S22 Ep.1: Number One Engine

Well, after much waiting we are here to witness the new revamped series of Thomas & Friends, despite that it had already aired in Italy in August. I had already discussed about the history of this idea in my editorial review of the trailer here, so feel free to check it out and see what lead to this. All I can say now is this, is the new series a hit or is it a blunder that some people had hoped for? Well let's find out! But first:

THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE

NUMBER ONE ENGINE

Written by

Davey Moore

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Micaela Winter (HIT/Mattel)

Air Date

3/09/18

Plot
Thomas is in China, where another blue tank engine named Hong-Mei is the number one engine on the national railway. Hong-Mei challenges Thomas to a race and wins, so Thomas is determined to beat her in a second race. But when he takes a short cut along the steep mountain pass, he hits a rock on the line and derails...


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The first episode of the revamped series and to me it was good. Not great nor bad or anything just good. I do understand from other people's perspective is that the episodes now run on a shorter time limit, 7:00 minutes when you remove the opening and closing credits. Last season's episodes had a running length of 11 minutes long and there are a couple of episodes that had suffered from relying on something to pace the episode, like repetition or filler. 'Terence Breaks the Ice' is one episode that comes from the top of my head with his pacing and most of the episode had relied on the flashback. Sure it's a way to let the younger audience to get to know who Terence is and Thomas' history with him, but the flashback took most of the time as the episode was thin in plot and I think it could work here. 'Emily in The Middle' also feels like it relied on repetition as well with the twins' bickering and switching from front to back. I think the pacing is something we have to get use to as we are familiar to the longer running length from the past few seasons.

Considering now the show is teaching kids about different cultures, I think it was nice. Some fans think it was shoehorned in but I feel like they were placed nicely into the story about how they write number in a different language and that the colour red is the colour of luck in China, hence why it's a very popular colour over there, something I learnt that was new from this episode. Plus the little references didn't feel like they took anything away from the show. 

The idea of this episode of racing isn't anything new, we had them before with the likes of 'Thomas' Shortcut' and 'Reds Vs. Blues'. But to me this episode feels a bit different as Thomas is trying to prove that he's the number one engine to Hong Mei and learned that there's no need to be better than the other, we can be number one equally, considering that some episodes are basing their stories through the UN's sustainable goals and how some media outlets are saying this fits under the gender equality goal. 

One of the characters that stood out is An An and Lin Yong as they are the polar opposites of Annie and Clarabel. Thomas' coaches from Sodor are more stern when it comes to Thomas' antics but An An and Lin Yong are more daring, imagine an episode with them together. It would provide a great dynamic between the two characters. 

In the end, it wasn't a bad start to the new revamped series. The pacing of the story I see is something that some have to get use to after years of the longer running time, the shorter running time got rid of the three strikes formula that some fans wanted gone for a while, I mean we had 'Timothy and the Rainbow Truck' had it a three strike formula, even though I felt it was done right.

Episode Rating:

Number One Engine - 8/10

Series Rating (So far):

8/10