M.A. Larson sat out the fourth season to complete his novel Pennyroyal Academy, and as such it
became the first series not to earn any ratings higher than four stars. In his absence though, most of the other
writers stepped to produce their best work, including some of the new
additions. Dave Polsky ended up with the
lion’s share of five shows, and most of them were solid. Amy Keating Rogers returned to pen both the
best Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie episodes, while Meghan McCarthy’s opening and
closing two-parters were far more successful than her previous efforts. Josh Haber brought a realistic feel that fit
the season perfectly and proved himself worthy of remaining on the staff, and
even Merriwether Williams turned in one of her “best” episodes (in that it
didn’t top the worst list).
Unfortunately, Scott Sonneborn and Natasha Levinger were both complete
disasters, while McCarthy’s meddling ruined plenty of potentially decent outings.
These last three produced filler which destroyed the flow of
a season that was surprisingly gripping at times. Having an arc regarding finding six keys
allowed for each mane six member to have their own special episode, and three
of them were among the season’s top ratings.
After the Equestria Games hoopla was introduced in the previous season’s
Games Ponies Play, that became a solid mini-arc as well. These served to focus the season, and were
unquestionably stronger than most of the other episodes that didn’t deal with
these threads. So even if no one
specific episode matched the best efforts from previous seasons, the fourth was
undoubtedly My Little Pony’s
strongest overall to date. With Larson’s
return set for the fifth season and many other writers finally maturing,
expectations have to be set rather high.
It is a great loss that Larson chose this particular season to sit out,
but I must concern myself with the shows that were actually produced. And there was plenty to like.
