Spike attempts to explain to AJ what "graceful" means |
The thing everyone has been talking about is the use of 3D animation for the Timber Wolves. From the pony's mouth we know that it's not actually the first such use in the series — the Dizzitron in "Wonderbolts Academy" was 3D — but it's the first time a creature has been animated this way. I have slightly mixed feelings: I think it worked here, but a chunk of that was because of its shock value. Regular use of CGI would most definitely harm the feel and look of the show as a whole.
See these eyes so green, I can stare for a thousand years |
Rainbow Dash continued her run of good form in this episode. Her Mary Sue fanfic would have been hilarious on its own (especially given this fandom's predilections!) but add to that her apparent unwitting unmasking of AJ as a budding author as well...! Rainbow also showed her determination — whether to succeed or not to look weak is another question — when she went through with the "tower of rocks" flight. Mind you, where Dashie picked up that roar is another question entirely!
"Are you listening to me, Applesack?" |
The MegaWolf was an impressive creature — and, note, Flash-animated rather than CGI — but it was defeated a little too easily by the pebble Spike threw. At least the moral was a good one, about doing good things being "what friends do" rather than because of any particular obligation. No letter to Celestia again, but then AJ's only just recovered from writing last week's! And Granny Smith had a decent enough cameo, as did Apple Bloom, though I'm sure I was missing a reference with that pig.
There were some unusual angles in this episode |
I remain to be convinced of the worth of using two writers for an episode of My Little Pony. It doesn't help when neither of the writers are favourites of mine, but still. "Spike At Your Service" had some wonderful moments, but it didn't really seem to gel. Worse, it often felt as though it could have been lifted unchanged from another cartoon, something that MLP:FiM usually manages to avoid. This certainly had its moments, but it wasn't Spike's long-awaited big breakthrough.
6/10
Really, most parts of this episode aren't as terrible as it's reputation warrants - the problem is that those that are are concentrated squarely on Spike, and just two eps before he gets a much better but also incompetent showing.
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I'm going to be interested to go back to this when I do the series watch-through, knowing (as I didn't in 2013) that Spike would eventually get some much better episodes.
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