Why I hate MLP:FiM season 3

Once again I will begin this by sounding apologetic, I am a huge brony, if I must use that word. I own several shirts of ponies, as well as the season 1 DVD, which somehow features cheaper menus than the ones that I made on downloaded anime back in the day. Seriously Hasbro, do you need a free copy of Vista? Because that is what I used and I have more animated main menus. Like you seriously couldn't add the opening in the middle or something? Maybe some assorted clips if you were feeling really fancy? I did pay thirty bucks for this damned thing at my local MovieStop, you could at least validate me by making the main menu not look like badly made bootlegs that I would have found in a van behind the convention center. Where was I? Oh yeah, season three.

The really good: Sleepless in Ponyville

I am going to separate this into four categories, really good, kinda good, kinda bad, really bad. With that in mind I find it pretty awful that there is only ONE classic episode this season. Now some may call that heightened expectations, but I would argue that they have managed to meet these expectations before. Season 1 gave us Stare Master, Party of One, Suited for Success, and Best night ever. Season two had Return of Harmony, Lesson Zero, and my favorite MLP episode of all time, Ponyville Confidential. Even though the third season was dealing with only half of the episode count of the previous seasons I still would've expected at least two episodes worthy of more than one watch, or at least for all the truly awful episodes to also be cut in half, but we'll get to that.

That being said, this episode is really good. It's probably in my top five of all time, and that is saying something considering the episodes that I listed above. The 'hook' of the episode is that it finally fills out the Cutie Mark Crusaders, as it gives Scootaloo, the only crusader that hadn't had her own episode yet, an episode. But the really fun part were the references to classic animation and humor, the reworking of classic horror iconography into pony, and a heartwarming story. All in all I am looking forward to more from this writer, you have given me hope good sir, please continue. 

The sorta good: Mystery Cure, Apple Family Reunion, Bad Apple, Crystal Empire 1+2

Now with every season there are the episodes that could've been awesome favorites, but just didn't go all the way for some reason. Whether it be the weird pseudo-psychology of the Cutie Mark that is explored in Mystery Cure. The sort of boring and badly paced, but still heartfelt and surprisingly rewatchable Apple Family Reunion. The genuine laughs coming from the generic plot of Bad Apple. Or the utterly failed potential and garbage villain, but surprisingly tense and well-done finale of the two Crystal Empire episodes. There were quite a few episodes that, while I don't actively seek them out, if it comes on at six in the morning before I go to work, I'l watch for a while. But then there were the disappointments.

The sorta bad: Wonderbolts Academy, The Equestria games, Just for Sidekicks, Too many Pinkies, Keep Calm and Flutter On

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Wasted Potential theater! The problem with these five episodes is that they could've been pumped up to 'pretty good' or 'excellent' in a heartbeat, with just a little more effort. Wonderbolts Academy had kind of a hokey premise, "Hey guys what if we did an extended parody of Top Gun, but with ponies!" But that doesn't exempt it from being good, what does is a moral thats plastered in with very little subtlety, and an antagonist that barely registers. I mean yeah Sombra was pretty boring, but I can remember his name. 

The problem with Too many Pinkies is easy to decipher, it isn't funny. In a show based around comedy not being funny is pretty bad. Just for Sidekicks is one of two episodes that turned Spike from one of my favorite characters to one of my least. I mean yes you can still do the "Liar revealed" trope well, Oz: the great and powerful, but you have to work at it. And Equestria games was just confused about what it wanted to be. Did it want to be a painfully unfunny series of misunderstanding gags, did it want to be an exploration of the Crystal Empire, did it want to reveal more about Rainbow Dash and give her a few moments of actual character development? No, it wanted to do all of them in 22 minutes, and it gave no example that it could.

The really bad (Horribifuckus [tm The Nostalgia Critic]): Magic Duel, Spike at your Service

I have watched some awful stuff in my time, and yes there are quite a few episodes of this show that I would rather not watch again. But somehow, both the pandering Magic Duel, and the atrocious Spike at your Service managed to get onto my Top 5 Worst MLP:FiM episodes list. Magic Duel just struck too many wrong chords with me. Most of the humor was reliant on either attempting to create memes, which they unfortunately succeeded with, or referring to memes that already exist. Now some people, Saberspark, would probably say that its silly to worry about them trying to make us bronies happy, but I would say that is missing the point. I didn't become a brony because of the memes, I didn't become a brony because of the community that I'm now a part of, I became one because I loved the show. I didn't love the show because of what fans did with it, I loved it for being a smartly written TV show. And if they could pander to fans without losing that then I would have no problems with it. But if Magic Duel is a showcase, then we have to pick one, fan tributes, or good writing. I know what side I'm on, I don't know about you.

This is of course not even mentioning the utter horror of existence that is Spike at your Service. Now I have actually watched all of the different incarnations of My Little Pony. I watched the original 80's show, I watched Tales, and yes, I watched all of the G3 specials. This is the worst thing My Little Pony related in existence. Worse than the baby G3 stuff, worse than Rarity/Rainbow Dash from G3, worse than the My Little Pony movie, worse than all of the songs about boys from G2. Worse than it all. I despise this episode more than anything with the My Little Pony name on it that I've ever seen. It is the Michael Bays Transformers trilogy of the My Little Pony universe, only made worse by the knowledge that its by the original creators.

Conclusion

Now this isn't some "I'm leaving the fandom" rant, this is a critique. When you really love something then you have to occasionally be hard on it. When a shows creators start to dip in quality, you don't ignore it, you call them out so that they can improve. Why? Because if you really love a show then you want it to be the very best that it can be, I know that I do, what about you?