Monday, 5 May 2025

All Engines Go! Review - S4 Ep.14 - Terence Time Out

Well this is a surprise. Usually whenever the second half of 'All Engines Go!' is released it would be released much later in the year, the autumn in the northern part of the world which is spring here in Australia. But a Singaporean streaming service, 'MeWatch', had released the second half all together on April 24th with the 1st half of this season. One other thing too is that we finally got some confirmation that this season WILL be the last and All Engines Go will become another blip in Thomas history as Daniel Share-Strom, one of the show's writers, had said through the AEG wiki that there is pretty much no chance that the show will be getting renewed as he hadn't been approached of writing any new episodes and it's no surprise to hear this since Corus hadn't mentioned anything about a new season/movie in their press release late last year for 2024/25, despite that a new season will be for 2026/27 if they'd been announced, as mentioned in my review for episode 1 of S4 and this was before the news about Corus, Nelvana's parent company, being in debt was announced back in January.

   I will showcase my views about the show as a whole much later and before anyone asks. No Duck and Donald do not appear in any of these episodes from the second half and would most likely be in the upcoming 'Sodor Sings Together' special, the reason. I think it will just be another extended episode called a special as that's what they usually end up being when watching them. The only thing I hope for the special is that it's not like that terrible Christmas special last year but even I have doubts about that.

So let's finish off this season and the show with 'Terence Time Out' but first:

   THESE ARE MY OWN OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE

TERENCE TIME OUT
Written by
Amber Harris

Directed by
Campbell Bryer 

Produced by
Suzie Gallo

Air Date
24/04/25 - SGP

Plot
Terence teaches Thomas, Diesel and the Troublesome Trucks a good timeout.

Terence's role in this episode just feels generic as he could be replaced by any other character and you will still have the same outcome of the episode. Bruno could've been the character giving out the same message about taking a break, perhaps he would be more unique given that he's on spectrum and when things were getting overwhelming for him he would have his headphones on or taken to somewhere quiet like we've seen in the Lookout Mountain special. But how will the rocks get loaded you might ask? You can have Cranky or Tess doing the same thing and have them giving out the whole time out message too. Now maybe the writers of the show had a fondness for Terence and want him in as many episodes as possible but he doesn't need to be in it. That or maybe Mattel wanted him in as many episodes as possible because, I don't know, toy sales maybe, even though Terence barely has any merch from this iteration of the show apart from him being a plastic display piece for a construction Thomas variant from the Motorised line.

The episode itself feels boring and what could've been a better story for Terence when it comes to the title, is that he goes through an actual time out. We had an episode where Terence was overexcited about being outside of the farm, 'Travels with Terence' from S3. Maybe he wanted to do it again but was told no because of last time and it made him mad that he started to act up and push down haybales, doesn't do the job he was suppose to do and was probably chasing down cows, not trying to kill them of course. 

All that because he didn't get what he wants and with that he was given a time out by Farmer McColl and he learns his lesson and was sorry for his actions. Some might say 'Oh but that's out of character', this is All Engines Go! it's its own show. There original character doesn't matter. It would've been a more interesting episode, probably more unique as we see an expansion of Terence's AEG persona and probably something memorable as well because it's something that we don't see much from him.

Plus it would at least give kids something relevant for them and something they could learn from when they see a character who acts up like that. It kind of sucks that this show never had done something new for the characters since they don't have to use the original personas and characterisation. But instead they're just playing things safe.

Series Rating (So far):
Sheep Stampede - 6/10
The Berry Best - 3/10
Creepy Crawly Courage - 3/10
Windmill Woes - 2/10
Quacking Quandary - 1/10
The Stinking Delivery - 3/10
Don't Train on My Parade - 4/10
Shiny Spiffy Sandy - 3/10
Diesel's Bad Day - 4/10
Moo-Ving Friendship - 4.5/10
Art Engines Go - 1/10
Lightening the Load - 1/10
Baaa-tatsrophie! - 5.5/10
Terence Time Out - 1/10

Overall Rating (So far): 
41/140