I'm pretty surprised that Australia got a new Thomas series this early, before the UK and US. This never happened before. I thought we be getting these in September, as was the case in the past few years. But after the two extended specials, 'Marvellous Machineary' and 'Thomas & The Royal Engine' that had aired in May 2020 to celebrate the 75th anniversary, let's see what the rest of S24 would give us? But first:
THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE
EMILY'S BEST FRIEND
Camille Ucan & Rose Johnson
Directed by
Dianna Basso
Produced by
Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)
Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)
Plot
Emily worries she doesn't have a best friend, but, when the other engines help her out of a tricky situation, she realises she's been surrounded by best friends all along.
Air Date
22/06/20 - AUS
When I first heard of the episode, I was expecting it to be a weak episode. The title and the plot both sound something like your typical pre-school show about friendships. Plus at the time when hearing about the plot, 'Emily to the Rescue' was out on 'The Royal Engine' DVD in the UK and wasn't really excited by the episode after seeing that, my views for that episode will be out on Friday. But after seeing this in full, I will say while it certainly isn't groundbreaking it really wasn't that bad, especially for an Emily episode and I think because there was conflict from Emily while retaining her current persona that closely resembles her S7 persona, despite not being a big fan of the latter. I mean sure we had 'Rangers on the Rails' but I never really found that episode good with its conflict looking back since it was too average to me.
I also like how the engines that want to be Emily's 'best friends' weren't just restricted to the steam team characters. It really adds more variety to the Island of Sodor and I hope that whenever this hiatus is over that Mattel don't force the production team to make it 'The Steam Team Show'. We had that once from 2010-2012 with its poor writing and it was dreadful to sit through and I believe kids would like to have some variety as well. It was also nice to see Edward and Henry having a minor role too despite being demoted to secondary characters and I also like the fantasy sequence of Emily with Edward as it felt organic compare to the ones in the past that felt like forced in or that it feels out of place, like Diesel's fantasy sequence in 'Diesel Do Right'. The message of the episode too is something that I like how we can have more than one best friend.
And I will point out that I have to give credito Lucy Montgomery for nailing a brilliant impersonation of Olivia Coleman as Marion. When I first saw the episode I thought it was the latter but was surprised that it wasn't. Brilliant work by her and although it's a shame that we might not see Marion as much in the future, depending on the hiatus, since Olivia is now an A list star thanks to her winning awards for her other work outside of Thomas.
So yeah, a decent episode and I'm looking forward to see what more of S24 will offer in the coming days ahead.
Series Ratings (So far):
A New Arrival - 7/10
World of Tomorrow - 7/10
Thomas and the Royal Engine - 9/10
Emily's Best Friend - 7/10
Overall Rating (So far):
30/40
