THESE ARE MY OWN OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE
THE FEELS OF SODOR
Craig Carlisle
Directed by
Campbell Bryer
Produced by
Suzie Gallo
Air Date
24/04/25 - SNG
Plot
A fog had covered the island blocking the views for the tourist!
NOTE: Please be mindful that is some mild swearing in this post
---
And here we are the FINAL episode of not just the fourth season but of the entire show as well! But I'll talk more about this season, the entirety of the show as well as its existence and exposure later on in the overall section because this part is devoted to the episode. First we had the 'Song of Sodor' a boring season finale about Nia creating a song in dedication for a new bench. Then we had the 'Sights of Sodor' that was nothing more but the same tour train as we've seen in other episodes prior with the word new slapped onto it and then we had the 'Smells of Sodor' which was a mediocre season finale that could've been better if was about Thomas loosing the smell of the dinosaur pancakes by opening the van's door three times.
Now we have the 'Feels of Sodor' and all that the episode was about was Thomas giving people a tour of the island but it was covered in fog and it was resolved not even half way through the episode and the rest of the episode was just him and the coaches going around the locations on Sodor to make it feel like the place because the passengers like it. That's it that's the episode. This is probably the worst episode of the season and of the whole show itself and that is saying something as I had given plenty of low scores for episodes in the past but for some reason there is an episode that is somehow the worst of the worst!
Why not just use the three strike formula? They did it PLENTY of times in previous episodes, why not in this one? Have Thomas go around Sodor trying to show tourists the sites but failed because the fog covered it but the tourists loving the feeling of him going round curves and all but Thomas didn't realised it until after the third time he'd failed. Yes it's typical but I would take that over this final outcome because it would at least FEEL more like a story! Honestly this episode makes a typical Miller/Barlow era episode (S13-16) more like gold! I can't believe I'm saying that after 13 years since S16 broadcasted here in Australia! I think 'Wonky Whistle' from S15 had a much better story structure than this! Yes to those people who remember that episode when it was new in 2011, Wonky Whistle is a much better episode than this in the Thomas franchise! I can't believe I'm saying that!
If Mattel had decided to give the show an actual series finale I think it could've been about Annie and Clarabel's last tour of Sodor. Have the Fat Controller deciding that he's done with the tour trains due to the passengers not interested in it anymore as they've seen all the same sites and couldn't offer anything new to it. Annie and Clarabel were worried that with no more tours they have no other purpose and are worried they'll be forgotten forever, I think the word scrap is too strong for a show that has been too safe with things.
Thomas decides to give them the best tour ever and that it might change the Fat Controller's mind but they've been to the same sites that they've been to before and the passengers were bored and Thomas was sad that the Fat Controller was right and was worried for his friends and decides to throw a party for them to say thank you for the tours. The Fat Controller heard they were worried about scrap but told them that they'll move into the Vicarstown Museum so the passengers can admire them for the many years to come. That sounds like a more interesting, engaging and emotional plot instead of this crap that resolved its conflict too quickly. It would give closure to the AEG era while also serves as a metaphor that the show is coming to an end. Hell you can still fit in within the many titles of that have the phrase 'of Sodor' attached to it like 'The Last Tour of Sodor'.
This episode deserves the lowest rating that I'd given to any episode. This was a lousy, thin, boring and dull 'story'. Like I said before when you're writing a story for kids you're suppose to make it entertaining NOT BORING! Hell the episode 'The Case of the Puzzling Parts' from S22, as boring as that episode was at least it had some entertainment with Paxton and Sidney's dynamic and character!
I hate this episode and I remember having such anger of sitting through this episode where the last five minutes was just basically filler instead of a proper structural storyline! Say what would want about Big World but at least it has structed storylines despite the limited run time they had to fit in for the Thomas segments and it at least knows how to make its stories entertaining, at times. I can remember an episode like 'Tiger Trouble' within a second than whatever episode from this show that Mattel believed would serve as a great replacement to the original for the brand instead of improving the original show to be better, but money over quality I suppose for this corporate made slop.
That's how I sum up AEG's existence, corporate slop!
OVERALL
Before I make my overall of this season, the show and Mattel's marketing and justification for this show, I want to state this first about Corus' debt problem which resulted in some layoffs last year. Just because I full on hate AEG does NOT mean that I'm happy that the people of Nelvana would be loosing their jobs due to Corus' one billion dollar debt problem blunder. I'm sorry to hear these layoffs and the animation industry is not in the best place right now what with the corporate world's obsession with generative A.I.
That's all I can say nor I can't do anything about it as an animation fan but just because I have a huge disliking to the show DOESN'T mean I don't care about the creative team being laid off. I don't like when someone tries to make people feel bad because they just have a different opinion about the show. You can dislike the show and still care about the people behind the scenes because they are just doing their job in a very competitive field and need the money to pay the rent or bills to keep themselves afloat.
Sure its sucks being bullied, abused and teased for liking something that others don't and I know that feeling with liking BWBA and the stuff that some of these 'critics' have said about AEG such as being 'The 9/11 of the Thomas fandom', a stupid and disgusting comparison of one of the biggest tragedies on a global scale, or from one user who made a terrible antisemitic comment, not sharing it here, and leaking someone's personal phone number on twitter for the sake of harassing or even just down playing people by saying crap about them liking it when it's not really harming you! Throwing insults and verbal abuse at people for liking something that you don't is not being critical about the show.
It makes you more of a bully and for a fandom who may've had past experience of being teased and bullied for liking the show beyond the age that it was designed for, like me in school, you are just becoming what you despise. Sometimes I believe that some people in this fandom have such server lack of awareness. Everyone sees something different and it should be respected even if you don't agree.
But some fans should also not be generalising this show's critics who look at it more constructively as possible, like myself included, as being 'weird' or 'strange' or 'obsessive' for some reason because they have a different opinion and when it comes to the show's critics 'complaining about it too much', I had said this before in my review for last year's season, but I've seen people still complaining about BWBA despite that had been finished for five years now.
How come some people in this fandom wants AEG to be exempt from criticism while there's none for BWBA, S17-21, the HIT era and the classic series? It just seems very hypocritical, highly illogical and makes no absolute sense from this fandom. If I can't say something negative about some aspect of AEG, then can I say people should stop criticising BWBA or the Brenner era? See how stupid that sounds! You can not agree with my opinion about AEG that's fine. But if you can't handle someone's personal opinion about the show whether you're a fan or not, despite not all them not attacking you, then you're not making yourself look any better with an attempt at silencing people.
Now as I said before, I'll say it again, this season was the worst of 'All Engines Go!' some of these stories feel like first draft scripts that were never given any time to improve to better or engaging. When watching these episode I could come up with something better than what we got for some of them. There were some decent episodes but nothing really came off to me as a favourite. Thankfully 'Bruno to the Rescue' was the one that came out on top for me.
Sure this is a kids show but my god if I were a kid watching this I think I would be bored stiff sitting through these episodes for how slow, thin and dull they are with the same formula and basic characterisation of the characters. I've seen people using that excuse to defend this show and remembered for years being told that that excuse does not justify anything. After watching this garbage season that excuse is still not justifiable because I strongly believe that kids deserve better!
You don't see people defending garbage like 'Cocomelon' as being made for kids hell I've seen plenty of grown adults attacking it and many of them would have to be parents. Hell when it was announced a movie of it was in the works, honestly I don't know why it needs one, but I've seen plenty of people on twitter complaining about it. Yes it's twitter but so what, people were still complaining about a movie based on brain rot. The excuse about something being made for kids to counter against any criticism is just a rubbish excuse because you don't want to hear it. Just like the 'Don't like don't watch' excuse that's been plastered everywhere because you don't like something saying something critical about your work.
Now with this being the series finale I'll say this about the show itself. It had a few gems here and there in terms of story but overall most of the episodes were either boring, badly written, weak and forgettable. But when it comes to the look of the show, this was just a pointless and unnecessary change to the look of the original show. Why go through a drastic redesign when despite that all the changes the original series went through it still retains the same iconic look of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends and was still as much as a success as it was since 1984?
Thomas' original look had proof that it can work in 2D form through book illustrations or promos. Hell we had those nursery rhyme videos that used the original look of the characters from the CGI era of the show in 2D animated form. Why change a design that had been so iconic and memorable to many people for decades and generations to something that just looks like a Happy Meal toy from McDonalds? To sell the toys? Because that didn't help with the sales around 2023-24! Though after seeing the toys and even Lionel's version of this iteration of Thomas, I think it works better three dimensionally compare to it in 2D and also after watching this show I much prefer the likes of CG and the model animation since it offers something more dynamic with its camera angles and creativity and for the former we have seen that being done when Arc Productions and later Jam Filled took on the helm of the show's animation after Nitrogen Studios ended its run.
I also feel the drastic redesign had put people from the general public off as well when it was first revealed to the public in 2021. There was that article from The Sun, of all publications, that says 'Thomas is a Thug' in 2021 and of course the late Britt Allcroft's article from The Times in 2024 saying that it lacked magic, which I personally agree with.
But I feel that there was no reason for a drastic redesign change, maybe to make it more cartoony but those Thomas Birthday shorts from 2020 on the official YouTube channel kind of shows that it can work with the original design, despite the heavy negative reaction from long time fans. Thomas didn't need to have a modernised redesign for the sake of a relevant audience as his original look was still loved by many people even today. I've seen kids at railway events recently still wearing clothes of the original Thomas design despite that shops don't sell them anymore.
It seems Mattel hadn't learn from that mistake of redesigning a popular and well known character such as their attempt at redesigning Bob the Builder a decade ago as a realistic human with bubble shaped like machines, I still remember the backlash it received when it was revealed by Mattel in 2014. It started to air in 2015 and it lasted until 2018 and after that there was never any attempt at revitalising it until the Jennifer Lopez produced movie was announced in January 2024.
While that reboot did at least retain the feel of the show that it was before, based on the episodes that I remember seeing, I'd never liked the look of it all as I feel the stop motion look had some charm to it and I remember when I saw a thumbnail for those episodes years ago on YouTube it really stood out more in comparison to other kids shows, even its reboot counterpart. Mattel should just stop with the idea of redesigning these classic iconic characters as if that might help to make their toy sales popular again. Just keep them with their old look and just market it more properly instead of being lazy at getting people's attention. I will say Bob's claymated look doesn't translate well in CGI in comparison to the likes of Fireman Sam and Thomas as well, Thomas was pretty much the best looking out of those three to be honest and I'm not just saying that as a fan of the show.
While competition is important for a company like Mattel to gain more audience and customers, Mattel's obsession of making Thomas to be like other kids shows instead of being itself had really hurt it in my opinion. Thomas, in the original series, was already unique itself because these are suppose to be like real working steam engines, based on actual engines too I will add, that you would find on a railway doing real things like pulling trucks and coaches but with faces, emotions and human characteristics that create fun, entertaining and engaging stories that are still memorable 80 years later.
AEG, despite them being engines and somewhat work like real engines, despite their unrealistic loads, have them in some situations that could easily work in a human like setting. Like Percy's fear of rollercoasters you can have a human kid going through the same situation by using things to make a home made rollercoaster like shopping trollies or something or one child loosing their friend's lucky bell or one of them stealing a cow bell or write a song for a bench for some reason.
The original series has situations that a human can relate too but when you look at the stories by the Awdry's themselves they at least work it around a railway setting basing it on some real life events that had happened and even some stories that were written for the show exclusively they at least worked around the limitations of them being engines, at times and still retaining a railway setting. That's what made the original series so special and unique among other kids shows, especially towards the ones that are focused on trains like 'Chugginton' and 'Mighty Express'. Even 'Big World, Big Adventures' retained all that as well from Andrew Brenner and his team, despite some creative liberties.
You don't see Bluey or even Peppa Pig trying to be like other kids shows either. They're successful because they are there own thing. Sure Bluey was inspired from the likes of Peppa but the former at least had characters that feel more real and relevant unlike the latter with its characters, especially the adults of Peppa's world. If Mattel ever decides to revive the original show again I just want it to be exactly what it was before. Have the engines looking like their old selves doing actual railway work while still make fun, entertaining stories. I think they should reboot the show and retell Rev.W.Awdry's stories to a modern audience yes and that includes 'The Sad Story of Henry'! Show the general public why Henry was bricked up in the tunnel because they either have really, really, really bad memory of the episode or that they severely lack media literacy. However since Awdry's stories had the engines as all male and the coaches all female perhaps add some characters that would help with the gender balance while still retain the original stories.
Considering that Mattel are giving their recent classic Thomas toy a British accent for its talking motorised range they should give the US the UK dub. Peppa Pig and Bluey have both shown that despite their respective dubs not being Americanised, American children still love the show thanks to more exposure to the outside world through the likes of phones and tablets when watching YouTube. As bad as that website is it at least helps expand the outside world for kids through the countless amount of videos. I just hope the marketing will be good for the toys but I have my doubts after this show's four years of abysmal marketing.
Speaking of Bluey and Peppa Pig, if Mattel wants Thomas to be like other shows for the sake of competition, why not look at those shows, Bluey especially. These two shows have a gentle, slice of life feeling towards their stories with loveable, relatable characters that both kids and adults love with no need to make them too fast, obnoxious and overstimulating like Paw Patrol that they're so obsessed to compete with. It just would be nice to have Thomas to be like that with him acting like a real steam locomotive you would find on heritage railways with stories that are properly structured.
I remember hearing from SiF back in 2020 that Mattel had gotten a new marketing team to help resurge Thomas' toy sales and for a while they had been marketing the brand fine since August 2021 as they were telling people about the new show and where it's on, like Netflix and Cartoon Network in the US, as well as making little videos like you see on Tik-Tok although with bad acting and bad attempt at humour, kind of like the recent show itself, but by 2023 they were not reminding their followers about the show at least that's what I've seen on Instagram such as constant posting about its whereabouts and new seasons coming soon. They did however hype up Bubbly Build's YouTube premiere but that was about it when it comes to the show for that year.
By 2024 however they'd only posted seven posts on Instagram alone and none of them were about the show, only some merch like a digital album, an app game, clothing and partyware and while they were relevant to the show there was NOTHING about the show nor its toys, I had said that despite Mattel having other interests they are a TOY company first and they hardly did a thing about it!
They'd also abandoned their twitter page around 2022 and their last post was about Bruno's introduction to the show and I'd managed to check out their Facebook page without logging in - because it would only take me to the Australian/New Zealand page that was abandoned in 2021 - but their official US Facebook page has been abandoned too with their last post being in June 2024.
For a new marketing team they sure have done a god awful job of not giving much exposure to the new show or its toys. The official Japanese Instagram and Facebook page has done more marketing and exposure for the show and the Thomas brand as a whole itself than Mattel had ever done in the last four years. They're the only country right now that's going all out with the 80th anniversary merch from the Plarail toy to collabs with local fashion ware labels!
Thomas' future right now is in limbo and it's all Mattel's doing for that with their terrible distribution of the toys, their marketing of the show and merchandise and their executive meddling to make what was the number one pre-school brand in the last decade going down to the road of irrelevance. I know that Mattel had been hinting of something new for Thomas in 2026 that would delight both fans old and new and, while that remains to be seen, I just hope that Mattel does market it properly.
Barney the damn purple dinosaur that many people back in the 90's despised has a much better marketing push from Mattel than Thomas had recently on its social media! At the time of writing this, which was April 28th, 2025, its last post on Instagram was five days ago on April 23rd this year compare to the last post for Thomas which was in November 2024 and that was a repost from ABC Kids Australia! Barney's social media was nothing more but posting old clips from the 90's with the text that is typical of corporate made memes but also advertising its merchandise even a book, a thing that is published by a company that is licensed by Mattel.
With the horrible marketing and low demand for toys at certain stores, I truly believe, no matter what some might say, AEG was a flop. It might've been a bit pretty back in 2021/22 but things went south in 2023, based on Mattel's Quartey earnings that year under Fisher Price. I'd hardly seen that many toys on the shelves here in Australia and during my times visiting the US, two of Thomas' major markets, when AEG debuted. If there isn't a demand for the toys to be stocked at the shops for people to buy then that tells me, at least in my opinion, that it's not a popular item.
The toys for this show were terrible and lazy with the same main characters having crappy variants based on that year's special without the need of advertising the special to tie into for people to bloody watch! The sets for this show are garbage as well! All they just were were the same circular or oval set with no eye catching gimmick. It's just sloppy coloured trees and billboard signs with a character that a kid already got in their collection. The Barrel load set that Mattel are releasing this year for the 80th looks much better in comparison as the building has gimmick by loading and unloading the cargo and a turntable and some nice looking buildings and tunnels. I just hope that they give these toys more attention in order for people to buy them.
Talking of the show's merch tie-in, I can't believe Mattel decided to get rid of the idea of making special packaging to promote the specials! Sure they got rid of it around the time of the 75th in 2020 but I believe they were still sold well because they weren't only sold through a character pack that is filled with characters that kids had already bought before. The first two specials just as Sodor Cup and Lookout Mountain, the character sold separately such as Thomas and all have variants with NO advertising of them to promote that special! Hell the rainbow characters were supposedly based on the episode 'Chasing Rainbows' and yet the packaging is just a standard blue with Thomas on the side with the rainbow paint. Nothing else to promote the episode and where to find it?
Talking of characters that were introduced to the first two specials such as Riff, Jiff, Farona, Frederico and Darcy, who was 'new' to AEG, they were only sold in character packs with the usual characters like Thomas, Percy, Kana etc. that parents may've already bought separately. Why sell a new character just in the box set when really they could've been sold on their own? You think kids might want the new characters separately instead of having their parents to buy a whole character for god knows how much all for just one character that could've been sold cheaper on its own? I don't think many kids would want to have a Thomas with dirt printed on him because a parent would likely tell them they'd already got it.
The Thomas toys in the past, whether it's for a special or episode, would always, at least to my memory, advertised what it's tied into on the box! That's one of the things to give awareness that the show exists! You could just say that this toy was based on whatever episode and they will look it up and see that's part of the show! Without them they are just random pieces of merchandise slapped together to those who aren't aware of it. They had a new marketing team for this crap to help resurge toy sales for Thomas because it was struggling since 2017 and this team thought of NOT advertising its specials or episodes through its toys? What the hell where they thinking? That's like Disney not marketing a new live action remake despite investing so much money into making it. That's just being dumb!
I mean recently this month, Mattel had been marketing the infamous 'Down the Mine' pilot episode that had been the stuff of legend in the Thomas fandom for over half a decade when the late Britt Allcroft first mentioned it on an Australian radio show in 2009 when it was the show's 25th anniversary and that a picture Gordon's pilot model surfaced through Christopher Noulton's SiF interview from 2010. The world's press was all over starting off through multiple major media outlets such as the BBC. I hadn't this much hype for Thomas media since the 75th anniversary and when the episode was released on YouTube, at the time of writing, it had gained over 200k views! That's more than all those lousy content farming videos showing clips from AEG put together. Even the Watch Out Thomas video that came out afterwards had only 4k viewers. Maybe this should be a sign towards Mattel that with much marketing and hype for Thomas content perhaps people will know and want to see it.
Talking of the pilot I hope Mattel sees this as an opportunity to release more stuff from the Thomas archives. I would love to see the 3.5'' model test footage that Britt Allcroft and David Mitton had filmed in 1996 to see how they looked on film during production of Magic Railroad, still not fan but it would be nice to see it given the light of day. Plus given the amount of views it had and that it is model era stuff and how Mattel over the years since owning the franchise tries to separate it from something that is current, maybe they should show some love to the model era stuff perhaps remastering the classic series episodes to 4K? Though that might be difficult considering that some of the footage had been lost and were replaced with clips from the original masters, as mentioned on The Unlucky Tug's video about them on his channel. But I digress.
Speaking of MRR for years I had said that had always been the worst thing from this franchise. But I think after 25 years since that piece of garbage came out in 2000 I think this show had taken its crown as the worst thing from this franchise. It doesn't mean I love the movie, far from it, it just means that this iteration of the franchise is the worst thing I've seen now. I would rather have more seasons of 'Big World, Big Adventures' than more sloppy crap that is AEG.
The one thing I will miss from AEG is Bruno the brake car. He was the only good thing coming out from this awful blip in Thomas' 80 year history because he was a positive example of a character who has autism with the help of two organisations, thankfully NOT Autism Speaks, who are experts in that field, even Daniel Share-Strom, one of the writers of the show, is autistic himself and made him a great character with one episode about Bruno based on his own experience and yet I've seen people who were very critical of Bruno's existence slapping the word 'stereotype', very likely they hadn't seen an episode with him to make a proper judgement. If he was a negative stereotype he would be these things described by Autism Learning Partners. I feel some people in this fandom slap that word on anything they don't like and not understand the actual meaning of it. I believe Bruno would fit in well within the original series of Thomas and it's not like the original show had no characters based on an American made basis on a British isle before. Here's one example of him working in the original series' setting from ilovetrains323's series 'Thomas: The Trainz Adventures'.
The weird criticism of Bruno's inclusion from some fans of the show kind of reminds me of Nia's inclusion in the original series. Not that I'm saying she was a fantastic character, though her original character is much better than her AEG's counterpart who was boring as hell, but the criticism that I've seen from some people is this weird claim that her only trait was that she's African. Yes she's from Africa but if you had actually watched the episodes, without someone telling you it's bad, where she was the focal point it was more incline to her cleverness trait and there were three episodes showcasing that, not to mention there was one episode where she acted a bit over confident when it comes to an elephant as well as thinking of her reputation of being clever when she fears of anyone knowing of her not counting numbers. Sure there was like one video of her talking about Africa on the official YouTube channel but what do you expect from a video, about a continent, that was suppose to be educational?
And she had character in the 2018 special such as her being sassy to Thomas because he thinks he doesn't need help, when really he does, while also being competitive and having a sense of humour but is also kind and helpful too. Wow it's like she has character all this time and she was only criticised by some because she replaced Edward, because he was hard to write for! Yes her character was shown for a short time and were never used again in future episodes but give thanks to Mattel who thinks this show is a 'great' replacement instead of wanting to improve the original show to be better!
So in conclusion and despite some gem episodes and Bruno, I will say this, so long 'All Engines Go!' I'm glad I won't be missing you. You maybe a a part of Thomas history but your existence will always be a massive stain in the history books like Magic Railroad with your sloppy writing, terrible consistency, weak characters, incredible loss of potential and boring stories, here's how I sum it up visually with this Spongebob clip. I highly recommend BWBA over this crap. That at least had stories and characters that are more entertaining and engaging despite its flaws.
Now the only thing left is the 'Sodor Sings Together' special which had aired here in Australia on May 11th on ABC so thankfully I don't have to wait months to finally say so long and good riddance to four years of bad rubbish once and for all!
Series Rating:
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
Postage Percy - 4/10
A Crate Rescue - 1/10
Chaos at Cronk Crossing - 3/10
The Big Do-Over - 3/10
Did I Miss It? - 5/10
No More Surprises - 1/10
Bruno to the Rescue - 8/10
Kana's Last Minute Delivery - 1/10
Goodnight Gordon - 1/10
Cronk's Crossing Conundrum - 1/10
Bridge Builders - 2/10
The Feels of Sodor - 0/10
Overall Rating:
71/250
