S18 Ep.11:Duncan and the Grumpy Passenger

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

DUNCAN AND THE GRUMPY PASSENGER

Written by

Davey Moore

Directed by

Don Spencer 

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

Air Date

8/09/14

Plot

Duncan, the grumpiest engine on the narrow gauge railway, gets a taste of his own medicine when he receives a very grumpy passenger. He tries his hardest to help the passenger so that they will stop complaining, but soon learns that it is impossible to please everybody.

PRO:

- Duncan's characterisation
- Moral: You can't please everyone
- The animation of the Skarloey Railway

CON:

- Duncan's CGI render looks plain
- Some errors from Arc

This episode is good. Davey Moore has been the writer of such good episodes like 'Luke's New Friend', 'The Switch' and 'Not Now Charlie', yes I actually think the latter was a good episode, despite Charlie's presences. I love how he've captured Duncan's characterisation, a grumpy engine, very season four. The moral has been implied that you can't please everybody, which pretty much sums up most of the entire fan base and all fan bases and people in general, you can't please everybody. And I'll say this and I mean it, Arc's render of the Skarloey Railway is better then Nitrogen's render. I believe SiF and SI3D's Sean was part of all this, as he personally knows the railway consultant of the series. They've captured the S4-7 setting of the railway and it has that welsh atmosphere as well. Crovans Gate station is the best one out of all them. However despite that it was great that Duncan returned, he seems to be a bit plain compare to the other renders of the Skarloey engines. There's a lack of detail and his running board is most likely from his Take-n-Play model, whereas his original model from S4-12 has a yellow running board. However, Arc Productions had captured the TVS model of Duncan really well and I give them credit for that. But of course we have the usual nitpicks of Arc's animation error. If you look at James, during Peter Sam and Duncan's conversation at Crovans Gate station earlier in the episode, noticed how he's pulling Skarloey coaches. Hopefully Arc goes back and fix the rendering issue for the DVD, like they did in 'The Thomas Way' DVD. I love how the story shows us the simple daily routine of Duncan's working life, it's simple and easy to understand when it comes to the target audience. Plus Tom Stourton also done a good scottish accent, not like the one I pull in my fan made videos or how previous storytellers put it, minus Ringo, stereotypical, though I was trying to impersonate Billy Connolly.  Plus being on the Skarloey Railway, it's a nice break from the Blue Mountain Quarry, hopefully we see more stories placed on the Skarloey Railway in future.

Rating: 8/10