THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT FROM THE THOMAS AND FRIENDS FAN BASE
THOMAS' CHRISTMAS CAROL
Episodes
-Diesel's Ghostly Christmas
- Snow Place Like Home
- A Cranky Christmas
- The Beast of Sodor
Written by
Becky Overton
Mark Hucklerby & Nick Olster
Lee Pressman
Directed by
Don Spencer
Produced by
Ian McCue
Special Features
- Who's that Engine?
- 'There's Snow Place Like Home' Music Video
Release
27/10/15
Distributed
HIT/Universal
Another Christmas themed DVD for 2015 for the US audience of S19 episodes. Will these bring the spirit of Christmas? Let's find out!
EPISODES
With these releases, I keep them for December when the TV series airs in the UK, whenever that happens on milkshake? But I know that ABC Australia is airing them next month. But in short I say the episodes are good and OK this year, you'll see my views later on.
SPECIAL FEATURES
It's a surprise to see that there are no new Mr. Perkins segments in this release. But when you think about it, there's not much stories either set around Christmas nor in Winter. Sure there's 'Mrs. Kyndley's Christmas' but I think they like to have Winter/Christmas stories with snow to also give that wintery atmosphere. Look at 'A Scarf for Percy' from last year's release over in the US. Plus I believe, not making assumptions here, the reason why there aren't any this is because some stories set in winter have characters like Donald, Douglas, Terence and Daisy etc. even though to us we are familiar with them and that three of the four characters have just been in this year's special, the target range might not be familiar with them yet. Maybe that's the reason, I don't know. I like the new segment 'Landmarks of Sodor' in the style of an old news reel with some good history and reason for the place with some fabulous narration by Rob Jackstraw, who I thought was Mike Grady all this time. There are other simple segments such as the Calling All Engines! featuring Victor and Porter, not much to say but they were good informative segments of the two characters with some good amount of footage. There is also the Earl's Quiz with question for Samson Sent for Scrap, Whistles, Bells and Horns and Old Reliable Edward.
The Christmas music video is 'Snow Place like Home', most likely based on the episode title on the DVD. I think it's a good one and it gave that Christmassy feeling but it's no better then 'It's Christmas Time' from last year's release.
OVERALL
This release is a good one although I will say for the bonus features from the DVD menu and I will say it's lazy to release the same segment that were on previous releases by them. The quality of the footage on the recent DVDs from them are poor too with their interlacing, what was wrong with the quality of footage that is released over in the UK? In my opinion if you want good quality I buy it off iTunes in HD, the footage is crystal clear and you get the usual features from the DVD as well. Unless if you want to sit through low pitched sound.
Rating:
7.5/10