>>12573
>some episodes I enjoyed less than that but I never rated an episode below 6 even if I rated on average more lower than you did.
I might have been too harsh on Over a Barrel, because I don't feel like Season One really dips below a five at any point, but I did have real problems with that episode. We seem to have a similar pattern of sorts for the first ten episodes, a sort of up-down-up-down and then high point at Winter Wrap-Up, followed by some degree of a drop after the first ten for Call of the Cutie. We also both seem to have settled on about four top episodes of the season, with yours being those that rank around halfway or more to 9, and mine being those that rank above 9, which is interesting both in itself and by comparison: mine were Friendship Is Magic, where I sort of cheated by giving the two-parter one overall score in contrast to your separated scores for each part, and then Swarm of The Century and Winter Wrap-Up, which we both share in our top four, then finally The Cutie Mark Chronicles, which for me was a 9.2, whereas for you it was more on par with Boast Busters around 8ish, which is where around where I put Boast Busters as well at exactly 8 (along with Applebuck Season, Look Before You Sleep and A Bird in the Hoof, another four that together I think of as 'The Solid Eight Club', just a group that feel like they pretty much hit the exact same spot to me). Then your four top picks, excluding Swarm of the Century and Winter Wrap-Up where we broadly share similar opinions, include Dragonshy which we actually gave the same score to, and The Best Night Ever, which I rated exactly one decimal point lower than you. I think above all the main pattern that emerges is that you seem to have a more stable (heh) opinion on an episode, where minor issues seem a lot less irksome to you whereas there are huge dips on my graph where things have just really bugged me: a lot of our trend-line would be a much more aligned if it weren't for those big dips. Overall, bigger highs and bigger lows vs a more stable baseline.
>Something I didn't quite figure out even if I leaned into personal enjoyment more as this thread went on.
As time goes on I'm going to try and lean even further into personal enjoyment. The way I see it, even if what detractors said about the show was true, that it's essentially just slop for kids, I'd still like it because I like it. Sometimes my taste aligns with quality (like my enjoyment of Wagner's Ring Cycle), and sometimes it doesn't align at all (my adoration of everything Ralph Bakshi, or my paradoxical nostalgic soft spot for Murdoch Murdoch, for instance). Both of those are based on the public perception of quality, sure, but I'm more interested in simply liking what I like than in attempting to demonstrate and prove that I'm justified in liking it because secretly the stuff I like always aligns with actual quality, or something like that. However, that's not to say that quality is not worth discussing, and it might be interesting to have some degree of divergence where some focus more on the quality aspect and others on the enjoyment aspect. Already I think it has been interesting to have your asides on animation, something that largely escapes my notice, except where it breaks my immersion a little like in Fall Weather Friends. It provides a broader base of discussion where different things are brought to the table.