THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE
MONKEY TROUBLE!
Written by
Becky Overton
Tim Bain
Lee Pressman
Andrew Brenner
Episodes
Special Features
Karaoke Music Video
Meet the Characters
Thomas' Great Big World Shorts
Release Date
8/04/19 - UK
5/06/19 - AUS
Distributed by
Mattel Creations (UK)
ABC Kids (AUS)
Here is our first Thomas & Friends DVD for the year 2019 for the UK. There had been some worry for the future of physical media, particularly for the North American audience as Thomas is shown exclusively on Nick Jr despite a deal made between Mattel and the streaming services (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime) a year ago. The UK had some worry as well, since the last Thomas DVD released was in September 2018. But of course all that was settled when this was shown on Amazon UK and with the Thomas DVDs selling well over, Mattel wouldn't give up on releasing more to Thomas' native homeland. So here are my views on the recent release.
EPISODES
The DVD consists eight episodes from the 22nd series featuring Australia and India from the international side of the series and five episodes from the Sodor side. I'll start off with the dudded episodes first and the first one is 'Apology Impossible'. I hate this episode and I think it had so many opportunities to make Philip grow as a character. We saw him standing up to a bigger engine for the first time and he is still acting all wimpy and not doing anything towards James like why not have him, Thomas, Paxton and Rebecca helping him pushing James away from the bridge. Plus I still do think Gordon would've been a better option rather than James. Another episode that is a dud is from Australia called 'Banjo and The Bushfire'. I still think the title was pointless and while the story wasn't bad it really wasn't good. I mean the episode could've been about why fire and wildlife don't mix and how that can harm the animals and their homes. Tamika's sole appearance is nothing but barebones here and I hope with S23 coming soon and for a fact that Australia will be in it next season, we see her in it again. Her and the other international engines need better treatment in my opinion when it comes to development.
Now onwards to the other episodes. I honestly don't see anything bad from the Monkey Palace episode it was not a perfect episode but it's better than the other India episodes barring 'Tiger Trouble'. The same can be said about 'Cyclone Thomas' too, while not perfect with Thomas not being told that he shouldn't be playing doctor as it is a serious job but it had a good message about wanting to help in anyway.
I do think 'School of Duck', 'Rosie Is Red', 'Seeing Is Believing' and 'Thomas' Animal Ark' were the best episodes among on the DVD. My views on these episode are still the same as when I first watched them so please follow the link that is highlighted on the episode title.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The music video of the new theme song is pretty much that. What I think they should've done was rather than using the theme song, they should've used the extended version that can be downloaded on iTunes or streamed on Spotify and use clips from various seasons and the BWBA movie. Kids would love it but I think it would've been better if there was more.
There are also the 'Thomas' Great Big World' segments. One was focused on the animals of the world and the other was about the new steam team. Not really anything special but it was a nice and informative for kids and I think the current steam team videos with the updated rivets and detail on the main characters are much better compare to the one here. Not a big fan of the jokey stuff in the videos either but I've heard worse (*stares at 'The Great Model Railway Challenge' hosts and there uninspiring puns*)
Then you have the 'Meet the Characters' videos and as usual just about the international characters that were on the DVD such as Tamika, Shankar and Rajiv. I will say the scene of Rajiv and the Bollywood actor at the station would've been much a better Bollywood episode.
OVERALL
How 'Thomas Goes To Bollywood' SHOULD'VE been.
While the DVD has a couple of duds, it wasn't that bad in my opinion. There are some good episodes to watch through and while the special features aren't that great in my opinion they were fine and harmless. Personally I buy a handful of episodes that I've enjoyed and have them on my phone and while I do like buying a physical DVD, I do see the benefits of downloading and streaming, but it has its own limits too with some content deleted when there licensing is up. It's nice to see that physical media is still going strong in the UK as well as Australia but with the way things are going on in the US, I think it might be because there is no US distributor right now. Take a look at iTunes US for Thomas content. All of the DVD length videos are gone including the classic series and yearly specials and the only ones left are S16-20. The only place is Amazon Prime and even they aren't releasing new content to their streaming service.
I believe that Paramount might do the job considering that Viacom and Nickelodeon got exclusive rights to be the merchandise agents and that Paramount are owned by Viacom as well. There hasn't been a DVD released there since 2017 and there are parents on Facebook are frustrated right now with the lack of it. To me this damaging of the show's popularity in the US with the new series being exclusive to one channel that parents have to buy and with the lack of newer content means not much money for Mattel/HIT Entertainment and the only way for parents to find the new Thomas content is through YouTube recordings from the people who do have the subscription. Something that Mattel/HIT as a business would not love. If anyone from Mattel/HIT are reading this PLEASE do something about it for everyone, this is poor customer service.
Rating: 6.5/10
Monkey Trouble is out now at UK shops and will be released in Australia on June 5th
