After hinting the new reboot via press release in May 2025, Mattel had unveiled to us the brand new look of Thomas the Tank Engine for the new reboot series in January 2026 by sharing its render and a little four second clip to give us a taste on what to expect. After that it was radio silence, apart from the toys that were revealed on a website that deals with Mattel's toy lines and unlike what we saw in the past, we are getting a variety of characters from the standard gauge engines, road vehicles, rolling stock to narrow gauge engines, just what the Thomas toy line needed after so long. The promise of characters, who I hope would be in the new show, including the likes of Stepney and BoCo, in the toys could show how much faith Mattel might have in the show and the toy line is now under the control of the people who look after the Cars toy line for Disney Pixar and you can see that the influence of the Cars line had been transferred to Thomas.
But now after eight months of silence, we're now given our first look of the new series. Would it hold up something superior or would it just be another All Engines Go? For the latter, god I hope not. But let's find out! But first, the usual:
THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE
REALLY HELPFUL ENGINES
Written by
James Hamilton & Jill Cozza-Turner
Directed by
Bronagh O'Hanlon
Produced by
Rob David
Release Date
17/09/26 - YouTube
30/09/26 - Netflix
Plot
Thomas is on a mission to prove he is the most helpful engine on Sodor. When Thomas finds out that Percy and Gordon all have a mission for their day, Thomas goes on a mission to find a big important job to do.
Also it's wonderful to see shots that are dynamic again instead of side shot, after side shot, after side shot using the same angles. I don't like to disrespect the animators of 'All Engines Go!' but after watching four seasons of that show, the repetition of it all was really grating and made me realise just how CGI was a much better animation style for Thomas. The sweeping camera shots reminded me of the opening of 'The Adventure Begins'. After our brief visual intro of Sodor, we're introduced to our main character of the story, Thomas the Tank Engine, voiced by Harry Sparkes who I would say at the age that he was in when voicing this, 13 years old, did an excellent job of voicing him.
In the special, Thomas was on the mission to find the biggest job he can do and he broke out into the first song of the special called 'The Most Useful Engine'. I will say, the song was fine but I think it could do without one and instead why not have a montage showing Thomas just how helpful he can be like helping an engine up the hill or pushing trucks from one siding to another as song as they ask him. See him doing some of jobs well but also struggling at the same time but determined. You don't need a song to tell us who he is. But at least the song doesn't sound like those dreadful songs from AEG that tell kids the moral of the story instead of showing it. I know the show's subsequent episodes that will come out early next year will have songs in them and I hope to god they're not forgettable, bland and moral pushing.
Thomas arrived at Knapford station, the 'BIGGG station' as its called, and it hadn't been called that since the original series' 7th season in 2003! Thomas tells the audience that's where he'll find a big job to do. It was also great to see that the franchise had finally added in female railway workers into the show. Sure the original series was set in a bygone era where the railways were run entirely by men in real life. But after years and years of Thomas being criticised for its lack of female characters and railway workers, it's good to see that finally happening despite that we had Nia's female crew in the 'Big World, Big Adventures' movie and its subsequent episodes.
As Thomas puffed into the big station, Percy did as well with a delivery for the Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt as he is now officially called. It's a bit of a shame that Mattel had retired his nickname for likely sensitivity reasons but I'm not at all too bothered by this change going back to the AEG era because the name Sir Topham Hatt was created by Rev Awdry himself and it's still respectful towards the original source material and wasn't just made up for the sake of censorship. However some people, the ones who boast that they have thick skin, in the land of Joe Public would make a song and dance about it complaining how people are offended by anything these days despite they're also being offended by people for being offended which is a form of anything and is an emotion that people had for eons. Makes you think doesn't it?
Speaking of the Fat Controller, I feel like his slim down look kind of goes against Mattel's diversity push they want for the show. We do see them including people and engines from different cultural and racial groups but wouldn't slimming down the Fat Controller go against it when it comes to body diversity? People all over the world all come in shapes and sizes and fatness is one of them through genetics. All Engines Go had retained his fatness, still called him Sir Topham Hatt and no one had thrown a fit outside of the right wing media bubble. Personally, I was never offended by the nickname 'The Fat Controller' nor his depiction over the years. He's a respectable authority figure who checks on and cares for his engines which makes him one of the best characters of the series. But I'm just one person whose experience may differ to someone else's. However, it's also good to teach kids about loosing weight and be healthy too. Plus his redesign gives off a very Illumination/Dreamworks vibe. Also it's good to see they brought his Brenner-era comedic side.
Thomas asked Percy if he wants help to deliver the mail but Henry, who pulled into the station and is in charge of all the mail, told him to never trust anyone with their letters and parcel or otherwise they might get lost and spell disaster. It's funny how after nearly a decade since Mattel had outed him in favour of Rebecca in BWBA, Mattel decided to bring him back into the main cast of the show, despite saying he was not marketable. I'm still glad they'd still retained Henry as a worrywart because I feel that makes him stand out from being a green fusion of Gordon and James. It would make the dynamic more interesting as Gordon and James' character where you can have the big green engine worry for his friends' welfare due to their overconfidence.
There's just more story potential with this new persona, and I know that's a pretty unpopular opinion for some older fans. With this being a brand new show and not a continuation from S24, I can see this working for the show. I just hope the new show brings in more story variety instead of the same formulaic storylines like Thomas and Diesel being competitive but it takes place in a winter games contest. I don't want to see Henry being worried about the post and it's over a hat, scarf, skateboard whatever.
While the Fat Controller was busy streching, Thomas asked him if he could be given a big special important job. Later on Gordon pulled grandly into the station, though his 'engine' was having trouble. This is one of my irks about this special. Back in January, Mattel had stated that they're bringing 'authentic train culture', which is a pretty fancy, corporate buzzword, in my opinion, for 'railway realism'. While Gordon was acting more like a diesel than a steam engine with the way his 'engine' was popping because it was having trouble and all. Not to mention all the wrong roading, which over in the UK and Australia, trains actually drive on the left. Whereas over in North America, they drive on the right. I understand that not everyone is a rail expert, and there had been problems like that in the original series as well and of course I had always said that the show had strayed away from railway realism since S5. But maybe if Mattel wants to make their corporate buzzword 'authentic train culture' a real thing, perhaps they should at least hire a railway consultant?
Mattel had done it before with Sam Wilkinson and the Britt Allcroft company had done it with David Maidment in S5, apart from their unrealistic episodes that would make 'Henry's Forest' blush.
They had a consultant for this show as well as AEG to depict a character on the spectrum to be authentic as possible and a cultural consultant for Big World. So why not a consultant who knows how railways and steam engines actually work and the terminology behind it? I believe the National Railway Museum would gladly love to help consult the writers and animators with all of their source material from the archives. The people at the museum are fans of Thomas and the original books from the Railway Series and the books have been part of the National collection for decades given their contribution of getting kids into railway preservation. If anyone from the production team is reading this, please hire a railway consultant.
After Gordon left to collect trucks at Knapford Harbour, whose last appearance in the official series was way back nearly 30 years ago in S5, Thomas followed suit and here we were introduced the show's newest exclusive character of the new series, Deepak the Crane. Meanwhile, the load for Gordon was very heavy and despite Thomas asking him if he wanted help, Gordon declined thinking a useful engine can do a job on their own. With his train already to go, Gordon steamed away until his 'engine' broke down. Thomas went off to get Rosie for help, despite Gordon's protest. When I first saw this after it came out on YouTube, I was a bit surprised that Rosie had an accent as I was used to her with a British accent like in the original series. But there was it was never a big problem for me anyway and it's still nice to see Mattel bringing in more diversity.
With Gordon out of action, Thomas now has the chance to be helpful and useful and we break into our second song, 'I Can Be Helper', which to be honest was kind of pointless like you can just add an interlude of music and it would just be the same. Listening to the song itself, it could've worked for a moment much later in the special and it wasn't a bad song, really. Much better and a bit more memorable than AEG's songs were. Despite Deepak warning Thomas about the heavy load, Thomas told him what Gordon had said which is really useful engines do things on their own. However, the train was very heavy as Thomas took all the way to a construction site.
Next, Thomas went to Farmer McColl's farm where met up with, probably the only good character that came from 'All Engines Go!', Bruno the brake car who is still voiced by Elliot Garcia from the UK dub of the first reboot. Thomas was still feeling tired from his previous job but was still determined to prove he could be a really useful helper. You can tell that this is going to be a three strike formula but honestly, the original series and AEG had done it too. But unlike the Miller/Barlow era and AEG, it was less grating. So Thomas arrived at Wellsworth but made a mess with Farmer McColl's goods and one of his eggs had landed on the Fat Controller's shoe.
He also thought that Thomas couldn't handle Gordon's heavy work and that he should rest at Tidmouth sheds. But there was no time as Thomas was to shunt trucks, or cars as they're called in the special, I know this was made by an American toy company but since they're going forth with a British dub for all English speaking countries - and since Thomas comes from the UK - they could at least go forth with British railway terminology, hell the new toys called the Troublesome Trucks, 'Trucks' so what is Mattel preventing here? I mean, this was written by someone who comes from the UK and resides in Los Angeles. But of course not everyone is a rail fan which is why, as mentioned earlier, a railway consultant would've been important for this stuff. That unless what we saw on the official channel was made for the US and that maybe we might get one with British terminology next month when it airs on milkshake, though I find that to be a total stretch.
On the way, he met up with Percy who was feeling tired from delivering the mail. Thomas offered to help and Percy let him take his empty van, or carriage as he called it for some reason. However, Thomas struggled up a hill with his one, empty van and sure enough his 'engine' gave way and he rolled down the hill fast while his van fell off the line. Thomas was about to collide into it until Percy, Bruno and Deepak saved him. Rosie came along too and after Thomas realising his mistakes, Rosie took him to the repairs at Tidmouth sheds, much to Gordon's surprise.
After Thomas saying that he wanted to do things on his own but couldn't, Gordon felt bad and told Thomas that he was wrong, much to everyone's surprise. I do like this version of Gordon. He's still pompous and arrogant but would bring his maturity out when he realises his faults and wants to make amends, a nice balance of his character. After realising that it's best to get by with a little help from his friends, Thomas managed to make up all of his stuff ups from earlier with a shunting montage of him and Rosie shunting coaches at Vicarstown with a reprise of the second song from earlier but with the mention of friends instead of himself. I honestly think this is where the second should be placed to serve as the curtain call for the special.
After that, Gordon was repaired and he and Thomas ran around the Island to try and test out his 'engine' with the reprise of the song that was at the start of the special, this time with the likes of Percy, Rosie, Deepak and Gordon joining in, for Gordon his voice has a marvellous singing voice and we come to the end of this special with the engines settling down for the night, the narrator telling us the moral instead of letting the audience digest it, with Thomas thanking the audience for helping out.
END
OVERALL
Basically, this was a pretty simple special that was compact well within a 30 minute timeframe. Mattel must've heard me complaining a lot about it can work without making padding out useless, unimportant filler or long boring, useless conversations to fit within a 60min timeframe like those dreadful AEG specials, apart from Bubbly Build, lol. Someone pointed this out which I think would've been better for the story if were about Thomas being new to the Island of Sodor and wants to prove that he can be helpful which I think could've been a better motive than just wanting to be helpful because he wants to be. This is a reboot and a new canon despite the similar look that we had before so I think it wouldn't have been a problem.
It was nice to have a storyteller back in the new show as well but during my first impression of the special, I thought he was kind of useless since he wasn't needed for much scenes and in the past both the Big World special and All Engines Go had proven that they can work without a storyteller and let the visuals and dialouge do the storytelling instead. But of course Mattel wants to go back to the classics and the storyteller was a key part of Thomas' 80 year legacy since Johnny Morris utter the first words of the Railway Series books for audio back in 1961. They could've gone back to Mark Moraghan but I think they wanted a fresh new voice to reflect the newness of the show. But it would be nice to see him back again in the official series. At least we have the 'Wonders of Sodor' game, which I'm excited into getting on physical format next month as of writing this in September 2026.
As I'd mentioned before, there are some irks that had bothered me and I have spotted a few animation errors like Rosie pushing Thomas despite her buffers were nowhere near him and her pushing Gordon despite using Thomas' model for the closeup at Knapford harbour earlier in the special. Plus of course the improper use of railway terminology and how steam engines are depicted which, as I said earlier, I think the show needed a railway consultant.
I do like Gordon's character, he really stood out to me and his dynamic with Thomas. He's like a parent/older kid who likes to show that he doesn't need help and Thomas being the kid of the special admires him for his strength and took his advice to heart, despite it being wrong. Kind of like a child admiring their father who later learns his own mistake which gives the message that even older people make mistakes sometimes too. I love it!
I really don't have much else to say, I like the special and it doesn't feel as crazy, hyperactive and, I think this might be unusual for some reading this but you might get it if you have seen AEG, boring as what the specials were like from the last reboot. It's a charming little special that could've been better but it was still good either way. Be interesting to see what else this new show has to offer but we have to wait until early 2027 to find out. So not too far now.
Rating:
7/10
