My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 309 - Spike At Your Service

 

Rating:

 

Unlike most of the bad episodes of My Little Pony, Spike At Your Service is at least somewhat fun.  The episode is extremely lightweight, but charmingly so, even though it’s disappointing that such a short season would need obvious fil­ler.  A split writing credit makes its second appearance, as once again Merriwether Williams is cleaning up another scribe’s unwanted story.  Knowing who to blame for this then is difficult then, since the episode doesn’t really feel like either Williams or Dave Polsky, and it’s unclear how much of a contribution the “story” credit means.  At the very least, Polsky seems to have kept Wil­liams inside the land of Ponyville for one episode, but there still wasn’t any­thing that could be done with this premise.  Williams did find a few laughs, but not enough to make up for the headshaking and painful moments which abounded.  Without thinking about it, Spike At Your Service could almost qualify as a solid episode, but unfortunately that is the exact task in front of me.  Let’s just say it’s always bad news when a character announces they’re bored and have nothing to do.  And it’s equally onerous when a writer invents something that dictates a specific character’s actions that they’ve al­ways had, yet this is the first time we’ve heard about it 3½ seasons in.  Even if Spike At Your Service is enjoyable filler at times, it’s much too lightweight to be considered anything other than a minor episode.

With such a high percentage of female population, Spike is unsurprisingly chosen as the male Tribute from Ponyville, but he is stunned when Applejack is named the female…huh?  Oh sorry, that’s The Hunger Games.  Spike is given the day off because Trollestia gave Twilight an absurd homework assignment that the latter apparently assumes is real.  Also, Celestia still gives Twilight homework assignments.  So Spike takes out his big long to-do lists and does three stupid things that take all of ten seconds.  What to do, what to do.  Somehow, he grabs hold of a hot air balloon and finds him­self in the middle of the Everfree Forest.  A perfectly natural and logical course of events.

So because that Seneca guy is a real bastard and only cares about ratings, he has one of the people working for him insert a monster into the middle of the forest to stir things up and bring the competition to its conclusion.  Thanks to that announcement he made earlier, Applejack thinks that both she and Spike have a chance of surviving, so she rescues Spike from the tim­berwolves by using her cunning skill and razor sharp accuracy.  They both make it through, and then…wait, seriously?  That’s The Hunger Games again?  Are you sure, because I know I saw it in the My Little Ponu episode I just watched.  Hmm, wonder why I’m getting those confused.  Apparently Ap­plejack was in the woods because she saw a hot air balloon floating there and went to investigate.  Big Macintosh saw it too since he was in town for some reason, as did Granny Smith since she’s old and senile and decided to­day was a good day for trying to pick up a lone apple in the middle of a field where a runaway cart totally isn’t about to hit her.  Did either of them try to help, or go back and tell Applejack about it?  Nope, just a coinci­dence that Applejack saw it too.  But what about the rest of the mane six?  Surely Rainbow Dash must have seen it since she lives in the freaking clouds, and we know she is quite experienced in saving her friends after hav­ing done so in the two previous episodes.  Nope, it was only Applejack just because.

Since Applejack is from the South, she’s ob­viously all about the slavery, so Spike offers himself up as an indentured servant to repay having his life saved.  Applejack tries to explain that slav­ery is now prohibited by the Constitution, and that she’s totally offended by Spike stereotyping her like that, but Spike’s mysterious Dragon Code (brought to you by the same guy who invented Pinkie Sense) means he totally has to do this slavery thing for the rest of his life.  Sadly, Apple­jack has to stop herself from telling Spike that his life just isn’t worth that much, but then we’d have to endure another episode where Spike is butt­hurt about a perceived slight (although it would actually be real this time).

Spike is of course a terri­ble “helper” who only makes things worse, and is naturally also comically literal.  Apple­jack tries to get Twilight to intervene, but she’s too busy with her “assign­ment” (*chuckle*) to pay attention or care.  Rainbow Dash fin­ally shows up and suggests giving him something way too hard to do, but this proves to be impossible.  Dash “wants” to crash into a pile of rocks, so Spike dutifully builds her one that stretches above the trees, which simul­taneously puts to rest the “miracle” of the Pyramids being built.  This means Dash is now forced to crash into it after all, which naturally gives her a concussion.  Dealing with concussions has become a big issue in pro­fessional sports, and Williams uses this opportunity to make a valuable com­ment on how we expect our athletes to perform at the expense of their live­lihoods.  Yeah right.  Dash is back two scenes later and doesn’t show any sign of problems from her massive head injury.

Obviously the only way to get out of a life debt is to have your life saved in return, and since this could take awhile if it does even happen, Applejack decides to stage a rescue with her friends.  None of them are actors or have experience in special effects, but Spike’s a baby so he probably won’t notice.  Especially since all Pegasi are expert foley artists.  Not re­hearsing worked well enough in Magic Duel, so the mane six decide they don’t need to bother practicing this time either even though they have to do a lot more than jumping out from behind a statue.  The plan is for Applejack to get her hoof stuck in a pile of rocks and have Spike save her from an approaching timberwolf.  Since they don’t want to involve one of the real ones, Twilight operates a marionette that looks totally realistic (as all marionettes do).  Once it “attacks”, Applejack announces she’s stuck while going over to get stuck.  None of this tips Spike off to the fact that the attack is fake.  He figures it out only because they neglected to in­clude the timberwolves’ foul-smelling breath.

Rainbow Dash’s roar awakened the real timberwolves, who must have evolved the ability to magically put themselves back together since they’re entirely made out of wood (get it? “timber”?  Isn’t that hilarious?).  In a plot twist that is certainly more clever than lazy, the exact same thing they were planning to do happens.  The timberwolves attack, other ponies flee screaming, and Applejack gets her hoof caught in a pile of rocks.  Spike of course saves the day by flinging a tiny rock into the giant tim­berwolf’s throat, which gives him a massive ‘eart attack that he doesn’t survive.  They decide to just not get into life-threatening situations any­more, because living a sheltered life where you never take risks and rarely leave the house is totally the best way to go.  Turns out I’m doing some­thing right after all.

Shockingly, the characterization in Spike At Your Service is actually solid.  The mane six all appear (despite the fact that there was no better episode as a candidate for one of the voice actors to take off), and they feel like themselves instead of stereotypes.  Twilight’s obsessive-compulsive disorder is a bit absurd, but then again she is kind of like that.  Rarity is good in explaining how to be a damsel in distress (de­spite acting quite the opposite way herself when she’s been taken hostage), and Rainbow Dash is as fun and mischievous as ever.  Of course, Williams can’t resist taking the opportunity to hurt Dash by causing her grievous bod­ily harm and throwing in a joke about the Mary Sue novel Dash is cur­rently working on.  It’s a funny part but a cheap laugh, as the whole “every bad author just writes a Mary Sue version of their own life” thing is very over­done.  Then again, Dash did just get into reading, and that’s absolutely the kind of story she would probably start to write.  I don’t know how Dash writes anything in technologically-deficient Ponyville with hooves and no magic, but there’s that darn thinking thing again.  Pinkie Pie’s mous­tache gag was also a nice touch (but overused), and Applejack’s poor act­ing is actually pretty funny.

Spike behaves like an idiot throughout the show, but that’s happened in just about every single episode which focuses on him.  “He is still a baby dragon after all”, but the time has come for us to see more from his character than Spike does something stupid for the entire episode and pretends to learn a lesson from it at the end.  So many of the worst episodes have a character doing this as part of the premise (Baby Cakes, Sisterhooves Social, Apple­buck Season, Winter Wrap Up, and Lesson Zero) that it can’t be forgiven even with a number of mildly amusing scenes.

Even though I somehow don’t hate the episode, Spike At Your Ser­vice doesn’t have much of a reason for existing.  We don’t learn anything about Spike we haven’t seen before, the villain is silly (one sneeze from Spike would have ended the threat), and there are so many mo­ments that I can’t believe I’m actually seeing on screen (like most of the beginning), and not in the good way.  The fun is cheap and silly, which is found mostly either through slapstick or overused and/or uninspired jokes.  As such, Wil­liams leaves me little choice but to give Spike At Your Ser­vice the worst rating for season three.  Whatever Polsky’s influence was no doubt had a positive impact on the head-in-the-cloud Williams, but the premise was flawed from the start.  Why would Spike want to be a slave to Apple­jack so fervently?  With Williams’ problems regarding racism in Dragon Quest, is this a comment on how certain species or races are happier being slaves?  Again, Williams didn’t write this episode to require any thought on the part of the viewer, but that kind of approach isn’t satisfying for a series that is so much more.

Spike At Your Service is an episode that has learned nothing from the past.  Williams’ 19^th century views on racism and inexplicable hate of Rainbow Dash again flare up after disappearing in her previous episode, while Spike fails to prove he deserves more screen time by acting exactly the same as be­fore.  He has nothing to do, does something stupid, and then pretends that his chain of idiocy is an adventure.  Nothing of consequence or much interest happens, as the episode is clearly designed to waste time in a season where it should be more valuable.  Ostensibly a shortened season would eliminate the host of bad filler episodes that plagued the first two seasons, but unsurprisingly that did not happen.  At least Wil­liams found a few guilty pleasure moments that are scattered throughout the episode, but the underlying problems can’t be ignored.

What is clear though is that Williams does not belong writing for My Little Pony and deserves to be fired.  Perhaps her style works better for Spongebob Squarepants, but it has failed miserably in this series.  Seeing her name on screen is cringe-worthy because she has earned that reaction.  There’s a difference between having an open mind and realizing that Williams just isn’t capable of doing the work.  The only solution is to can Williams before she drives the show further into the ground.  She is no path to the Overman.