S23 Ep.3: Heart of Gold

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

HEART OF GOLD

Written by

Micheal White

Directed by
Dianna Basso

Produced by
Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)
Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Plot
Old Toby tries to stop two thieves from stealing King Godred's crown.

Air Date

6/09/19 - UK
16/10/19 - AUS

I honestly quite like it that the production team had been transforming Toby to an engine being concerned on how he looks rather than just being old. The latter makes him more similar to Edward in my view, episodes like 'Toby Feels Left Out' showcases that as an example. Toby had to deal with himself being told that he looks different ever since Awdry's lifetime so the episode does respect Toby's roots as a character. Sure it's another 'prove his worth' storyline but I feel there's more of difference here compare to Edward. Edward's stories are more focused towards engines like Gordon or James learning their lesson on not being terrible to him ('Edward and Gordon', 'Edward's Exploit' and 'Old Iron' are examples) whereas Toby learns that he should be proud of what he looks like despite the unfair shaming of his looks, something that I think kids with self confidence issues can relate too. It was a really good episode and I definitely applaud Micheal White here on creating such a great story about the old tram engine.

It's also nice to see Glynn and Millie again and I hope with the mention of Toby being 'put on display' from Diesel is a sign for the Earl's so called railway museum is coming but I won't grasp on such hope since now that the idea is now three years old. The two robbers didn't make such impact but I think what could've been better is to put them in disguise as the castle workmen or guards and reveal them later on as robbers it kind of brings the air of mystery to the plot. Plus this is a bit of a nitpick but the scene with the guard holding the suit of armour could've been cut as I feel that was unneeded but I presume it was added there for the sake of 'more comedy' for Mattel when they were doing test audiences over the years that lead to the series' transformation. 

In the end this was a very good episode and it made me love Toby as a character again. 

Episode Rating (So far):

Free The Road - 10/10
Chucklesome Trucks - 8/10
Heart Of Gold - 9/10

Series Rating (So far):
27/30

S23 Ep.2: Chucklesome Trucks

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

CHUCKLESOME TRUCKS

Written by

Davey Moore

Directed by
Dianna Basso

Produced by

Tracy Blagdon 

Air Date
4/09/19 - UK
15/10/19 - AUS

First time I saw this episode it was released in Mexico back in May 2019 and like Japan, they too have the english dub albeit it's the US voice cast. Anyway, I really enjoyed this episode and it has a nice message too. Just because others had a problem with something doesn't mean that the same will happen to you. Although when I first saw it I felt a little bit off with it and that was with Thomas, James and Percy. I thought their accidents were caused by Rebecca and that she wasn't responsible. But watching it again, I realised Rebecca wasn't fully responsible and the three engines were responsible for their own doing albeit concerned about Rebecca. 

Some might say that Rebecca came off as perfect in this episode but I think she was more oblivious to the trucks and their behaviour. Rebecca is a new member of the railway and would not know everything about her new home. I hope this leads to an episode of her realising that the trucks are troublesome, give her some conflict to deal with by being too confident about it due to last time. The trucks and their reaction towards Rebecca's enthusiasm was funny when they reached Vicarstown. Oh yeah and there were references to the past episodes and while they are a bit of a treat to see a moment from the classic series being reimagined in CGI, I think a mere mention of Thomas, Percy and James' mishaps with the trucks from the past could work as well with the short running time. The flashback recreation does chew up the running time to be honest and I think maybe the production team should down play on the references. 

But in the end, this was a very good episode and I'd enjoyed it. 

Episode Rating (So far):

Free The Roads - 10/10
Chucklesome Trucks - 8/10

Series Rating (So far):

18/20

S23 Ep.1: Free The Roads

UPDATE 14/10/19: 
INCASE YOU'RE WONDERING WHY THE S23 EPISODES HAD MOVED TO OCTOBER IS BECAUSE THE SERIES HAD MADE ITS DEBUT ON ABC KIDS AUSTRALIA AND SINCE THAT ALL OF 23 WILL BE AIRING, I'LL FOLLOWING THEM AND THEIR LISTING ORDER IS DIFFERENT COMPARE TO THE US AND THE UK.

We are now in year 2 of the new 'Big World Big Adventure' series and while some are still bitter about the change, the series had seen some success. One of which is the show has a 40% increase of viewership in the UK and broadcasters around the world are demanding more Thomas content thanks to S22 and the BWBA movie, so the new format is here to stay. Season 23 had also started quite early compare to the usual September release. It had started in Mexico around May as well as the United States on Nick Jr the same month, despite that its still only exclusive to people who had paid for the channel. Now that it's September, the UK and Australia now have S23. Despite that S22 was a bit of a mixed bag, let's hope that the production team had learned from the mistakes and hope that S23 is an improvement to its predecessor. But first:

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

FREE THE ROADS

Written by

Michael White

Directed by
Dianna Basso

Produced by
Tracy Blagdon 

Air Date

2/09/19 -UK
14/10/19 - AUS

Plot 
Bulgy thinks that people should travel by bus instead of rail, until he learns that having so many passengers is not easy for the buses on their own.

It's good to see that Bulgy hadn't been forgotten by the production team since his return in S21. I think this was a strong opener for the new season and I find it to be such a refreshing plot give it that it's a 'road vs. rail' storyline instead of the overused 'steam vs. diesel' trope. Yeah the former had been done before in the past but it was barely used compare to the latter. It's also good to see Bulgy in character and the fantasy sequence I think was very funny and fits in well with the story. The new detailing that the characters were given may look odd at first but honestly it's quick getting used to. I especially love that the animators had given Bertie and Bulgy there license plate numbers that he given in the Railway Series book, a nice little easter egg for older fans. For those wondering what it means, Bertie's license plate is a reference to C. Reginald Dalby's initials and the year when Edward's book was released (1954). Bulgy's license plate is pretty much a shorten version of his name. The message that the episode shows was nice too about doing a job on our own maybe easy but it's better to have help instead despite the differences. 

Episode Rating (so far):

Free The Roads - 10/10

Series Rating (So far):
10/10

DVD Review: A Colourful World

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

A COLOURFUL WORLD

Episodes

An Engine Of Many Colours
Hunt the Truck
Counting On Nia
Tiger Trouble
Thomas Goes to Bollywood
Thomas in the Wild
Thomas and the Dragon
The Water Wheel

Special Features
Thomas' Big World: Different Ways To See The World
Thomas' Big World: Still The Best Of Friends
Meet The Characters: Ashima
Meet The Characters: Noor Jehan
UN Stories: Life On Land
UN Stories: Gender Equality

Written by

Micheal White
Lee Pressman
Becky Overton
Davey Moore

Directed by

Dianna Basso

Produced by

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Micaela Winter (HIT/Mattel)

Tracy Blagdon (Jam Filled)

Distributed by

HIT Entertainment/Mattel Creations (UK)

Release Date

29/07/19

Before we await for the upcoming two parter special 'Digs and Discoveries', the UK had finally been given the final S22 DVD of Thomas & Friends. Featuring two episodes from new writer and Thomas fan, Micheal White. So here are my views on 'A Colourful World'. 

EPISODES

The DVD consists three Sodor and China episodes and two India episodes. The first three were really good episodes and I still hold my opinion on them when the episodes debuted last year. 'An Engine of Many Colours' and 'Hunt The Truck' may have been written to the standard formula for the refreshed series, but how the way Micheal White handled them makes them the best episodes of the season in my opinion. The fantasy sequences really fit well into the story in James' episode they were dreams and in Bill and Ben's case it fits in well because it adds more to their worries. They were not just randomly placed to add as filler, they were massaged well into the story. 

'Counting On Nia' is an episode I feel that would relate to actual immigrants when they enter into a new country and Nia not understanding numbers in english was also something that is new to me. I remember after watching the episode I researched about numbers in Africa and it turns out that they are written differently. I understand that not everyone likes Nia because she replaced Edward and she didn't have any episodes to flesh out, but I didn't like the criticism that she was getting and that was because some claimed that Nia was a 'Mary Sue'. A character who is absolutely perfect and bears no flaws not one bit, almost like Superman. To me her not understanding numbers in english is a bit of a flaw because she was new to Sodor and it resulted her to have an accident until Annie and Clarabel had helped her understanding numbers through animals, plants and all. It gives the message that there can be solutions to a problem. To me it makes me believe that Nia has story potential for things that can relate to an immigrant maybe have an episode dealing with home sickness or wanting to celebrate Christmas in the way she had celebrated in her own country and have one of the Sodor engines being angry that there traditions are being spoilt for someone else.

Another episode that I did like and I considered this to be the best of the China episodes and that was 'Thomas and the Dragon'. It feels like Davey Moore's 'Batucada' episode that he did for the Brazil as it combines both culture and story so well and 'Tiger Trouble' was probably the best India episode before 'Crowning Around' came along and took the top spot. The India episodes from S22 weren't the best lot of episodes despite that I think 'Trusty Trunky' and 'Thomas and The Monkey Palace' as OK but looking back, the conflict wasn't strong in those stories. However 'Tiger Trouble' had added much strong conflict dealing with animal hunters and a good moral on how we should protect animals from harm. Plus it gave Shankar a bit depth as a lover of animals. A bit like Henry and his love of nature.

'Thomas Goes To Bollywood' wasn't awful but a bit bad. I still believe that it was a huge loss for Rajiv to take the spotlight with his arrogant persona, thankfully 'Crowning Around' made up for that. The ending wasn't really good though as there was no real danger for the arrogant actor and everyone hailed Thomas as a hero. It could've been better if the truck of mattresses wasn't placed probably for the actor and Thomas had to act fast to save him from an accident.

'Thomas In The Wild' was OK but it was more educational and less on story. But the Panda's I say are adorable. However I can take that episode over any Miller/Barlow era story any day and the fantasy sequence gave me a good chuckle and it kind of make sense considering that Thomas would've never seen a Panda.

'The Water Wheel' however was just confusing, the story started off with Hong-Mei talking about how bamboo is important, then it was about Thomas chasing a water wheel and the moral was about how important water is. I said it before in my episode review and I'll say it here. The episode could've worked if it were focused on Hong-Mei with her competitive and one track mind behaviour. There was no rain happening for a while and it was a hot summers day, Hong-Mei was bored in her shed as she can't run and so went out of her shed despite the ban. After racing around she was running out of water and tries to find a water tower but all them are dried up because of the lack of rain. Luckily she found a water wheel made of bamboo and the people helped her by filling her water tank from the river. Hong-Mei was happy and learnt that saving water is important.

SPECIAL FEATURES

The special features are pretty much what you can find on the offical Thomas US YouTube channel. However these videos are UK dubbed so for some it is a first. The first video is about Thomas explaining about different ways to travel around the globe. A nice video for young kids to understand the difference of travel. The second is of course a way of explaining to kids about friends who may live far away but that you are still the best of friends no matter how far you really are. I think they should've placed this video on the Steam Team DVD when it was released in 2018 to give more kids the message about Edward and Henry's departure from the Steam Team. But despite that it is still a good message to kids. 

The next video is another 'Meet the Characters' and this time with Ashima. This video however was never released on the YouTube channel until June 26th 2019. It was first discovered through a user on twitter through an on-demand streaming website called 'Kabillion'. Why was this never released with the others officially, I don't know. The other is about Noor Jehan. These videos are a nice way to express about the characters and what they do, but they don't really justify the personalities of these characters. I hope the writers of the show give these two there time to shine and not make them static characters.

We also have the two UN goal videos that were released on the US channel a year ago. Since the refresh series was shown to the public, Mattel had announced that they've been working with the United Nations and explain about the goals through Thomas to young kids. I like these videos and I really don't see how teaching kids to respect everyone equally and to respect life on land as 'politically correct' or political considering that the some people of the world don't really show respect that much today to other people and animals.  

OVERALL

The DVD doesn't have the best of the episodes but I don't think they are not god awful to sit through. If you feel the same about these episode I recommend buying episodes separately on iTunes, that's what I do when Australia release DVDs here as they are the same as the UK's. But if you have kids that like these episodes, then this DVD could be for you. The special features are nice and I think they are goods for kids too.  

Rating: 7/10

DVD Review: The Complete Series 20

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

THE COMPLETE SERIES 20

Written by

Lee Pressman

Andrew Brenner

Davey Moore

Helen Farrall

Tit for Tat, Mike's Whistle & 

Useful Railway 
Originally Written by

The Rev.W.Awdry

Directed by 

Dianna Basso 

Produced by

Robert Anderson (Arc Production)

Tracy Blagdon (Arc/Jam Filled)

Ian McCue (HIT/Mattel)

Episodes

Sidney Sings

Toby's New Friend

Henry Gets the Express

Diesel and the Ducklings

Bradford the Brakevan

Saving Time

Ryan & Daisy

Pouty James

Blown Away

The Way She Does It

Letters to Santa 

Love Me Tender

The Railcar and the Coaches

Mucking About

Cautious Connor

All in Vain

Buckled Tracks and Bumpy Trucks

Tit for Tat

Mike's Whistle

Useful Railway

Extraordinary Engines - BONUS DISC

Engine of the Future 

Henry in the Dark

The Missing Breakdown Train

Hugo and the Airship

Three Steam Engines Gruff

Skiff and the Mermaid

Release Date

27/05/19

Distributed by

HIT Entertainment/Mattel Creations

After the debut of S19, some fans weren't really hyped up for S20 after what we saw last season. However all that changed when this season aired in the UK in 2016. Lots of good and interesting episodes including three adaptations of the Small Railway Engines book and the last time Railway Series stories were adapted was from the fourth season! Now that three years had passed, does this series still hold up? Let's find out.

EPISODES

The first series collection DVD to be released after BWBA being brand new. To be honest it wasn't as strange to watch these episodes today after seeing the freshened up series. However you can see the difference in the pacing of the stories of course. Does the series still hold up though after three years? I believe so. I still have a love for these episodes and I'm still amazed that, at the time, 21 years later we finally have three more Railway Series adapted stories, something that I thought would never happen given that the show is more focused on original stories not from the books. I honestly don't believe that we'll see more of these happening within the new series that we have today and I personally don't see it as a huge loss and I'll explain that later in my overall section.

I still love 'Diesel and The Ducklings'. Diesel to me is a very complex character and the episode makes him more of a third dimensional character and honestly I liked that much more than him being just a villain. It gives the moral that it's OK to showcase your soft side no matter how rough and tough you look and quite honestly, we need an episode like that in today's world. However I do wish that Duck was the one blackmailing Diesel about his soft side as he and Diesel have a bad history together and for Duck his message would be that revenge can't be sweet, of course this is what lead me to write the quadrilogy for my NWR Tales series.  

I still stand by my opinion that I stated back in 2017 in my 'Team Up With Thomas' DVD review that the episode 'Blown Away' really isn't one of my favourites. Skiff to me was a bland character, he wasn't interesting in 'Sodor's Legend of The Lost Treasure' and he didn't have that much character progression. I know he stood up towards Sailor John for doing something wrong but it only lasted for like a few seconds. It's that one moment you see it but if you turn your head and focus on something you've missed it. He's not by all means a terrible character I just wish they've done more for him than being this naive little sail boat.

I'm not too much of a fan of 'Pouty James' as I feel that his character has been flanderised here. But I kind of have a bit of soft spot for it as I can see Brenner capturing the classic series feeling towards it after rewatching it for sometime. The same can be applied for 'Henry Gets The Express', despite that Henry didn't have much of a personality to shine here, it was still an enjoyable episode and I see this working in the classic series.

It's also strange that the two Glynn episode's weren't on this release despite the fact that they were released alongside two S20 DVDs and were placed within S20. There's really an unknown reason, maybe because they were placed within the S21 package? But it looks like we might have to wait until next year to find out.  All the episodes from this DVD looking back is very good in my opinion and I believe they still hold up in the test of time. It's not a perfect season as there are some dudded ones here and there.

BONUS DISC

The bonus DVD is pretty much a left over from probably some unsold copies of the 2017 tent pole DVD. There are still the DVD commercials for Thomas products like the now defunct 'Adventures' range and the 'My First Thomas' baby merchandise, not the Golden Bear toy range. I haven't seen the episodes from this DVD apart from 'Three Steam Engines Gruff' and I have a bit of a soft spot for it and I think it's the nostalgia that's talking as I do love the Thomas, Toby and Percy combo here. But looking outside from the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia, the episode is still a dud. To be honest this could've worked for the likes of Bill, Ben and Timothy. 

Imagine that it was Halloween on Sodor and the twins love to play spooky tricks on the engines, especially Timothy. The twins made up a story about the three billy goats gruff to easily scare Timothy and one night there was a strange sound at the clay pits. Timothy told the twins who were shocked to hear that there is such a thing. The three engines heard the sound again realising that it was Trevor helping out Marion delivering some loose rock from a storm. This may sound similar to my Halloween story in 2018, of course the idea from that episode did come from SiF's blog review of 'Three Steam Engines Gruff'. 

I'm still not a fan of Hugo. I felt his debut episode was rather flat. He was never given a reason to be on Sodor and compare his episode to 'Harvey to the Rescue'. In Harvey's episode, the engines criticised him for being different because he has a crane on top of his boiler however after Percy had an accident he proved his worth by rescuing him and the other engines found him useful because of it. In Hugo's episode, he was being put down upon because of the constant fear that the steam engines on Sodor might be replaced by him but because Percy saw how they were putting him down they cheer for him. It would've been better if Andrew Brenner had gone for Hugo trying prove his worth, in my opinion he could've worked alongside Daisy and she sees him as a threat to her, it could've been unique as we have a diesel fearing to be replaced by another diesel. Just like Salty fearing that Porter might replaced him in 'Away From the Sea' in S17. I remember hearing from SiF that there were going to be more plans for Hugo but I think with the production of BWBA being green lit and with that S21 had to be cut short, he was probably given the chop. However if Thomas goes to Germany in BWBA, perhaps he might interact with him there. 

Another episode that I didn't find as entertaining is 'The Missing Breakdown Train'. It was nice to see Judy and Jerome again but the entire episode was almost nothing. It was two cranes wanting to be moved again and that's it not much else until Daisy fell off the line. I think a much better approach should be the two cranes wishing to be used for an emergency but Rocky was doing all the rescue work. But when Daisy had her accident, Thomas was to fetch Rocky but he was busy elsewhere and the only cranes were Judy and Jerome. After rescuing the search and rescue centre vehicles congratulated them and the Fat Controller made them members of the team. It would give off the message that two are better than one. Plus when it comes to the running time you can see why they made it shorter now. 8 3/4 minutes for such a minimal story relies so much on filler to fill in the time and I think this episode could maybe work within the new time limit. Honestly this was probably the weakest tent-pole release in my opinion. Not much of the episodes were interesting and the only one that was good was 'Henry In The Dark'.

OVERALL

Season 20 still holds up in my opinion but it's not a perfect season. There some good stories and there are some duds. I love the Railway Series adaptations that Brenner had brought in, but with the idea of them working in the series now, I don't see it as a huge loss. It's great that more of the Rev.W.Awdry's stories had been placed in the TV series canon but with the shorter running time and the fantasy sequences eating most of it up, I see it as impossible. But why isn't it a huge loss? If you look around on the internet you will find many fan made productions of the non-adapted stories in any form (Wood, Hornby, Bachmann, Trainz etc.) it may not be the TV series but it's the best of what we got. Plus when you look at the official YouTube channel, the Railway Series stories are still being told by Mark Moraghan's character, Mr. Evans, which was 'Thomas and the Guard'. I don't know how many shorts there are but I hope there are more to come.

RATING: 6.5/10

DVD Review: Monkey Trouble!

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

- Thomas and The Monkey Palace

- Cyclone Thomas

- Banjo and The Bushfire

- Samson and the Fireworks

- School of Duck

- Rosie is Red

- Seeing Is Believing 

- Apology Impossible

-Thomas' Animal Ark

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 

Toy Review: Trackmaster Push Along

Happy belated New Year! I hope everyone is having a good year so far. Since there isn't any new Thomas DVD released yet in the UK and since Mattel had announced via twitter that they aren't planning any DVDs for the US anytime soon, here is the first post for 2019 about the new range that will be replacing 'Adventures' this year and beyond (maybe). Anyway, here is my review on the new range and here is usual warning: 

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

TRACKMASTER PUSH ALONG

This is their literal logo. The push along name is on the bottom let hand corner.

Back in 2018, 'Tootally Thomas' had announced that Mattel were cancelling their Adventures range due to poor sales. To me this was an unexpected and disheartening surprise. Considering that these days the toys that Mattel had released under the Thomas banner have been given mixed reception among parents and fans, Adventures, to me, at least had some quality added to it despite the squat cabs and large dimension. Plus it is strange how Mattel cancelled the line in just a year since its debut, but I guess because it was a new range and a new range means buying the same characters and sets again because its incompatible with the previous range before it, which I get from the consumer side.

Anyway, when the new Trackmaster Push Along pictures came to surface on the internet, there was some mixed reception. I honestly try and defend some of Mattel's products such as Trackmaster and Wood, yeah I don't think Wood was that bad. Heck even when they introduced the large magnets in the Take-N-Play range, I defended that strongly because they are a magnet! But after seeing some, some of the character's modelling was off putting like Belle, Gordon, Henry and James look more like monster trucks rather than engines. However there are some good ones that I consider buying such as Rebecca, Rajiv, Rosie, Shane etc. as they look more better compare to the other ones. 

I bought the Thomas model just recently as of writing this and to be honest he looks good but the toy isn't really that different expect for the slight height and the Trackmaster coupling. They can couple up to the Adventure toys. It's really not any different compare to their previous range and that's it really.

But my main gripe is the name of it all. Why call it 'Trackmaster'? Did Mattel do some market research and found that their main seller is the Trackmaster range or did they pull that out of their head at the last minute? To me the name can be quite confusing for the consumer considering that the packaging looks vastly similar to one another. What would happen if their's a character that a child wants in Trackmaster battery form and it turns out to be from this range and when they get home they realise it doesn't take batteries at all. Nothing is really distinct. What Mattel could've done was keeping the range as 'Adventures' but tool it up to make it compatible to both (Trackmaster/Adventures) tracks or better yet, leave the Adventures range alone and actually make tracks and sets like the Super Station! Cause if parents collect different ranges all together why not make one whole track system that can work?

The Super Station set had been given an award in 2017 by the 'Oppenheim Toy Portfolio' and was a popular selling toy too, you think with that success Mattel might want to try and create more sets for that and it would make sense too considering that all of the Thomas toys released by Mattel can fit all on that one track. I don't know what Mattel's idea was for the Super Station, but I believe they had many complaints from parents how, in all honesty, that the various Thomas toys don't work on track that are not really compatible.

'Trackmaster Push Along' Thomas with 'Adventures' Ace 

on 'Adventures' track.

The sets for this new range however seem rather lazy with the wagon it's provided. I mean, it sticks out like a sore thumb and what they could've done instead was reuse the wagons and carriages from the 'Adventures' range. If Mattel are cost cutting things why not reuse those toys and save parents the trouble on buying new sets and toys? In the end, the range looks OK but considering that Adventures went under the knife due to poor sales most likely because parents have to buy the same characters again for compatibility, I don't see this range lasting well. If there are any parents reading this, I suggest maybe buy characters that your children don't have and not worry about buying the sets if you have 'Adventures'. If their are parents who child are just getting into Thomas, I think their isn't much option unless who may have a family member or a friend who are willing to give away their lot if their kid had grown out of Thomas or eBay if someone is selling sets, toys and accessories. If not, like I said before, there isn't any other as some stores have very little to make way for this range.

Rating: 3.5/10