What's Different In Later Seasons: It's the showrunners, an essay
It's a common topic around here that Friendship is Magic seems to have changed in tone or quality or vibe somewhere during the middle seasons of its run. Perceptions vary of course, but I suggest that there is a single underlying cause, which was the change in showrunners.
First, the history. The original showrunner was of course Lauren Faust, up through the second season opener Return of Harmony. Jayson Thiessen then held the position until the mid-season-5 hiatus. Jayson then switched to work on the movie instead. Jim Miller became showrunner at the mid-season-5 hiatus and has been through the present.
The breakpoint wasn't Lauren's departure, or Alicorn Twilight, or Equestria Girls, or Starlight Glimmer or any other villain redemption, or any of the other controversies. It was "Do Princesses Dream Of Magic Sheep", the last episode before the mid-season-5 hiatus, the last episode that Jayson wrote and showran. That was the real finale of the show's original run and vibe.
I've met each of the persons mentioned at conventions. We all know how wonderful Lauren is, of course. And Jayson Thiessen always continued her work fantastically. Jayson exudes so much joy for the character personalities and the worldbuilding and the music and everything, as Lauren Faust also always did.
Jim Miller... doesn't. He is a much different personality, more aloof and cryptic. The vibe from each showrunner's personality really does carry into the viewing experience, and that's the real underlying factor for why its spark first shined and then dulled.
Lauren and Jayson's show was most fundamentally about emoting with the ponies. You could feel what each of them wanted. The fundamental principle of drama, since ancient Greece, is that it's more compelling to watch a character strive than to succeed. Lauren and Jayson's show was always about following along with what the characters wanted. Starting with "The Ticket Master" and the gala, up through Rarity's boutiques and dresses, to Rainbow Dash's ascent through the Wonderbolts, to Fluttershy's search for assertiveness and the Crusaders for their purpose, we could always feel along with the ponies emotionally as they strove for what each of their hearts truly desired.
Jim Miller's show doesn't expose those same emotional nerves. We went from emoting with the ponies to mostly merely watching their antics. The crew under Jim has always felt like they're more concerned with displaying their reach and stretch as creators. Most directly of course in bringing all the student species into the worldbuilding, but there's a lot of more subtle areas too.
Jim's show likes to parallelize and reference and re-enact real-world tales and storytelling devices. "Rarity Investigates" was the first of these, "MLP does film noir", as the first time FIM adopted some genre or structure from outside its own universe. Then there are classic literature recreations: "Gift of the Maud Pie", "Hearth's Warming Tail", "Hooffields and McColts". There are movie remakes: "28 Pranks Later", "What About Discord". "Stranger Than Fan Fiction" and "Once Upon a Zeppelin" directly bring fan conventions in-universe. "Dungeons & Discords" is another real-world import. None of these references and recreations happened under the hand of the earlier showrunners.
And Jim Miller's show likes to deliberately cross up established characterizations. "Where the Apple Lies", now Big Mac is suddenly talkative. "Discordant Harmony", now Fluttershy has to be the chaotic one. "Cart before the Ponies", the Crusaders deliberately switch characterizations. "Buckball Season", Fluttershy and Pinkie become competitive and Snails is friendly. It's a search and attempt at fresh character development... that comes out as an uncanny valley of trying and failing to write and emote like Lauren Faust.
What goes so wrong with all of these is breaking the immersion. These deliberate recharacterizations and real-world devices and references make me always painfully aware that I'm watching a cartoon crafted by a studio of writers and not the actual real adventures of actual ponies in actual Equestria. The personalities have to follow the dictates of the studio and story framework, rather than free to act as the driving and shining force they should be.
It feels like Jim Miller's crew writes these stories the wrong way around. Jayson and Lauren's stories came from the deep desires and dreams of each character. Jim's stories come from first picking a framework or reference, and then the personalities are crammed into that. They don't get to shine and emote and exhibit like they used to. It's like a sitcom: pick a classic formula and throw the gang into it, hijinks ensue. Except we're watching those hijinks through a hole where the characters' feelings used to be.
Jim's show is too prone to just telling stories while forgetting to include the emotion. Stories like "Campfire Tales" and "Daring Done" may make for interesting stretches to the worldbuilding, but there just isn't any feeling in them. Within Campfire Tales itself is a microcosm: the one story out of the three that worked was Mistmane, which had the emotional component that you could feel her sacrifice. There's no heart in watching Rockhoof dig a trench or Caballeron steal a treasure.
The cutie map in general does this over and over: it's a device to put into each situation what seems to be the wrong pony, in search of new characterization material. But the problem is it's so immersion-breakingly transparent as a device that is serving the creators' needs and not the audience's. There's a fine line between freshness versus making the characters do something just because you can, and I feel the current show staff without Jayson Thiessen's guiding hand comes out on the wrong side of that too often. "Spice Up Your Life" is my example here: there's no reason Rarity's personality has anything to do with saving a restaurant business, she's there because the story framework crams her into it. It's still a fine story in itself and not bad by any means, but it just feels off-kilter from what that personality strives to be doing. There's no emotional payoff because there's no conflict with Rarity's nature.
Simply acknowledging fan input isn't a problem. Jayson's episodes "Slice of Life" and "Do Princesses Dream" were full of fanservice, and were thoroughly enjoyable. They didn't commit the sin of breaking immersion; everything that happened was still contained within the universe and made sense therein. They didn't talk at the fans to criticize them, as in "Flutter Brutter" and "Fame and Misfortune". The problem isn't that the fans can't handle poking, the problem is that any poking at any of its fans is so far off anything that Lauren Faust's show would ever have done.
There are some high points in Jim's tenure. At its best, MLP can still do the personality-driven interactions that originally drew us in so deeply. Examples are "A Royal Problem", "Parental Glideance", "Sounds of Silence", and of course "A Perfect Pear". These few examples keep us hoping that MLP can still recapture that same spark. "Best Gift Ever" came close too. But the truth is these have become the exception rather than the norm.
Lauren and Jayson could infuse soul and heart and joy into the characters and give them the emotion and striving that we loved to play along with. "Do Princesses Dream Of Magic Sheep" was the real end of the show's original era. Even with all the silly fanservicey dream stuff going on, Jayson's writing still gave us deep reverberations of the characters' personalities and strivings: Luna's torment, Spike's buff image, Scootaloo's longing wish for wings.
You may have heard this description of narrative structure: "Step 1, throw the hero down a well. Step 2, throw rocks at them. Step 3, get them out." Lauren and Jayson's show knew how to throw those rocks at the personalities, to challenge what each of them most deeply believes in and find the emotional payoff for coming out of it. Jim's show throws rocks merely at the characters, not at their psyches. Jim's show never has a pony doubting their entire identity and existence like in the classics "Party of One", "Lesson Zero", "Wonderbolts Academy", even "Flight to the Finish". And thus never achieves the emotional payoff for bringing them out of it.
Jim Miller said on one convention panel, referencing Equestria Girls, "If I had my way the girls would be pillowfighting in their underwear." It's unclear how sarcastic he was being, but just that a showrunner would think that way at all is such a drastic violation of the original world and characterizations of Lauren Faust. Jim's Twitter feed comes across the same way, like the comment about "does he know he's Trixie's dad", cryptic and inscrutable, emotions that just aren't the joy of what Friendship is Magic should be.
I have nothing against Jim personally, he's a great guy, does plenty of conventions, and he really does want to interact with and please the fans. And of course there are many other crew involved as well, the writers and directors and musicians and all. (Daniel Ingram's songs see some of the same problem, overserving the plot structure and forgetting the feeling, but that's another essay. And director Denny Lu comes across as careful rather than joyful, same as Jim.) But overall, I think the show's tone really makes that shift when Jim becomes the supervisor at mid-season-5.
So overall, if you want to pinpoint what changed in Friendship is Magic, it's the changes in showrunners. Jim's show goes like any other talking animal cartoon. It's still good, but merely a good cartoon along the lines of Adventure Time or Star Vs or Gravity Falls, doing fun worldbuilding and adventures, but not the deep personality studies. It was the characterizations of Lauren and Jayson that brought us the show that was so special and life-defining as to create our fandom, and their absence is what we've missed ever since.
Submitted March 28, 2019 at 09:55AM by vikingerik
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/b6kihk/whats_different_in_later_seasons_its_the/?utm_source=ifttt
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