@Scrounge  
He is the first to befriend them, not the only one. The thing is, generally students tend to spend more time with the ones who befriend them first, and rarely switch their core friend group unless it is toxic.  
Gallus, Smolder, and Ocellus were reluctant to be there, and Yona and Silverstream… Scared away most ponies, just like Pinkie Pie did. Sandbar contributed to their bond and actually he is the one who built that friend group.  
It is not that they are not friends with other ponies, Sandbar is just the pony they like the most.  
Now. In the technical sense, they are like the guys from Captain planet or the old Power Rangers. They are all token race characters, including Sandbar (The token white in the team).  
It is because the staff decided to make a team with one of each race. Not because they are actually racist one way or another.

@raakamagna @Background Pony #403A  
Right, that part’s fine. The part where they all wind up being in the same clique just because they’re the only non-ponies is where I feel like the implications start to get ugly. Is the one way they’re different from everyone else really supposed to be more important than anything they might have in common with each other? Is Sandbar seriously the only pony in the entire student body ready to think of them as anything more than outsiders? It sends a pretty cynical message.

@Scrounge  
[bq=”Scrounge”] @PUBLIQclopAccountant

@Scrounge  
The passage of time seems to have been about two to four years (Which means the Cake twins might not be that old.) So time is not big deal.  
Regarding the students. Yes, only five of them are foreigner, and there is a reason. They are the first foreign students to enroll, which was Twilight’s plan. Introducing one student per each allied nation and eventually integrate as many as possible.  
Politically speaking Equestria is an imperialistic confederacy which expands by allying with other city states while allowing their independence (The difference between a confederacy, a republic, and a federation is exactly the level of sovereign rights of its members). As such they always ensure the allied nations integrate to pony culture first.

@PUBLIQclopAccountant  

 
Are there actually that many? All the background students seem to be ponies. It seems to be just these five.
 
Which kinda bugs me, honestly.
 
 

 
If you think the CMC are out of sync with the passage of time, stop for a second and think about the Cake Twins, who have been babies since Season 2. XD
 
As far as alternate big-picture plans go, how would you deal with the Pillars? They got set up as major figures and then just kinda unceremoniously dropped.

@Joshua  
One bad episode is forgivable and ignorable. A string of them that shifts the tone of the show is not.
 
 
@Diaz  
…and they could have strengthened that point by slowly writing out the M6 as the obligatory main characters as their character arcs reached completion.
 
Rarity should be busy overseeing her franchise locations and making fashion week appearances elsewhere in Equestria. Business travel would not occupy all of her time, as her dresses are proudly “Designed by Rarity in Ponyville,” so she’d be gone for six weeks on business and then take a two-month designing retreat in the Carousel Boutique where she can design her dresses for the Fall collection, for example. Her home design time could be when she’d be available for slice-of-life friendship adventures (or when her friends miss her and visit her in some other city). Even though Rarity is mostly Ponyville-bound in the actual show when was the last time we saw the inside of her home?
 
Rainbow Dash, in particular, should have been written out of the main cast when she became a Wonderbolt. Nevermind that I think she should be a virtuoso soloist flier instead of a member of a flying team (who may make guest appearances on a Wonderbolt show)—either scenario should have her busy touring Equestria and performing and practicing and not in Ponyville. Her absence can allow the writers to handle the issue of maintaining friendships after graduation when distance and careers interfere with the constant contact that school friendships often have.
 
Pinkie, Fluttershy, & AJ all have clear ties to Ponyville and aren’t moving anytime in the foreseeable future. They can remain as prominent residents. Twilight should be in a similar situation to Rarity: her home base is Ponyville, but she is frequently out of town on off-screen princess adventures. Unlike Rarity, who may be away or back for predictable (sometimes) extended blocks, Twilight is more likely to be pulled out with no notice for (generally) short times.
 
What does removing the ponies leave us? Room for the development of new characters.
 
Re-tell the basic friendship lessons from the first two seasons where Starlight is the pony who needs to learn them. Instead of the mentor/protogeé dynamic being that of a Ph.D. advisor and grad student, it would be mentorship between equals. There’s the basic plot of a more coherent Seasons 6 & 7.
 
Even though I do not like the way the writers introduced the School of Friendship, it is not itself a bad idea nor is its student body having a diversity of species (I do wish these other species had had some background characters visiting Canterlot on diplomatic missions instead of appearing apropos of nothing). Starlight being the boss mare of daily operations at the school is also a good graduation promotion for her and frees Twilight to handle the rest of her princess duties elsewhere. Although friendship cannot be learned from books and lessons, Twi’s school can still facilitate friendship by being deliberately light on academic lessons to give the students time to bond with one another. Seeing as so many of her students are foreigners to Equestria, it is a good thing that the school is in Ponyville as it creates a deliberate separation between the student and the rest of their species’ diplomatic entourage that forces them to make new friends.
 
Of the M6, Pinkie is the only one who should be permanent full-time staff at the school as her new job after quitting working at the Cakes’ bakery and keeping her freelance party planning as moonlight gig. AJ can teach a night course after her farm work is done. I have no idea what sort of sleep & feeding schedule Fluttershy and her animals keep, so I’m not sure when or if she’d be available to be regular staff. Rarity would teach a condensed intensive course or two each term when her design sabattical permits. Rainbow Dash would be a distinguished guest lecturer (as would Fluttershy if her animals keep her busy during all hours and she needs their naptime to be her naptime as well). Twilight and Starlight can share regular (but less so than normal classes) whole-school lectures that tie together the cirricula the other instructors teach.
 
Now the screen time is freed up for the Student 6 to learn the lessons Twilight & friends learned back in the Lauren Faust days and maybe adopt a kirin to become the Student 7.
 
Notably absent: the CMC.
 
They also need to be inculded in any sort of alternate big-picture plan for the show, but I just can’t find a good place for them. Time seems to move at different rates for different ponies and their character arcs seem to be particularly out-of-sync compared to the story of the M6. Sometime during or between Seasons 6 & 7 they should have aged out of Miss Cheerilee’s classroom and explored some of the lessons that could arise from that. When the School of Friendship opened, they either could be students or, given their prior work in helping other ponies discern their cutie marks, full-time grad students and TAs there where they can teach the lessons as they learn them.
 
I think this about covers every pony who has series-long character developement and has substantial screen time. And now I’ve written a 900 word essay instead of fixing my server configuration.

@PUBLIQclopAccountant  
But nothing has actually changed. The core of the series is still different characters developing relationships with each other.

This is what happens when the writers fired all their editors and then had to keep the show going for two more seasons.

Yeah it’s good now.

@Scrounge  
I somehow managed to chop off the @GaruuSpike part when I posted this. Oops.
 
 
@Joshua  
:P

@Joshua  
Let us not forget “The small horse” as if those were real things!

@Scrounge  
Okay, maybe not all of them are mythology creatures.

 
Ah, yes, the legendary yak, truly one of the strangest and most majestic creatures mankind ever imagined. What wide-eyed dreamers we were in those early centuries, to think such beasts could ever walk the Earth.

@Joshua  
OP:  

@IceKitsune  
Depressing, isn’t it? That’s not how you’re supposed to react when an episode deviates from your idea.

Some people just really have/had this idea about what exactly this show was going to be about and like. Then it started to deviate from it and they got irrationally angry and upset about it.

@GanymedeSkies  

@cheezedoodle  
OP is definitely a duck

It’s a show about cute mythology creatures doing cute things
 
:3

@cheezedoodle  
Uh, my apologies.

@Joshua  
Maybe discuss why you think they are wrong rather than namecall.

Does this im^ply the characters arent doing cute things anymore ?

You are right, it is a show