Thursday 25 December 2014

S18 Ep.19:Duncan the Humbug

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

DUNCAN THE HUMBUG
Written by
Davey Moore

Directed by
Don Spencer

Produced by
Robert Anderson (Arc)
Ian McCue (HIT)

Plot
Everyone is happy at Christmas time except for Duncan, the Scottish narrow gauge engine, who seems to be grumbling even more than usual. Victor offers Duncan a new coat of paint if he can refrain from grumbling for one whole day. Duncan rises to the challenge, but it is not so easy for an engine who likes to grumble to give up a lifetime habit.

Air Date
25/12/14

PRO:
- Moral: Don't be a scrooge on Christmas/You shouldn't force anyone to be cheery
- The viaduct 

CON:
- Thomas giving the interaction between the SG and NG engines


I think we'll see many Duncan episodes written by Davey Moore. He captures Duncan's personality very well, though I would love to see other writers taking on Duncan. What I love about this episode is that the moral of the story is that you shouldn't be a scrooge during Christmas, it pretty much sucks the fun out of the festivities and on Mr. Percival's side, you shouldn't force someone to be cheery as well. When I first saw these episodes on my iPad, I have a US account on iTunes by purchasing items with an iTunes gift card I buy from iTunes card delivery, great website, seeing the viaduct in pure 1080 HD was just fantastic, this is the viaduct that SiF had put on their poll from HIT Entertainment's Thomas production team, this makes me respect Arc even more, although I like Nitrogen, Arc did a fantastic job more then its predecssor. I think one downside to me is the use of Thomas for the interaction between the SG and NG engines, we all know he's the title character, but now that the show is in CGI we should be seeing more engines interacting with the narrow gauge engines, last time we saw that was in S16 in....'The Christmas Tree Express', one of the worst S16 episodes period. It's not a sign of grumbling from me, it's just there are more engines to use for interaction. There is a reason why the show is called 'Thomas & Friends'. But all in all, it's a good episode.

Rating: 8/10