Evolution of fan reactions to FiM continuity caused by TV streaming services
tl;dr: the rise of streaming services changed fandom expectations for what kind of narratives TV can tell
In the comments section of an artist's rendition of that shot from Winter Wrap-Up, a comment war erupted over the relative quality of the seasons of FiM. The subject of discussion isn't anything that we haven't already had here every Thursday for at least the past two years.
However, there were users there who were passionate about the first two seasons being the best (not too unusual, but most of those left this subreddit years ago). The biggest surprises in the arguments were:
- The users who claimed that S5 was the worst (the opposite of the consensus opinion on this sub—I've seen S5 ranked as a mediocre season but never a bottom one)
- The users (mostly the same as the previous group) who liked S9 liked it precisely because of the episodes that this subreddit hates. All they'd have to do to those episodes is set Twilight's wing layer to invisible and replace the castle with the treehouse model and they would be indistinguishable from the first two seasons.
These arguments got me to thinking about why the opinion of regulars here is that the middle three seasons are the best, and the first two are viewed as "enjoyable at the time but don't hold up to later seasons."
There have also been some discussions here on how broader internet culture (combined with selection effects after Twilicorn drama) changed bronies. One argument that I don't recall from those discussions is the rise of streaming services during FiM's run.
Torrents and DVD box sets both existed in 2010, so shows could be binged if you so desired. However, they were not the usual way to watch TV. Instead, you waited a week between episodes (or at least that's the viewing experience writers would target).
For a 22-minute syndicated children's cartoon, this restriction led to many of the tropes that earned TV the reputation of the idiot box. Characters had to re-establish themselves in almost every episode because any episode could be a child's first: you can't risk them being confused because there is a larger story arc that somepony is acting out-of-character—any OOC moments had to be preceded by dialogue to establish characters. A contrasting example is in the final season of Bojack Horseman, where a central cast member is continually OOC for the first half of the season.
Additionally, the syndication means that episodes should stand independently of one another so that they can be shown in arbitrary order. Not only does this force each chapter (with minor exceptions for "special" multi-part events) to tell a complete story, but it also means that there can't be long-running streaks of unresolved plots that form a seasonal or series arc.
As a digression, I'm going to define some kinds of continuity:
- Type F continuity: the episodes would not make sense when their order is flipped but you can skip one and not miss any story elements.
- Type D continuity is stricter and dependent on the other episodes. D1 continuity is a relationship where the episode doesn't make any sense without its sequel. D2 continuity is way beyond in media res. They may open similarly if you skipped the prior installments, but the media res episode will explain most of the mysteries as its payoff while a D2 episode assumes that you already know what's going on from the previous entries. In FiM, all the major villains are given a pair of Type D episodes. However, since they are so tightly linked and rare, it makes more sense to talk of the two-parters as a single unit.
- Type B installments are things that only make sense as the bookends of a series. While most familiar as a beginning, a very definitive finale can also be Type B if it closes the door on plausible sequels. A finale without any clear sequel hooks is not automatically a full Type B ending, though it probably should be one for most significant arcs.
- Type C is a particular form of Type D when the episodes take place concurrently. The order may or may not matter, but skipping one will cause you to miss half the story.
I had some further thoughts on these continuity types (precisely how they relate to trilogies), but they would be better as a separate essay in a more generalized TV & movie subreddit. Highlights would include middle sequel syndrome, overstuffed finales, and how FiM's seasons could be seen as a trilogy of trilogies. Examples I'd pick from would be the new Star Wars trilogy, the Hobbit trilogy, the habit of book trilogies getting two movies for the third book in their cinematic adaptions.
In the first three FiM seasons, negative continuity was the rule of the land. I'll list some of the main continuity points I remember below:
- Friendship is Magic is pure Type B.
- Ticket Master is D1 to Best Night Ever and BNE is Type F to Ticket Master
- The Crystal Empire is D2 to A Canterlot Wedding (introducing a new princess and Twilight's BBBFF are both significant introductions that require a separate story), but the reverse relationship doesn't exist: Type F at best.
- All the other Crystal Empire episodes are Type F on The Crystal Empire
- Canterlot Games and Just For Sidekicks (I think those are the names, it's been a few years) are a Type C pair
- Magical Mystery Cure is Type B for the first three seasons. All future episodes are D2 to it if you view the series as a continuous story or Type F if your view is that the episodes are discreet.
Pretty much everything else in those seasons could be shown in arbitrary order without narrative confusion.
However, Season 4 introduced the first experiments of long-form continuity, as Twilight is permanently an alicorn. The friendship lockbox episodes, IIRC, can be watched in arbitrary order, but the resolution to the Tirek fight relies on all of them in a D2 way. From there on, the permanent changes became more frequent until there were real series-spanning arcs.
What seems to have attracted so many fans, in the beginning, was that FiM is so heckin' cute, optimistic, and not written for total morons. People were attracted to the personalities of the ponies and let their head canons and fan fiction take care of longer-term stories.
However, the Twilicorn debcale and long hiatus caused an evaporative cooling effect on the fandom. As FiM now had a clear continuity between episodes (you can't randomly alternate between Princess Twilight and Unicorn Twilight episodes without it being obvious you missed something), continuity became more popular among the fanbase.
One other reason (the one mentioned in the title of this post) why FiM could switch to constant continuity is the rise of streaming services. When you can binge an entire season in a weekend, repetitive set-ups and reintroductions become blatantly obvious and instulting. Furthermore, binging a season requires less retelling of prior episodes because there wasn't a week in between to forget all the details. Although shows like The Wire have been telling season-long stories for a while, the change from the episode as unit of complete story to season is still a recent development for western animation.
Fandom expectations of the show shifted because continuity is a bell that cannot be un-rung. You can transform a randomly syndicated show into a serialized story but you cannot go back from a serialized story to arbitrary syndication. That's not to say that reboots, filler episodes, and dead-end plotlines don't exist: it's that those are the exception. As fans grew accostomed to other shows having long arcs and to FiM's change to serialization, their expectations of the writers grew and it became easier to be disappointed when episodes were written like they were in the initial run of FiM.
Submitted December 26, 2019 at 03:49PM by PUBLIQclopAccountant
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/eg2b4c/evolution_of_fan_reactions_to_fim_continuity/?utm_source=ifttt
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