The clips of the new MLP episodes showed great promise: a new land, a new villain, and a new adventure. Unfortunately, while still entertaining, it has failed to live to the standards of older episodes.
The new villain is King Sombra. He is powerful and evil because...no reasons are given. The other villains had reasons for why they did the things they did. Nightmare Moon was jealous of Celestia, Queen Chrysalis wanted to conquer Equestria for her changelings, and Discord was the embodiment of chaos itself. Sombra is evil because the script says so. It is never explained how he became so powerful nor how he conquered the Crystal Empire in the first place since all it took to defeat him was the crystal ponies' joy coupled with a magical crystal. He has very few lines of dialogue and dies at the end aka he appears and vanishes when the plot is through with him. No time is used to better learn about the character like there was for the prior listed villains.
Twilight and her friends are sent to save the Empire. Since Sombra is powerful and the barrier keeping him from attacking becomes increasingly weaker, why weren't the mane six armed with the Elements of Harmony? They would have been very useful in this circumstance. If the script wanted a way to challenge the mane six to not use the Elements, then the script should have found a way to deprive them of those Elements. An effective way to not use the Elements would have been if they were with luggage Spike was carrying when they were dropped during the chase scene.
Since Shining Armor and Cadence's love power could easily expel the changelings, why did they not stay together to effectively maintain the barrier? A messenger could have been sent to transport the mane six to the Empire while Shining Armor and Cadence maintain the barrier. Luna or Celestia could've helped in this regard.
This story arch showed promise but failed due to the unknown villain, the lack of the Elements, and bad decision making. I really hope that the rest of the season will be better written.
