Seasons 17-21: How the Episodes Should Be Distributed

In the previous post, I criticized Universal for their poor strategies on distributing Thomas content. After speaking with a few on DeviantArt, I thought, "How would I have distributed the episodes?" So, I came up with nineteen new(ish) DVDs focusing solely on seasons 17-21 with their own criteria:

1. All episodes of a season must be released within one year, so there will be no mixing between seasons.
2. There must be a roughly equal number of episodes among the DVDs - generally six or seven.
3. The episodic DVDs must come out at similar times in both the US and the UK, akin to the yearly specials (and yes, The Adventure Begins also gets this treatment).

That being said, let's get onto how I can fix the DVDs!

SEASON 17 (2013-2014)

Volume 1: Railway Mischief

1. Gordon Runs Dry
2. Kevin's Cranky Friend
3. Scruff's Makeover
4. Wayward Winston
5. Steamie Stafford
6. Henry's Hero
7. Not Now, Charlie!

As a minor spoiler for this blog post, most, if not all, of the DVDs are based upon the UK DVD listings with some editing here and there. My edited Railway Mischief follows the original US listing, only to be followed up by Henry's Hero and Not Now, Charlie! (akin to the UK release). I didn't include Bill or Ben? because I wanted to focus on the first two weeks of season 17, which would air later in June.

Volume 2: Santa's Little Engine

1. Santa's Little Engine
2. No Snow for Thomas
3. The Frozen Turntable
4. The Missing Christmas Decorations
5. Too Many Fire Engines
6. The Phantom Express

The UK release included three bonus episodes which ended up on Engines to the Rescue in the US. I've already included Henry's Hero on Railway Mischief, so Santa's Little Engine gets two bonus non-winter themed episodes.

Volume 3: The Thomas Way

1. The Thomas Way
2. The Switch
3. Percy's Lucky Day
4. Calm Down Caitlin
5. The Lost Puff
6. Luke's New Friend
7. Bill or Ben?

Luke's New Friend was a bonus episode for the US release, so I reinstated it as part of the episode listing. Bill or Ben?, the last remaining non-DVD exclusive season 17 episode, is tacked on at the end.

Volume 4: Spills and Thrills

1. Away From the Sea
2. The Smelly Kipper
3. No More Mr. Nice Engine
4. Gone Fishing
5. Thomas' Shortcut
6. The Afternoon Tea Express

This previously DVD-exclusive has six episodes, so I don't change anything. This will also apply to Dinos and Discoveries and Start Your Engines!.

SEASON 18 (2014-2015)

Volume 5: Trouble on the Tracks

1. Thomas the Quarry Engine
2. Not So Slow Coaches
3. Flatbeds of Fear
4. Disappearing Diesels
5. Toad's Adventure
6. Duck and the Slip Coaches
7. Old Reliable Edward

Based on the UK release; it ends with Missing Gator. I replace that instead with Old Reliable Edward to, again, focus on the first two weeks of season 18, and to avoid major spoilers for Tale of the Brave (though Reg does make a small appearance in Disappearing Diesels, but I digress).

Volume 6: The Christmas Engines

1. Last Train for Christmas
2. Long Lost Friend
3. Duncan the Humbug
4. Duck in the Water
5. The Perfect Gift
6. Toad's Bright Idea

Toad's Bright Idea is tacked onto the end of the original episode listing. I considered putting Missing Gator there, but I thought it'd be weird to see that and Long Lost Friend out of order, so I instead place it on the next DVD.

Volume 7: Signals Crossed

1. Signals Crossed
2. Marion and the Pipe
3. Duncan and the Grumpy Passenger
4. No Steam Without Coal
5. Thomas and the Emergency Cable
6. Spencer's VIP
7. Missing Gator

Based on the UK episode listing, only with Missing Gator in place of Toad's Bright Idea.

Volume 8: Dinos and Discoveries

1. Marion and the Dinosaurs
2. Millie and the Volcano
3. Timothy and the Rainbow Truck/Car
4. Samson at Your Service
5. Emily Saves the World
6. Samson Sent for Scrap

SEASON 19 (2015-2016)

Volume 9: Whale of a Tale

1. Toad and the Whale
2. Who's Geoffrey?
3. The Truth About Toby
4. Lost Property
5. Henry Spots Trouble
6. Salty All At Sea
7. Wild Water Rescue

The UK episode listing with Wild Water Rescue tacked on at the end; why that episode ended up with five season 16 episodes, I'll never know.

Volume 10: Thomas' Christmas Carol

1. Diesel's Ghostly Christmas
2. Snow Place Like Home
3. A Cranky Christmas
4. The Beast of Sodor
5. Helping Hiro

Diesel's Ghostly Christmas is one whole episode, per the US release. The UK release includes three season 20 winter episodes (those that don't feature Glynn). I instead include Helping Hiro in their place, an episode that's never been on a US DVD.

Ignore the yellow banner on top...

Volume 11: Full Steam to the Rescue!

1. Rocky Rescue
2. Very Important Sheep
3. The Other Side of the Mountain
4. Den and Dart
5. Goodbye Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt
6. No Help At All
7. Thomas the Babysitter

Five of the season 19 episodes appeared in a different order on the US DVD Ultimate Friendship Adventures, so I chose to stick with the UK episode listing instead, with Very Important Sheep in place of Wild Water Rescue and Den and Dart as the fourth episode.

Volume 12: Start Your Engines!

1. Two Wheels Good
2. Reds vs. Blues
3. Slow Stephen
4. The Little Engine Who Raced Ahead
5. Best Engine Ever
6. Philip to the Rescue

SEASON 20 (2016-2017)

7 Engine-Packed Episodes!

Volume 13: Ultimate Friendship Adventures

1. Henry Gets the Express
2. Toby's New Friend
3. Sidney Sings
4. Diesel and the Ducklings
5. Ryan and Daisy
6. Bradford the Brake Van
7. Saving Time

The episode listing is based upon the one from Tales from the Rails, minus the season 19 episodes and with Ryan and Daisy included as the fifth episode of the set. Interestingly enough, this covers the first seven episodes of season 20!

Volume 14: Tinsel on the Tracks

1. Letters to Santa
2. The Christmas Coffeepot
3. The Railcar and the Coaches
4. Over the Hill
5. Love Me Tender
6. Blown Away
7. Pouty James

All the winter episodes from season 20 are together as they should be, with the inclusion of Blown Away and Pouty James to have seven episodes.

Volume 15: Team Up with Thomas

1. Buckled Tracks and Bumpy Trucks/Cars
2. Mucking About
3. The Way She Does It
4. Mike's Whistle
5. Cautious Connor
6. All in Vain
7. Useful Railway

Three episodes have been scattered away onto other DVDs; The Way She Does It moves up as the third episode with Mike's Whistle and Useful Railway in the correct order as per the original Railway Series book. Cautious Connor and All in Vain are included between the two episodes to round out the set.

Volume 16: Extraordinary Engines

1. Engine of the Future
2. Henry in the Dark
3. The Missing Breakdown Train
4. Hugo and the Airship
5. Three Steam Engines Gruff
6. Skiff and the Mermaid
7. Tit for Tat

Unlike Spills and Thrills, Dinos and Discoveries, and Start Your Engines!, Extraordinary Engines has one extra episode - Tit for Tat - to match the other three season 20 DVDs at seven episodes each. It seems strange that it's separate from the other two Arlesdale episodes, but since it happened on the official Team Up with Thomas, it's only fair. Not only does this give Andrew Brenner one strong episode on the DVD, it also ends on a very high note.

SEASON 21 (2017-2018)

Volume 17: Danger at the Docks

1. Cranky at the End of the Line
2. New Crane on the Dock
3. Stuck in Gear
4. Springtime for Diesel
5. A Most Singular Engine
6. Philip's Number

Something I forgot to mention is that Ultimate Friendship Adventures is pushed forward as a teaser DVD for season 20. The same thing happens to Danger at the Docks. Here, I removed Den and Dart to focus solely on season 21 episodes, and Springtime for Diesel and A Most Singular Engine are swapped around. For the most part, it's unedited from the official release.

Includes 6 Episodes!

Volume 18: Christmas on Sodor

1. Terence Breaks the Ice
2. Daisy's Perfect Christmas
3. Confused Coaches
4. Emily in the Middle
5. The Big Freeze
6. Hasty Hannah

The season 20 episodes are replaced with Hasty Hannah so each season 21 DVD has six episodes each.

Volume 19: On the Go with Thomas

1. The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor
2. A Shed for Edward
3. Dowager Hatt's Busy Day
4. Runaway Engine
5. P.A. Problems
6. Unscheduled Stops

Besides the removal of Hasty Hannah, the episode listing is the same as the official release.

With all these changes made, hopefully I've gotten right what Mattel and Universal have so far gotten wrong. Not only are the episodes distributed more evenly, it gives us, as fans, more to look forward to when it comes to content. But how would you distribute the episodes? I'd love to see what you can come up with; your results may vary!

Thomas' Halloween Adventures (2018 Re-Release)

This was a little announcement that made its way on Sodor Island Forums some days ago, and it's something which has been bothering me since I first heard about it. So now I get to talk about it in full.

Thomas and Friends is no stranger to DVD re-releases. Many of them have been re-releases of the older VHS tapes from the 1990s, and most have been given upgrades to their cover artwork to try and freshen up the release. My personal favorite style is the one from the late 1990s/early 2000s with the colored border and a character (sometimes two) overlooking a scene from one of the episodes (Cranky Bugs, the re-release of Thomas Comes to Breakfast, etc.).

Which brings me onto the 2018 re-release of Thomas' Halloween Adventures. There are two issues I have with the re-release.

The first issue is that the cover above is a glow-in-the-dark outline of Thomas in CGI form for a model era DVD. I know some parents and kids don't have the best perceptions of the model era, much less The Railway Series, but I can already tell this will blow up in Universal's face because this is practically false advertising on their part.

Speaking of Universal, that brings me onto my next issue; they'd rather reissue older content than bring the American audience newer content from seasons 20 and 21. At this point, the American audience is missing out on Spencer's VIP and Toad's Bright Idea from season 18, Helping Hiro from season 19, nine episodes from season 20 (Bradford the Brakevan, Ryan and Daisy, Pouty James, Blown Away, The Way She Does It, Mucking About, Buckled Tracks and Bumpy Trucks, Mike's Whistle, and Useful Railway), and all the non-winter themed episodes of season 21. That's about three DVDs' worth of episodes!

In America, it's pretty obvious that DVDs are being made obsolete by online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu - the most recent episodic American DVDs with were Extraordinary Engines and Christmas on Sodor (I don't count Thomas' Holiday Collection because it's a compilation) - and with Big World! Big Adventures! coming to the aforementioned sites (and quite possibly a few more), it looks as though the days of buying Thomas DVDs at a department store are becoming numbered.

What makes it even more frustrating is that the season 20 and 21 episodes not released on American DVDs are stuck in the UK on Tales from the Rails, Team Up with Thomas (the 2017 version), Danger at the Docks, and On the Go with Thomas. I remember when people were frustrated that America got the episodes out on DVD first before the UK did, and right now the opposite situation is happening.

Getting back to the re-release of Thomas' Halloween Adventures; what is even the point of a re-release for DVD? If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can simply watch the episodes featured on the DVD in the form of the complete series 1-7. Hell, you can even watch seasons 16-20 there as well (though some episodes from 17, 19, and 20 are missing, and the Dinos and Discoveries episodes are part of 19 for whatever reason)! There is seriously no excuse for Universal to not bother with the season 20 and 21 episodes awaiting an American DVD release.

The bottom line is, this is another prime example of the distributors making stupid decisions for the franchise they supposedly hold copyright towards. Sure, you can get seasons 19-21 on Nickelodeon, but what about the viewers who don't have cable? DVDs are the likely option for them, but what if they can't find certain episodes? What are Universal going to do then? They'll have to do a lot to make up for how abysmal their distribution of the episodes is...

MLP Episode 813: The Mean 6

So now we've come to the final episode of the first half of season eight! The first half (School Daze-Horse Play) turned out really good, but the second half (The Parent Map-Marks for Effort) was all over the place, ranging from great to terrible. Can The Mean 6 end the first half on a high note before we enter the mid-season hiatus?

I'm gonna say it; the episode sucked, and it's earned the title of the worst episode of the show. But where do I begin with its problems?

The first problem is with the Mane Six themselves, plus Starlight. They've been hit with Steam Team Syndrome. Not that they've been made the core cast by isolating other characters (barring Starlight, they have been established as the leads since day one). No, I mean that they're practically interchangeable with one another; every time they encounter one of the Mean Six, there's a big conflict. You could have them swap places and the plot would be the same.

Case in point, Rarity and Starlight encountering Mean Applejack. Sure, Rarity said Mean Applejack looked a bit pale, and yet she didn't notice her cutie mark looked different? Not taking a look at Mean Applejack's flank makes both Rarity and Starlight look like idiots.

Adding to the stupidity is that no one knew Chrysalis was behind this scheme. Seriously, they try putting two and two together and yet they each somehow got different solutions! And once again, Twilight is an insufferable idiot by accusing Pinkie of hurting Fluttershy (at least Pinkie actually showed genuine concern for Fluttershy, which was surprising)! Do the new writers have some kind of hatred for Twilight?

Also, the way their fighting was resolved felt far too cheesy. Seriously, all the accusations, and yet it's suddenly resolved by a speech from Twilight. You could argue it's a half minute's worth, but keep in mind this is the climax of ten minutes' worth of misunderstandings (or, if you consider real time, at least a few hours)! On top of that, they're more or less in the same place they started, making the entire conflict pointless.

I'd point out the positives at this point, but... there isn't really a whole lot. There were some funny moments with the Mean Six, but they're painfully predictable. Sure, it was nice to see Chrysalis again, but it just feels anticlimactic. The Mean Six melting and turning back into trees? I'm kind of surprised they got away with that!

Final Thoughts

If you want this story done better, watch The Return of Harmony. There's a lot more character involved, there's a lesson to be learned by the end of the story, and most of all, the characters were in a different place than when they started. Heck, even To Where and Back Again got this right. The Mean 6 had no point whatsoever; it's the dictionary definition of anticlimactic, and the worst episode to come out of the show. A show that crapped out Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep and Secrets and Pies!

At least Chrysalis stayed a villain by the end...

Rating: Atrocious

MLP Episode 812: Marks for Effort

For once, we have an episode that wasn't leaked in December! Okay, technically, it aired in Finland early, but that's beside the point. And it's Nicole Dubuc's first solo episode as well! Can Marks for Effort prove that she's a good writer, or were her collaborations on Shadow Play and School Daze pure luck?

Honestly, it's still hard to say right now. It's not the strongest episode, but it isn't all that bad either. It was... fine.

One of the things which struck me was the synopsis; why would the Crusaders want to attend the School of Friendship when they're already at Cheerilee's school? Thankfully, they didn't have to deal with going to two different schools at once, and they become tutors at the School of Friendship in the end.

And then there's Cozy Glow. I don't really have too much to say about her at this point, but she looks cute and charming. Some are saying that she might be Queen Chrysalis in disguise, and whilst I don't usually comment on fandom speculation, that may actually be something the show never tackled before. Usually, when we meet an antagonist, we get the impression that they may not be one we want to mess with.

However, a downside to that is... Well, look at recent Disney villains like Hans from Frozen and Bellwether from Zootopia; their villainy comes out of nowhere and it raises questions as to how we - the audience and film's characters - were able to trust them at all.

And then we come to the comments that Diamond Tiara wasn't used in place of Cozy Glow. I genuinely believe that in Crusaders of the Lost Mark, Diamond Tiara was deliberately given a redemption just so they could write her out of future stories and push her into the background, likely because of how much the fandom hated her at the time. Considering what happened to Flash Sentry (someone who's never done anything bad), that's a possibility.

Back to the episode; this kind of raises questions in-universe as to how old the Crusaders are. We know Flurry Heart is a baby and that the Mane Six and Starlight are adults, but the Crusaders? They're still in school, and yet they act and sound like teenagers.

Also, Twilight's characterization this season is becoming more gratuitous. Why would she jump to the conclusion that the Crusaders deliberately caused Cozy Glow to fail? Yes, I get that she cares for her students having a good performance, but banning the Crusaders for a lie seems like overreaction on Twilight's end.

Getting back to Cozy Glow apparently being a secret antagonist, maybe lying about the Crusaders seems like the first sign? This should be interesting as the season progresses.

Final Thoughts

So far, this is probably Nicole Dubuc's weakest script, much of it is down to a thin plot and predictable outcome (I'm sensing a trend this season), but I'm hoping she comes to her own and improves as season eight carries on. It's nice to see a little more growth being implanted for the Crusaders, and this may be the first episode to hint at what's to come for the finale in autumn. Also, can we stop making Twilight look like an incompetent idiot when there's a serious issue at hand? Familiarity breeds contempt, and it already looks like she'll be worse than she was in season six.

Rating: Okay