A Very Minty Christmas is actually a decent special! I liked Minty’s sock song and some of the characters have character. The plot was perfectly fine. The characters weren’t too awful. The only problem is the whole resolution to the conflict. It’s hilariously anticlimactic and impotent.
 
And G3’s general problem of samemane with sameface. Having more than exactly one manestyle would have gone a long way for that generation’s quality. G4 also has different eyeshape/eyelashess and a few unique models for each gender and race. This was probably Hasbro’s total control of ‘make the show like the toys’ where that IS the only difference.

Socks getting abducted by aliens.