THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND NOT FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE
NWR EDITORIAL:
THE POOR SCHEDULING OF S19 IN THE UK
With 'The Adventure Begins' and 'Sodor's Legend of The Lost Treasure' now out of the way, S19 is now being aired in countries like Japan and soon Australia. I don't know when the US will be airing there's, but I do think they'll be playing the Christmas episodes this year as well. But the UK has been hit by poor planning by Channel 5's parent company 'Viacom' who owns other networking companies like Nickelodeon.
S19 have been shown on four DVDs in the US, about six episode had aired in Japan and Australia will be starting its run as well. The UK had been given four episodes starting September then for some unknown reason had started airing 'The Afternoon Tea Express' and then revert back to S13 episodes. Recently it's been announced by SiF that S19 would start its share of Christmas/Winter episodes in January 2016 and despite not living in the UK, I still think it's really poor on Viacom's part. They had written an email, Channel 5, to SteamTeam3211 back in September that they will play the Christmas episodes this month, initially. Some say the hold up was because of the recently revived 'Bob the Builder' series. I haven't seen the series yet so I won't be making any judgemental view on it, despite not being a huge Bob fan, although I did like it as a child when it was in stop motion animation. But they're both on the same time and I don't think one would be better then the other as both brands are owned by HIT Entertainment and are very popular with kids.
Instead of showing the recent episodes, Channel 5 will be airing episodes like 'The Christmas Tree Express', which is rather a very poor episode in comparison with the more recent ones like 'Last Train for Christmas' which I'm glad that they are playing. But looking at what the UK was given this year when it comes to S19, I think the question is this. Is it time for Thomas & Friends have a new provider for the episode to avoid this hiccup? Maybe not now, but I hope HIT Entertainment might give it a think one day. Sure they have held back 'The Christmas Tree Express' and had randomised S17 but they have release many episodes throughout the year. Heck they aired S13 and S14 in the same year, 2010.
Some might say it's not a big deal and yes they have a right to say this and despite that I've said in the past that people need to be patient, I don't think a country waiting an entire year for brand new episodes when in the end the UK had only got four episodes so far this year and have to wait sometime in the new year for more S19 episodes because after the Christmas episodes there, it's back to S13 again. It may as well be a kids show, but UK fans of Thomas & Friends both young and old don't deserve this.
