Tuesday 1 January 2013

S6 Ep.1: Salty's Secret

Happy New Year everyone, I'm sure most of the world are still in the year of 2012, but here in Australia we are now in the year 2013. There will be some new blog posts coming, but I'm still reviewing many episodes from S6 - 12 now. So let's kick off the new year with the first episode of Season 6:

In 2002, it has been two years since the box office flop of 'Thomas and The Magic Railroad', which led Britt Allcroft to step herself down as chairman and the company was renamed as 'Gullane Entertainment'. That same year, HIT Entertainment had successfully bought the full rights to the show as they were doing so since the year 2000. The show is now not written by the duo Britt Allcroft and David Mitton. It is now written by a writing staff, including the late David Mitton. Season six shows us some new character, including ones on a planned spin-off series. So we start off with 'Salty's Secret', but first here is the usual warning:

THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND NOT FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE

SALTY'S SECRET
Written by
Robin Kingsland

Directed by
David Mitton 

Air Date:
3/8/02

Plot:
Salty is dismayed when he is sent to work at the quarry.

PRO:
- Salty is a great character, despite not telling us why he was brought to the island.

CON:
- 'Bill and Ben needed any help, especially from a diesel.' Mavis is a diesel and yet they get help from her?

Just what the series needs, a simple story. Like I said, crashes do make the episode more dramatic but overuse too much it will lead kids to be scared of going on a train or that it won't make things exciting. Hopefully a story like this would be like the seventeenth season of Thomas the Tank Engine, which will go onto our TV screens later this year by Andrew Brenner. Despite that Salty was never given a backstory or a reason why he came to the island, he is still a great character. He has a great personality and a job that his basis does in real life, shunting around the dockyards. But there is one fault in the episode and that is when Bill and Ben don't want any help from Salty who is a diesel. Yet Mavis is a diesel and do get help from her. 

Sure in the Railway Series diesel are a rare type of engine to see on the railway, but if the series is set in the modern era then they should at least matured Bill and Ben. But still its great to see Mavis having some maturity in her and she still has it even to this day. 

Rating: 4/5