S24 Ep.11: James the Super Engine

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

JAMES THE SUPER ENGINE

Written by

David Stoten

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Air Date

30/06/20 - AUS

I remember this episode being shown back in March 2020 when Netflix in the US was about to launch Thomas in May. This episode along with 'Thomas and the Inventor's Workshop' were special previews before the launch. I did like it when it first came and liked it again now that it had made its Australian TV debut. But looking back from what I'd already seen in March, I think the episode could've been better suited for Percy, given his naivety and kindness. Say he was feeling unconfident about something, maybe him pulling long lines of trucks and the other engines like James or Gordon teased him about it and maybe him being accident prone and refer to the events of him being derailed while going to collect Rocky during the fire drill practice, say have him that he's not really useful for being overexcited about rescuing someone. Then one day, he saw some children reading a comic book and Percy thought that he could be a superhero and he can have super strength or could help everyone in need only to realise that he can do all that by being himself. It's just how I feel. I do like the episode and perhaps maybe to make it more of a James episode, perhaps he's doing all this superhero stuff just to get more and more attention. 

Overall it wasn't a bad episode. It was fun and entertaining but maybe it could've been better for Percy or maybe a few tweaks could've been made to make it more of a James episode.

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Thomas and The Forest Engines - 5/10

Emily to the Rescue - 4/10

Shankar's Makeover - 8/10

Nia and The Unfriendly Elephant - 9/10

James the Super Engine - 7/10

Overall Rating (So far):

80/110

S24 Ep.10: Nia and the Unfriendly Elephant

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

NIA AND THE 

UNFRIENDLY ELEPHANT

Written by

Davey Moore

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot

Nia is bringing a new animal to Sodor Animal Park... 

but it's an elephant that doesn't like steam engines!

For a Nia episode, this one isn't bad. I mean I'll always like 'Counting On Nia' but this one I think shows that she has a flaw and that was her thinking she is clever at dealing with things that she already had experience with but of course realising things are different, like her thinking the elephant would like her because of her experience with the elephant's kind before back in Kenya. I see this as potential for future Nia stories, that is if a 25th season would be greenlit in future after this hiatus. I also like the elephant in the episode too with it dealing with new and strange things, something I wish that Nia had gone through since her debut. Whenever we move to a new town, city or country we aren't quite use to the new surroundings because we're not used to it and it's good to have something familiar to make yourself feel at home, like Thomas missing Percy while he was in China in S23. Which was a nice message at the end. I also like how the Fat Controller gave Nia some special jobs and one of them is to take passengers to the animal park, which makes me wonder. Why not have Nia situated on Edward's branch line? since the animal park is situated there. I think there is a potential for some stories for her, like her dealing with the likes of Bill and Ben and their trickery, perhaps it might flesh out more characrter traits for her. Maybe she has a clever idea to get back at them, only realising that it caused some trouble to them and her, there is still more potential with the show with an idea like that, that is if any of the production staff or anyone from Mattel are reading this. 

Personally, this is a favourite of mine of the current series and probably the best Nia centric episode. 

Air Date

29/06/20 - AUS

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Thomas and The Forest Engines -5 /10

Emily to the Rescue - 4/10

Shankar's Makeover - 8/10

Nia and The Unfriendly Elephant - 9/10

Overall Rating (So far):

73/100

S24 Ep.9: Shankar's Makeover

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

SHANKAR'S MAKEOVER

Written by

Camille Ucan & Rose Johnson 

Directed by

Diana Basso 

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot

Thomas pushes Shankar into entering the Fancy Costume Contest even though Shankar doesn't want the spotlight on him.

Air Date

28/06/20 - AUS

I wasn't expecting this episode to be good but surprisingly it did turn out to be good. I love how they'd expanded Shankar's character with him not prefering to be in the spotlight and just want to be in his personal space. I understand that not many liked Thomas' peer pressuring in the episode but it worked for the sake of the episode, although I would've prefered it if they'd gone with Rajiv since both he and Shankar had a great dynamic together by being polar opposites but I think Thomas kind of fits with him excited over something by the likes of dressing up kinda of like how he got over excited by pulling Henry's train in the classic series. But while the episode was simple, it was a good episode with a nice message that everyone is different and especially by writers who were a bit topsy turvy with their stories in the past. 

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Thomas and The Forest Engines - 5/10

Emily to the Rescue - 4/10

Shankar's Makeover - 8/10

Overall Rating (So far):

64/90

S24 Ep.8: Emily to the Rescue

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

EMILY TO THE RESCUE

Written by

Beckey Overton

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot
When a pretend emergency turns into a real emergency, 

there's only one engine who can save the day!

Air Date

26/06/20 - AUS

I'll say this, after 17 years of being numberless, Emily finally has a number! While it's not much of a huge deal to me, I think its quite nice that the production team had finally done something about it. But the episode overall just feels...meh. Some people might compare this to an early CGI series script (S13-16), and I can see why, but at least what this episode did was making it as entertaining as possible while also, from my belief, keeping with the Thomas tradition of storytelling. Whereas an early CGI series script is filled with nothing more but boring and bland repetition, rhyming, wooden voice acting and some terrible morals for kids (e.g - Thomas taking hats without permission and not apologising for taking them.) but one good thing it does have and that was conflict, though kinda, but I digress here, I would compare this story to something that Christopher Awdry would've written. This is more akin to the stories he'd written for his Railway Series books. Often I've been hearing other people saying that Christopher's books aren't as interesting compare to his father's and I could see why. 

In the stories by Rev.W.Awdry, the characters have traits like being boastful, arrogant, silly, rude etc. and by the end they would go into a dilemma that would make them learn there lesson, 

(e.g - 'Down the Mine' with Thomas being cheeky to Gordon about falling in a ditch and then he gets his own back by falling in the mine and James calling Toby a 'dirty object' and crashed into some tar wagons and James getting stung by a bee after calling BoCo a 'buzz-box diesel'.) whereas in Christopher's stories like 'Thomas and the Great Railway Show' things like Thomas' accident with the level crossing on his way to York or in 'Scrambled Eggs' when Thomas crashed into a lorry that was filled with eggs and Duncan helping some boy scouts in 'Pop Special' by bringing them drinks where things just happened because it did. The same can be said about his some of his annual stories too like 'Thomas and The Tickles' or 'Quick Thinking'. This is in no way of berating Christopher Awdry as a writer but this is how I feel about his stories. His stories aren't terrible but they are just not good as his father's I'm sorry to say and I think I could see why Mattel, HIT and Egmont, the latter under ownership of HarperCollins, weren't interested in his books, the last time we had any treatment of Christopher's book was back in 2007 with its own complete collection, which I still have since that very Christmas. I will say his stand alone books like 'Thomas and the Tiger' and 'Thomas Goes To School' do at least have the characters going through some sort of conflict as well as some annual stories like 'Percy and the Brake Van' and 'The Trouble With Sheep' and 'Signal Failure'.

I digress but my point is to me this episode has got nothing to do with Emily wanting to be a hero and it was more in the moment with her. Perhaps maybe the episode should've devoted alot more to Emily's motive of wanting to be a hero instead of seeing a safety inspector going around checking engines and rolling stock with his pun here and there. I understand that Emily is one of Mattel's marketable characters, although when you look at the viewership of her Steam Team video from last year, she only had, at the time of writing this post in May 2020, about 481,000 views compare to the others who have about over 1-2 million views. But I think if she were to have interesting stories maybe have her back in her S8 persona, but try and mix it with her original persona as well. Perhaps now that she is the Island's 'safety engine' maybe you could have her being overprotective and being bossy. Hopefully whenever this hiatus ends we see that and maybe that might get kids more interested in her with her flaws. 

I aprecciate the production team wanting to give episodes for the Sterling Single but I think more needs to be done. But I will say I am impressed that this episode also didn't have a fantasy sequence and I think BWBA could at least work with them if they are needed and not wedged in to meet the check boxes.

 

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Thomas and The Forest Engines - 5/10

Emily to the Rescue - 4/10

Overall Rating (So far):

56/70

S24 Ep.7: Thomas and the Forest Engines

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

THOMAS AND THE FOREST ENGINES

Written by

Davey Moore

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot

In Brazil, Thomas meets two wood-burning engines who've never travelled beyond their eucalyptus railway. Thomas agrees to swap jobs with them for the day, but this causes more trouble than he expects.

Air Date

25/06/20 - AUS

To me this episode is nothing special and it's more on the OK level to me. It wasn't the best but it wasn't bad to met. Marcia and Marcio are OK characters but there wasn't much that they could offer personality wise since they were blank as slate and with the show in a hiatus and this season having one episode set in Brazil, who knows if they ever get the chance to shine again. I also feel that Thomas experiencing the eucalyptus railway should've been cut out and have the episode focused more towards the two new engines instead. I think it had a good message that we should try new things and see if we like it. But in the end it was OK episode. Not a favourite but it's not the worst episode I've seen.

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Thomas and The Forest Engines - 5/10

Overall Rating (So far):

52/70

S24 Ep.6: The Great Little Railway Show

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

THE GREAT LITTLE RAILWAY SHOW

Written by

Micheal White

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot

When a Railway Show for little engines comes to Sodor, an overly excited 

Percy finally sees his chance to shine.

Air Date

24/06/20 - AUS

I say that this has to be the best Percy episode from this era of Thomas and Michael White was probably the best choice to write this episode, so credit to him! I love Percy's character with cockiness and over excited persona just like how Awdry would've written. I loved the variety of engines such as the miniature engines, the narrow gauge engines and I like how Sir Handel and Peter Sam were in character about special wheels and funnels, seeing them being cocky was great. I was also surprised to hear Merrick talking for the first time since 'Luke's New Friend' from 2013! That was seven years ago! With the railway show being devouted to model railways at the end, as revealed by the Thin Clergyman (the Rev.W.Awdry) it was nice seeing a CG replica of his Ffarquhar branch line layout, I believe a certain writer gave Jam Filled the reference pictures of his replica. It looked amazing in CG and it feels rather fitting with it being the 75th anniversary, a nice bit of Thomas history being showcased in the show. To me this was a great episode. The story was great, the characters were great and it was probably the best episode, so far, of this series. 

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

The Great Little Railway Show - 9/10

Overall Rating (So far):

47/60 

S24 Ep.5: Thomas' Fuzzy Friend

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

THOMAS' FUZZY FRIEND

Written by

Becky Overton

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Plot

Thomas discovers a missing dog on the railway and tries to find it a new home.

Air Date

23/06/20

This episode isn't anything special but it was still great and wholesome in the end. The story was simple I will say and the dog does look cute and I like how young Thomas, the child, from 'Thomas the Babysitter' got a cameo appearance four years since its debut on the 'Full Steam to the Rescue!' DVD. I understand some fans have some qualm about the dog peeing on James' wheels and while I understand not many like the idea of potty humor in a show like Thomas, I don't think it was worth the fuss. The joke was there in a blink of an eye and that's it. Plus we had fan made content in the past of a dog urinating here and I do recall seeing videos like this from older fans on social media and no seemed to be bothered by those for its potty humor, nothing against these guys personally but if these are OK and not for the episode, isn't that double standards? Plus jokes like that are meant for kids and we were like that when we were young, heck we had 'Shrek' nearly 20 years ago and that was filled with fart and burping jokes left, right and center and when we were young we'd laughed at it. Yes we all grow up and look down at those things as immature but we can't deny the fact that we'd laughed at potty humor as well. I will say the one thing I think that could've been better is that Thomas could've come off as arrogant thinking that looking after a dog is easy since he had done it before when Dowager Hatt came to the island as a VIP but then he realises the hard work. But all in all, this was a nice episode and I also like the fact that there was no fantasy sequence. Whenever this hiatus ends, I hope they continue going with that since it added extra breathing space to tell a story. 

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

Thomas' Fuzzy Friend - 8/10

Overall Rating (So far):

38/50

S24 Ep.4: Emily's Best Friend

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

Written by

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 

NWR Editorial: Vale Michael Angelis (1952-2020)

VALE MICHAEL ANGELIS

(1952-2020)

I'm sure by now we've all heard the sad news that the longest serving narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine, Michael Angelis, had passed away at the age of 68. If you were a child be it in the UK, Australia or New Zealand from the 1990's to 2012, or North America if you had seen his narration work in the later years on YouTube, or if you had a copy of 'New Friends for Thomas & Other Stories' in 2004, chances are you had watched Thomas with Michael Angelis narrating the stories. He was also an actor in other UK shows before, during and after Thomas such as 'The Boys From The Black Stuff', 'The Liver Birds', 'Bread', 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' and 'The Bill'. I had so many memories of listening to the man narrating the show for so many years. I still have the old VHS tapes that my parents had bought for me back when I was a child and had enjoyed the soothing enthusiastic voice that was him. I remember the two music albums that he'd narrated, 'Thomas and the Best Kept Station Competition' and 'Surprise Adventures' as well as the audio stories of The Railway Series books back in the mid-2000's. There was also the PC games such 'The Great Festival Adventure', 'Trouble on the Tracks' and yes even the 'Thomas & The Magic Railroad Print Studio' game, yeah but I was a young kid back then. His voice work for the little blue tank engine and his friends was always comforting, friendly, soothing and enthusiastic everytime you hear it. In my opinion, the third series will always be his best work of all the seasons he had worked on because all three was there. Of course there are other seasons too but the third season always stood out for me.

I had never met Michael Angelis when he was alive and now I wished I had. But I will always treasure the memories I have of him entertaining me, like everyone else over the years, through his voice. I had recently watched 'Gordon and the Famous Visitor' as a tribute to him and it feels so surreal knowing that he's not here physically anymore. I will miss Michael Angelis like everyone else be it through Thomas or the other shows that he appeared in that many people had watched. He was as the Fat Controller puts it: 'Really Useful!'

My condolences go out to his friends and family.