Usually around this time of the year we would've been given the usual episode exclusive Spring DVD releases which are the last remaining six episodes to fulfil the overall season. But it had been canned to make way for the development of the new series and movie 'Big World Big Adventure'. Plus it was no surprise considering how there was hardly any tie-in-toy products announced of any upcoming Spring DVD and usually the latter of last year would've shown something by now ready for the next year.
Now that we had three S21 DVDs starting from 'Christmas on Sodor' last year, this concludes S21 on the episodic releases, before we await the usual series collection around 2020 once S19 and 20 are out of the road this year and next year. But first let's review the last S21 episodic DVD:
ON THE GO WITH THOMAS
Written by
Helen Farrall
Lee Pressman
Episodes
The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor
A Shed for Edward
Dowager Hatt's Busy Day
Runaway Engines
P.A Problems
Hasty Hannah
Unscheduled Stops
Helen Farrall
Lee Pressman
Episodes
The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor
A Shed for Edward
Dowager Hatt's Busy Day
Runaway Engines
P.A Problems
Hasty Hannah
Unscheduled Stops
Special Features
Little Engines - Sing-a-long
Down at The Station - Power of the Railway
Learn with Thomas - Doing Too Much
The Earl's Quiz
Who's That Engine?
Little Engines - Sing-a-long
Down at The Station - Power of the Railway
Learn with Thomas - Doing Too Much
The Earl's Quiz
Who's That Engine?
Directed by
Dianna Basso
Dianna Basso
Produced by
Micaela Winters
Tracy Blagdon
Micaela Winters
Tracy Blagdon
Release Date
12/03/18
Distributed by
Mattel Creations/HIT Entertainment (UK)
EPISODES
SPECIAL FEATURES
EPISODES
After the UK airing of 'A Shed for Edward' there had been plenty of reports on the internet that the episode had narration in it. It all started in Canada around early 2018 and it had been broadcasted in other countries like Japan and Australia. Here is the episode in its UK dub that had been broadcasted in Japan earlier this year, Japan broadcasts Thomas bilingually:
At the end of the episode, Mark Moraghan gave the final line saying, 'But that's a story for another day.' that definetly shows that this is the last episode of the season and while it's a lovely line, it too works as a show-don't-tell moment. So while yes the episode that was broadcasted in the UK was not edited properly, it was good that it was narrationless. But another thing about the episode is the contiuity of it. This is the season that is set before 'Journey Beyond Sodor' and yet Edward is seen the shed in the special despite it happening before the movie, you might say ''Edward must've been visiting!'' but there's nothing stating that, he was just there. This is one of things that I am glad that 'Big World Big Adventure' is reverting, the idea of the series before special idea was great at the time in theory. But in practice, it didn't do much. S19 was set before 'Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure' and when the season aired after the movie, there wasn't any build up towards it at all. It feels confusing without any sort of hint.
BWBA is reverting back to the day what S13-S18 did when it comes to the yearly specials, it is set after the special. I liked the idea, series before special, by the production team at first but it shows in the episodes that it really wasn't a great idea in execution, no disrespect to them though.
As of the episode itself, I think it is one of the good ones coming from this season and given the reason why Edward left the core cast, the steam team, to stay at Wellsworth instead, pretty much makes sense in a creative POV as mentioned in one of SiF's blogs about 'Big World! Big Adventure!' it's also what I have said in my series overall for S21, Edward doesn't really add anything new when it comes to a Edward focused episode (e.g - 'Old Reliable Edward') we have him more as a plot device for Gordon or James to learn their lessons from while Edward was more of the wise, peace keeping engine that he is originally. He works more better as a secondary character in my opinion to give out wise advice to the other engines when things go wrong. If we want more episodes with Edward outside of his original persona, it would be bad because we might have episodes that are more in likes of 'Edward Strikes Out' or 'Steady Eddie'. I always pictured that if we want to see more of Edward, we should focus on his past self during his Furness Railway days and he should have his own mentor from the Furness Railway (which should be Furness Railway No.20 considering they are thirty-three years apart, No.20 was built in 1863 and Edward, according to the Wikia, was built in 1896) that way it would add to the continuity of 'The Adventure Begins' with Edward rubbing his own wisdom and advice to Thomas and Philip.
I still feel that fans had been cheated by Mattel when it came to Rosie's character progression. Fans had been demanding for Rosie's return to the spotlight for years and as we finally got that with her being painted red, Mattel cut back another episode of hers due to them wanting more room for BWBA's production. Hopefully the cut back episodes would see a light of day in BWBA. Overall though 'The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor' was a pretty good episode too with James being more snooty. Although I don't know why they added brake fluid to James as steam engines aren't fitted with such thing. It could've worked better if James' brakes were damaged from the heavy braking he had always done while running fast. It would still work with James being a runaway. The idea of brake fluid just seem so bizarre.
For more of my opinions on the episodes from this DVD, please click the links provided above under the title, 'episodes'.
I have a little bit of criticism when it comes to the DVD cover, what was wrong with the original? The one that is shown above is the finished product and Thomas' face looks so jarring compare to the original idea. Plus despite them being in both version, Rosie's positioning looks a bit off as well. Also the logo is angled a bit different on the final version, but that's not really anything to complain about.
When the episode debuted in the UK last year, Mark Moraghan's only speaking role was the title and that was it, the rest of the episode was all narrationless. But when the episode aired in Canada, Japan and Australia, the whole episode had narration. The US dub was only a short clip that I saw on twitter back in January, as the US dub is yet to be shown in full on Nick Jr. To me I think the episode works fine without Mark Moraghan's narration as the animation can do all of the storytelling. The scene that shows Edward being sleep deprived at Knapford works well as a show-don't-tell scene, we know that Edward is tired and there was no need of a storyteller to tell us what was right in front of us. My guess it was intended as something for the test audience to see how they responded to an episode of Thomas without narration for BWBA considering now that Thomas will be the narrator at the start and end of those episodes starting this year. In the end though, the UK are finally given the narrated version of the episode itself.
BWBA is reverting back to the day what S13-S18 did when it comes to the yearly specials, it is set after the special. I liked the idea, series before special, by the production team at first but it shows in the episodes that it really wasn't a great idea in execution, no disrespect to them though.
As of the episode itself, I think it is one of the good ones coming from this season and given the reason why Edward left the core cast, the steam team, to stay at Wellsworth instead, pretty much makes sense in a creative POV as mentioned in one of SiF's blogs about 'Big World! Big Adventure!' it's also what I have said in my series overall for S21, Edward doesn't really add anything new when it comes to a Edward focused episode (e.g - 'Old Reliable Edward') we have him more as a plot device for Gordon or James to learn their lessons from while Edward was more of the wise, peace keeping engine that he is originally. He works more better as a secondary character in my opinion to give out wise advice to the other engines when things go wrong. If we want more episodes with Edward outside of his original persona, it would be bad because we might have episodes that are more in likes of 'Edward Strikes Out' or 'Steady Eddie'. I always pictured that if we want to see more of Edward, we should focus on his past self during his Furness Railway days and he should have his own mentor from the Furness Railway (which should be Furness Railway No.20 considering they are thirty-three years apart, No.20 was built in 1863 and Edward, according to the Wikia, was built in 1896) that way it would add to the continuity of 'The Adventure Begins' with Edward rubbing his own wisdom and advice to Thomas and Philip.
I still feel that fans had been cheated by Mattel when it came to Rosie's character progression. Fans had been demanding for Rosie's return to the spotlight for years and as we finally got that with her being painted red, Mattel cut back another episode of hers due to them wanting more room for BWBA's production. Hopefully the cut back episodes would see a light of day in BWBA. Overall though 'The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor' was a pretty good episode too with James being more snooty. Although I don't know why they added brake fluid to James as steam engines aren't fitted with such thing. It could've worked better if James' brakes were damaged from the heavy braking he had always done while running fast. It would still work with James being a runaway. The idea of brake fluid just seem so bizarre.
For more of my opinions on the episodes from this DVD, please click the links provided above under the title, 'episodes'.
I have a little bit of criticism when it comes to the DVD cover, what was wrong with the original? The one that is shown above is the finished product and Thomas' face looks so jarring compare to the original idea. Plus despite them being in both version, Rosie's positioning looks a bit off as well. Also the logo is angled a bit different on the final version, but that's not really anything to complain about.
The other episodes, while some have there faults, they are pretty much a good bundle to watch through.
SPECIAL FEATURES
One of the highlights of this DVD was a CGI music video makeover of one of Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell's songs which is 'Little Engines' and another song that was released for the first time on home video in the UK. It was a good remake despite it being shorten and it had used quite a good amount of clips from the little engines of Sodor, despite that Stepney was mentioned and yeah I don't think this any sort of hint that Stepney is coming back, I'm sure he is on the cards of returning characters to be brought back into the series but to me these are just coincidences.
This is not from the DVD
We have another 'Down at the Station' segment with the late Mr. Perkins and I quite like it how he was teaching kids about the different powers of locomotives from steam to electric, heck I was amazed that they showed an electric engine, a Virgin Pendolino, on of my favourite electric engines, in a show where it might be set in the 50's/60's given the old look that they show had over the years (e.g - lack of modern technology).
'Learn With Thomas' is the usual moral life lesson of a certain episode that was shown at the end of a PBS broadcast, or should I say Nick. Jr now? It's good for kids to learn about the moral of a particular episode but maybe have kids digest the moral on their own?
'The Earl's Quiz' is still the same old segment with episodes 'Thomas' Shortcut' and 'Too Many Fire Engines' being the questions. Good for kids and their thinking skills.
We saw the return of 'Who's That Engine' once again and this time it's James with the episode 'Muddy Matters' which was seen on the 'Thomas' Christmas Carol' DVD in the US. I do miss these segments, they were fun when they first started doing these with Arc Productions. Although I believe they are now moving on from them I do wish we see more of these with different characters instead such as Duck, Toad, Donald and Douglas.
Overall Rating: 9/10
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That's all of the S21 DVDs reviewed considering how many episodes were broadcasted. My next review will be an editorial of the upcoming 'Big World Big Adventures' trailer that would be out next month and after that would be my review of the S19 DVD that comes out in the UK in July, I might keep that one until August though. So after May, I won't be reviewing anything else until August.
Thank you for reading!
