MLP Season Five Storyboard Thoughts (Spoilers)

Well, it’s happened.  Just like at Comic Con last year, the MLP staff have provided a Storyboard clip preview of this upcoming Season.  Fair warning to everyone, I will be discussing my thoughts on My Little Pony Season Five, so now is the time to turn away if you want to avoid any spoilers.  With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of these clips.  Seems that there’s going to be a lot of focus on Twilight’s new role as the Princess of Friendship, as she’s already stressing over why the tree of harmony would build her a castle in the middle of ponyville.  And to be honest, I’ve been curious about what sort of changes there will be to her character arc.  Until, we are shown a new addition to this castle.  A map displaying all of Equestria that apparently also shows the Mane Six where they are needed.  Now, this could very easily become a recurring theme throughout Season Five.  The Mane Six gather at the hall to see what their next “Mission” could be.  I don’t know about you, but I am suddenly reminded of various old cartoon shows where a team of characters is sent to various new locations with every episode.  But who knows, maybe this sort of thing will only happen at the beginning and the end of the Season.  And besides, this scene is well worth a re-watch if only for one moment.  I don’t know why, but seeing Pinkie’s reaction here always cracks me up.  Although something else I find rather intriguing here is the fact that Spike talks about how he and Big Mac are going to spend the weekend talking about Hoofball.  Even though Fluttershy shows immediate disinterest, I would honestly love seeing an episode where Spike and Big Mac are the main focus.  I really hope the writers actually follow through with that at some point, because I can see a lot of potential with that story idea.  Not necessarily talking about sports, but just seeing how the #1 assistant and the hard working stoic could carry an episode.
So, we get to see the Mane Six investigating a small village in a more remote corner of Equestria.  And this is where things start getting intriguing.  Figures that the element of Laughter would be the one who could detect false joy in others.  And these odd cutie marks that appear on all of the townsfolk...You know, at first, I was thinking, “What if this is where the changelings have been hiding all this time?”.  But the more I look into this, the more it feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone.  I could imagine some young colt or filly with unnatural power over others, demanding everyone to be happy all the time or face the consequences.  That could prove to be quite the challenge for the Mane Six to handle.  And an excellent teaching opportunity for the Princess of Friendship.  Or perhaps this could be a colony of ponies who have abolished cutie marks from their society.  Maybe they felt that cutie marks put ponies on unequal ground in some way.  That would also prove to be a rather interesting conflict for the Mane Six.  Making them question their own roles in life.  
I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see some inner soul searching from each of these main characters.  But what do you think?  Now that we’ve seen the main function behind this castle, what sort of role will it play throughout Season Five?  Would you have any interest in seeing a Spike and Big Mac centered episode?  What about this village of ponies on the outskirts of Equestria?  Why do you think they would all have false smiles and similarly shaped cutie marks?  I would like to hear your thoughts on these Season Five Storyboard clips, and here’s looking forward to all these new additions to MLP.  I am DRWolf, and I look forward to hearing from you.