Synopsis for newest episode (Keep Calm and Flutter On) has been released...
and it's a DOOZY



WHAAAAAAAT?!???!?!?!

EPIC

O
M
G

YES NOW

Have a wonderful...
peaceful..
quiet..
oh, and Merry Christmas

http://wafflesincluded.deviantart.com/#/d5p7o4m

.. if you don't mind.

This does not represent my opinion.

But I feel like this would give you a good laugh.
It's a french-canadian sharing his view on what he calls "Bronies" (adult men watching Ponies).



Flawless logic. I love the accent too.

I've never listened to the French; I sure as hell am not going to start now.

@Video

It's these types of people that have such awful prejudice and terrible logic that scares me the most. He does not sound disingenuous at all... but the filth that comes out of his mouth lacks any thought and logic. *sigh*
Not funny at all, payne. not funny at all. Disappointing and almost scary is more like it.

Folks...

I just want to come out and say that Dave Polsky, the writer for the episode that aired today, Spike at your Service, has been a constant stick in the mud.
I've never written a review of the show because the show is awesome and anypony who actually gives it a fair trial will know. But with this episode, and with previous accumulation of bad writing, I'm starting to see a nasty habit from this writer.

First off, Everything in this episode was introduced weakly. The Spike's Dragon Code came from nowhere, Celestia suddenly sending Twilight a large stack of books is not very believable, the idea that Twilight is so engrossed in her reading to listen to what Spike has to say is hard to swallow as a major plot point, Spike's personality has become extremely annoying and acts like a klutz all of a sudden for no good reason, and Choking death? Wtf?. These are key plot points in the episodes, but all were sort of just written and then not explained.

Twilight Sparkle ignoring Spike should NOT be a plot point. It is completely out of character for BOTH Twi and Spike. Twilight's and Spike's relationship has grown a lot, and Twi no longer takes Spike for granted (RE: Owl's Well That Ends Well, and Dragon Quest). It isn't even in Twi's personality to be so ignorant. Yes, she likes to read and study, but she was never ignorant of the people around her. In fact, she's sometimes portrayed as the most observant of the group.
But the WORST thing is that, just 7 episodes ago, we established that Spike's greatest fear is leaving Twilight, And Now he just says GOODBYE, I'LL MISS BEING YOUR #1 ASSISTANT!! Wtf?? Talk about jumping the gun. I doubt Dave Polksy did his homework.

Since WHEN did Spike become such a Klutz??? In previous episodes, we clearly see Spike is very skilled in handling menial labor, he's the #1 assistant for god's sake! Now, it would make complete sense if Spike is a klutz because he is either Worried, Confused, or Unhappy about leaving Twilight to serve AJ, OR that he is trying TOO hard to fix things. The latter is probably what Polksy was trying to go for, but it was represented poorly. Spike just continued destroying things for the sake of it, and never stopped to actually help. When he was sent off to see Twily, he just left without a care for the mess he made.

The Timberwolf died by Choking.. Seriously? I know it's a kids show, so make it so that the timberwolf doesn't fucking EXPLODE by choking, just make it so that it is HINDERED for a moment, allowing AJ and Spike to get away... GEE HOW ABOUT THAT?!?! It's not the fact that Spike defeated it by choking it with a pebble that bothers me, it's that Dave was too lazy to make logical sense of the situation and just said "Fuck it, it explodes after Choking. DONE!"

Friends do not Help.. Including Twilight Again, Extremely out of character and most likely due to LAZINESS. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and especially Twilight all knew it was the real Timberwolf. Why would they all just RUN AWAY without a care for their friends? This is alright if they actually show them missing the rescue by accident, but AJ and Spike were just standing there the whole time, actually defending their friends. There was no chase and no action whatsoever.
To top it off, the WORST line in the episode "We thought you were right behind us".
Wh-just.. wh-wh.. WHAT THE... BUCK?? The whole scene took a minute and 20 seconds, and You're telling me that Twilight + all the other ponies + Twilight's Magic DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO COME BACK AND RESCUE THEM!??!?! Dave, you are terrible and this is a clear sign of LAZY WRITING.

A MUCH better way would have been to use Twilight's teleportation spell. Twilight was starting to teleport everyone, but AJ gets trapped/knocked away by timberwolf. Spike jumps out of the teleportation spell to rescue AJ just as twily teleports everyone away so they get separated. DONE. No plotholes, the action is more intense, and everypony's happy.

---

Dave Polsky also did the infamous Over a Barrel, where RD just completely flips out and ignores the elements of Loyalty, and people dislike Pinkie's singing for some odd reason.
He did also Feeling Pinkie Keen, which is actually a great episode with a lot of balls to put a GIANT HYDRA in a little girls' show, as well as gave birth to Pinkie Sense. However, I have a feeling that this is because he was writing for Pinkie. The problem with Dave is that he likes to jump the gun, and change characters completely just to suit his random plotlines. It worked well with Pinkie only because Pinkie is as random as his plotlines are, but it completely falls flat with other characters...

Oh well, let's see how he does with Keep Calm and Flutter On, which he is also writing.

All in all, this episode left a lot to be desired.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 29 2012, 7:58 pm by UnholyUrine.

I didn't think it was a bad episode, I thought it was a pretty good one. I don't think your nerdrage is justified in the slightest - and frankly I think that anyone in the fandom who has a problem with this episode only has a problem with it because they have a vendetta against some of the show authors.

Nah, not at all.

It wasn't really a nerdrage, more like it's expressive.
It's definitely not a bad episode, it's enjoyable.. but it can do a lot better. A lot of things just don't add up.
And no, I don't have a vendetta against the writer. I just this trend of laziness of Dave Polsky, but many writers have ups and down. Like Merriweather wrote Mare Do well.. which was bad in terms of characterization, but she also wrote Wonderbolt Academy. It's really short-sighted to think that anyone who thought this episode was poor is blaming it on the author. It probably is, but part of it is that the episode is more focused on the plot, and sacrificed some characterization that plotholes that really shouldn't be there. It doesn't matter which writer wrote it <_<.

This most recent one was written by Merriweather too Polsky only did the story.

I guess I hold a vendetta against the person behind several of my favorite episodes, in that case.
(I had to look it up on Wikipedia, incidentally, as I basically do not pay any attention to the names of the writers)

As UU said - it's fun to watch, but it's got a lot of glaring flaws.

I didn't see any glaring flaws. I found it completely reasonable that Celestia gave her hat much to read , and that she became so absorbed with her studies the only thing that could break her out of it was her OCD when AJ moved one of her bottles, and instead of AJ flying off the handle she understood Twilight. I think that came from Lesson 0, right, where Twilight freaked out?

The code was also Spike's code, not just any dragon, he references it as such several times in the episode. He has a chivlarist nature, such as seen in the diamond dogs episode, so I think it made sense that he rushed into servitude when AJ saved his life.

Also, he is a baby still- whether or not he admitted it to the audience it was a game to him. I don't know if any of you have been around kids, but they do have a tendancy to make audacious claims and then live them for a few weeks before forgetting they ever happened. So it didn't bother me that he left Twilight so "easily." For his relative age, it made sense.

As for the Timberwolf choking...it is pretty easy to see that they are brittle. Actually xhoking did not kill him - it was that trying to dislodge it by caughing shook him loose. He didn't just suddenly fall apart; he crumbled until nothing supported him, and then fell.

Them getting seperated isn't unbelievable either. They weren't sperated for too long, and it doesn't seem like it was long enough to justify them being left behind. Also, AJ isn't dramatic like Rarity; she wasn't calling out for help; she was telling Spike to leave...so there wasn't a huge ruckus like past episodes.

The only obnoxious pandering I saw was Pinkie Pie's mustache. Fuck ironic mustaches.

Then I envy you.

For me, it's not that any (well... most) of the issues with the episode are entirely unreasonable. It's that a lot of the episode seems either thrown-together and half-baked or just could have been done much better. Granted, there's a lot I would complain about in almost every episode - hence my not being nearly as vocal about it as UU.

Unfortunately, I don't really see this conversation getting muchwhere further, at least not worth the effort it would take. This isn't a strong subject of mine. So that's all I have to say.

It isn't a strong subject of mine either...it takes a lot for me to be critical of a show/movie, specifically when they're aimed at kids. I think there are many episodes this season that seem a little out of place or kinda thrown together, but that's also a limit of the show - we are seeing the characters grow with each other or within themselves every episode, but trying to convey that to a little kid (who doesn't necessarily watch every episode, and at the very least might not be able to do so in order) is difficult. I think they are trying to appease both the bronies and the targeting demographic - I wish they'd just ignore the bronies but look at how much money the older fanbase is bringing in.

It's quite humbling to see the EQD followup pretty much pointing the same flaws as I have.. and a few more that I've missed

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/12/spike-at-your-service-episode-followup.html

1. "but considering that he’s the number one assistant of the most OCD unicorn in existence, I must admit his abject clumsiness throughout this episode is mystifying" - Mystifying is a nice way of putting it. Lazy writing is the other way.

2. "On another note, did anyone else raise an eyebrow at how Applejack brushed off her heroism earlier as “something friends do for each other”? "

3. "Hasn’t Spike done a bunch of catering gigs before, without exploding the kitchen in the process?" - Like, in Dragon Quest where he made the best cookies ever?

4. "Spike adopted a moral code that compels him to serve a life debt to anyone who’s saved his own. It’s apparently a very big deal to him. I guess it’s a good thing that he’s never experienced mortal peril firstclaw before." - Then EQD puts up screenies for all the past episodes in which Spike was in peril: Feeling Pinkie Keen, Owl's well that ends well, Secret of my Excess, Dragon Quest, Crystal Empire.

"Someone needs to ask Cathy Weseluck about what Spike thinks about all of his brushes with oblivion at the next convention she goes to. If the little guy gets any more episodes, he’ll end up owing life debts to half of Equestria and a 10-release pass to Discord. You should probably consider sending that code to the moon before it gets you in trouble, dragobizzle." Heheheh

Seriously, it's alright. The episode had a lot of good stuff, and a hilarious sketch with pinkie pie and her mustache. So me gusta . It is weird that you would feel that THAT is pandering, and completely accept all the logical flaws of the episode... Anyway, it just could've been a lot better.

Lol, the card would've been better if the inside said "Birthday Kyle"

http://midnighty.tumblr.com/post/40063086640

I pity the foal who says AJ is a bad pony

http://eeglfethr.deviantart.com/art/Avast-Fluttershy-at-150-BPM-Screensaver-348325579