Not a Morning Mare

I for one am in agreement with the people who disliked this episode. I was fine with the Crystal Empire two-parter because it brought back both Luna and Cadence (and gave Cadence her own kingdom to rule (supposedly)). I was fine with the Apple Family Reunion because it gave us some more backstory about the Apple family (and the CMC is going national. That, I thought, was sweeter than apple pie, as it were). But Spike at your service was the first episode of season three that actually made me upset. Many of the things I found annoying about it have already been addressed in detail by other bronies so I won’t get into them too much. I’ll just rattle my complaints off, bullet point style: One; the plot was as tired and used as a sleep deprived broom in a sawdust factory. Two; Spike was completely out of character. He’s basically the assistant of royalty. He should know how to cook! We’ve seen how single-minded and spacey Twilight can be. If Spike didn’t know how to cook for her and make her stop to eat now and then she would have starved to death long ago. Three; 3D timberwolves... what the Hell guys!? This is a two dimensional T.V. show with an established animation style! If you want to add 3D, at least try to make it blend well with the rest of the show. When I first saw the timberwolves in this episode I thought someone had just spliced in some scenes from a crummy anime. Don’t turn into a crummy anime My Little Pony! What really got me on this point was I liked the old depiction of the timberwolves and was excited to see them again when I heard they’d be in this episode. I thought they were detailed and scary and pretty awesome all around. Then I got... these... things. And that’s all I’m going to complain about for now. One little thing I noticed about Spike that seemed ironic and made me giggle was that he is the most chivalrous and knightly of all the characters. He rode on his mighty steed (a perturbed Twilight) to save Rarity from diamond dogs. He treats Rarity and everyone else with the utmost respect. And now with his code he is almost as honorable and honest as Applejack. I personally find it funny that the most knight-like character in the show is a dragon. If that was deliberate character development by the MLP team then I applaud them heartily and will forget all about my previous complaints. If not, well, it’s still funny to me.