Thursday 25 July 2013

DVD Review: The Complete Series 14

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

THE COMPLETE SERIES 14

Written by
Sharon Miller
Mark Robertson
Miranda Larson
Louise Kramskoy
Jessica Sandys Clarke
Denise Cassar
Mark Daydy
Rachel Dawson

Episodes

Directed by
Greg Tiernan

Produced by
Nicole Stinn 

Release Date:
22/07/13

Distributed by
HIT Entertainment 


Season 14 started its debut on UK television in the latter half of 2010 after the airing of series 13 early that year. The series left off from the DVD special rhyming flop 'Misty Island Rescue'. So let's take a look at Nitrogen's second season of the CGI era.

EPISODES
Looking back at the episodes of the fourteenth season, the episodes were in there infamous three strikes formula with the overuse of rhyming and alliteration from S13-16. Thankfully they've changed that completely in S17 and had made the three strikes formula in a better way then what it was with better writing by Andrew Brenner and his writing staff. As usual, the episodes are all focused on the steam team characters but with some episodes focused on there other characters despite that some new ones like Scruff have been poorly treated with character development. However, HIT have kept there promise of replacing words like 'Winter Holiday' with 'Christmas', with the public outcry of church groups, older fans and Hilary Awdry, the daughter of the late Rev.W.Awdry, in 2011. I won't go all religious on the topic as I've stated many times in the past. To see my views on each episode, click the link under the episode listing, they maybe out of date since my opinions have changed over the past year about certain characters and episodes.  

OVERALL
I'm not much of a fan of S14, but I do see it as a small improvement over S13. The animation by Nitrogen is fantastic, the detailing on the character look remarkable on the newer ones but the writing is dull and filled with the painfully obvious three strikes formula and there are some lines that are completely obvious with the animation such as 'Henry set off for Brendam Docks' and then a few seconds later we hear 'Henry pulls into Brendam docks' but I do know that there are blind children and that a narrator is needed to say those lines. Even though this season is not great with its term of writing, it's not as bad as the next season...I think everyone knows by now. But I'm looking forward to other DVD releases this year from other parts of the globe such as 'King of The Railway' coming out on September 4th here in Australia, 'Santa's Little Engine' coming out in October in the US and 'Merry Christmas Thomas' also out on the same month in the UK. Plus I'm looking forward to my copy of 'Railway Mischief'. It may not be special as it was back in April but with good written stories, it is worth a copy.  

Rating: 3/5