anime.
Ah yes, the great Natasha Levinger/Dave Polsky canyon.
ReplyDeleteYeah these stats are horseshit as far as I'm concerned, especially the Poniflix ones.
ReplyDelete>Breezies is not worse than SaYS or MMDW.
>Trade Ya is not better than Rarity Takes Manehattan
>Rainbow Falls is not better than Breezies, Simple Ways, or Equestria Games
>Equestria Games is the most underrated episode of the entire series
>Dave Polsky is the most underrated writer on the show
My opinion: 4≥2>1≥3. Season 1 really doesn't hold up that well compared to what came later.
Yea. RTM a 6/10?
DeleteThe only flaw the episode has it the song was a little underwhelming.
To be honest, it was a Rarity episode so people probably shitposted it down
DeleteNo episode this season was worse than Spike At Your Service.
DeleteBut really, the only reason S4 is voted inconsistently compared to S1 is because of nostalgiafags voting up mediocre S1 episodes over the past three years. S4 had only a couple of truly bad episodes (Somepony to Watch Over Me and Daring Don't) but since the fandom is larger now than it's ever been, you naturally get more divergence of opinion, and thus less consistent ratings. Which is too bad because only mine are right.
The Nostalgia goggles are strong with season 1.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you figure that? All the other comments talk about how bad it was.
DeleteYou know why I can't trust this?
ReplyDeleteCatle Mane-ia isn't down in the 3s somewhere.
>Testing, Testing not the highest rated episode of the season
ReplyDeleteBreezies was adorable, cute, and more intelligently written than half the episodes this season.
ReplyDeleteAll this proves is that the survey is thick with autists who resented Breezies for trying to sell them toys (while continuing to watch a 30 minute toy commercial and buy MLP merch to rub their dicks on.)