Monday 10 June 2013

S11 Ep.26: Wash Behind Your Buffers + Overall

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

WASH BEHIND YOUR BUFFERS
Written by
Paul Larson 

Directed by
Steve Asquith 

Plot:
There's to be an Engine rally and Country show and Skarloey and Rheneas are to be leading the rally. Madge told them to 'wash behind their buffers' but even she got dirty in the end. 

PRO:
- The town square looks wonderful
- Skarloey and Rheneas' paintwork

CON:
- N/A

I find the episode nice. Despite the persona reversals for Skarloey and Rheneas in the series, Madge was a nice sort of mother figure to them. The town square just looks amazing in its model form and the paintwork of the two engines are just spot on in this episode. All in all it was a good episode. 

Rating: 4/5

OVERALL
S11 was a little bit of an improvement then S10, though are still the three strikes and some bad story lines and pointless merchandising characters, like Billy. The sets like the village square looks amazing! A big thumbs up for the team behind the modelling team. Characters like Madge can be likeable and to me, I think she's more of a motherly figure to the NG engines. I honestly hate Billy, a pointless and not a good character to see. I don't see any potential from him he's unlikeable and unmemorable, like all of HIT's merchandising characters, minus some.

The narration was OK. You can see Michael Angelis becoming a bit more coming to the end of retirement for the series, which happened in 'Railway Mischief' two months ago. I haven't seen much of Brandon's narration though.

The episode that I find the most enjoyable is 'Gordon and The Engineer', as I said before, it has some railway realism and no three strikes, something that was missing later on in the series, before S17. I like S11, despite some flaws, but it'll not be in the league of the classic series. Now on with S12, which was a big step in Thomas history.

OVERALL RATING
62.5/100