THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND NOT FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE
TOBY'S DISCOVERY
Written by
Britt Allcroft and David Mitton
Directed by
David Mitton
Air Date:
9/10/98
Plot:
Toby meets up an old engine dubbed as 'The Old Warrior'
PRO:
- The spooky atmosphere of the mine was fantastic
CON:
- Toby being a wimp
- Bertram using Duke's basis.
Despite that I said many time that Toby was being the usual wimp in HIT's recent series, this is where I believe it first started. Compare this episode towards 'Ghost Train'. Sure in that episode, Toby is being a 'wimp', but he was only pretending so to fool Thomas. Here Toby is just plain scared when really he should be wise about not being scared. Plus there is Bertram, a pointless merchandising character, according to Britt Allcroft he was going to be a tank engine. But due to financing, the model was not made and so the character's model was a used Duke with Smudger's face. When I saw this episode when it was first aired in Australia many years ago, I was not fooled by the difference, my brother and I knew that it was Duke's model. It would be nice to see the original plans of the character, but I believe even that won't make him a great character.
However, I do give credit to the scene when the mine was at night, it created a spooky atmosphere. The episode can scare little kids, it did to me though. But it's certainly not one of my favourites, the story is good, but Toby's personality was bad and possibly like any other fan of the show, Bertram is just a pointless character to have.
Rating: 2/5
