Thomas & Friends Season 23: Week 1

Wow, it has been nearly a year since I last reviewed anything related to Thomas and Friends on the blog. With a lot of focus going into revisiting the first six seasons of My Little Pony, as well as reviewing its ninth and final season, the Thomas side of things seems to have been neglected. Well, to be fair, there wasn't much for me to talk about, but with season 23 finally airing in the United Kingdom, I think it's high time we got back to the popular show about talking trains. Beginning with the first week of new episodes.

Ever since Bulgy made his surprise comeback in Unscheduled Stops, fans wanted to see more of him, and I was certainly one of those fans. The roads seemed to be a little too friendly, so to have a road antagonist like Bulgy would be a good way to shake things up. This episode makes him so twisted, I love it. Heck, that fantasy sequence proves just how messed up he is in the head. Who else would ever think of Percy being an over-the-top supervillain?

The plot is pretty simplistic; Bulgy taints a water tower and then gets his comeuppance by being overloaded with passengers. It feels like something from Awdry's pen, and it follows the three-act story formula perfectly; actions, consequences, and resolution.

There's... not really much else to talk about here. According to Michael White, George was intended to be in Max and Monty's place when Bulgy accidentally taints the water tower. That's a missed opportunity right there as it would've been nice to see two significant road antagonists together in the same episode. At the same time, it's frustrating that Mattel couldn't be bothered to render a new character from the ground up just for one scene, but it's nice to acknowledge that those we haven't seen in a while haven't been forgotten about.

Rating: Excellent (10/10)

It's fair to say that I practically tore the India-themed episodes of season 22 a new one. With two episodes in particular, it felt as though the story was an afterthought to facts and exposition about India; Thomas and the Monkey Palace was basically a Miller-era script based in India and nothing happened in Thomas Goes to Bollywood.

And then came this episode. I won't be beating around the bush; I absolutely loved it.

For a start, they practically focus on a character that's not Thomas - in this case, Rajiv - and it allowed the other characters to shine through on their own (some episodes out of season 22 did, but that's beside the point). Though Ashima still feels incredibly bland and Noor Jehan's character is a bit dry, but she does seem to show a bit of character expressing concern about her poor brakes. It's nice how a seemingly random line from her tied into the climax; that was way more than she did in all of season 22.

You also feel for Rajiv when he loses his crown after some monkeys play with it. But it's still really hilarious how he treats it like it's the end of the world, but he learned after rescuing Shankar from a runaway Noor Jehan that he didn't always need his crown to be useful and he was rewarded by having it returned to him. Rajiv might've still felt proud of it, sure, but the ending seemed to push his character in the right direction by promising to be useful regardless.

This was also probably the best use of the fantasy sequences, right next to An Engine of Many Colors. They're simple, but they show how proud Rajiv is of his crown; first is after it's been polished at the start, and the second is after he loses it. It's funny how he imagines the trucks, birds and a tiger reacting to him.

All in all, it's the best India-themed episode to date, even more so than Tiger Trouble (which, I'll admit, I was pretty harsh towards in retrospect; if I had to re-review that episode again, I'd give it either a 6 or 7/10) - though, to be fair, the bar wasn't that high to begin with. It felt a lot like a Thomas story and the moral was great.

Side note: Camille Ucan and Rose Johnson are rather lovely...!

Rating: Excellent (10/10)

This episode is all over the place; the flashbacks to Dirty Objects and Percy Takes the Plunge were fine, but I can't help but feel as though they were included for the sake of pandering. (It's the same thing with the Thomas and the Trucks portion of The Adventure Begins.) Not only that, the two incidents from said episodes were practically repeated twice - once in the fantasy sequence with Rebecca, and again with James, Thomas and Percy going through similar incidents.

Yeah, the overall premise is fairly thin for the most part, but the flashbacks/recreations/callbacks/etc. are said laid so much it's almost as if they overshadow the episode itself. Heck, it's not until halfway through the episode that Rebecca pulls her first goods train... which is simply taking trucks to Vicarstown. That being said, the trucks' reaction to Rebecca's goodbye was really funny; they're so used to success against engines not used to them that they've been thrown off of their game!

If I were to write this episode, I'd have one of the engines (maybe Gordon) tell Rebecca that mishaps with the trucks are no laughing matter, and when she's pulling the goods train, she'd ask the trucks why they enjoy doing this and they'd tell her that it's because most of the engines mistreat them every day. Still not the most exciting, but it could've had the episode stand up on its own without relying on flashbacks too much.

Rating: Okay (6/10)

Here's something I'd like to get out of the way; we never got a clear introduction to Gabriela, hence we don't see how she and Thomas met. Because of this, it almost feels as if she was just introduced with no explanation, and it's not made clear as to whether or not this or the other two episodes based in Brazil is Thomas' introduction to said country. With China (Number One Engine), India (Trusty Trunky) and Australia (Outback Thomas), we could at least tell with these episodes that it was Thomas' first time in those respective countries, but Brazil? Nada.

Okay, that issue aside (this won't affect my views on the Brazil episodes, but it was something I wanted to point out), how on earth did Thomas not know right off the bat that Gustavo reminded him of Gordon? He's a big engine that's painted blue (with some light gray on the side), has the number four on his sides and pulls an express train. That should've been obvious from the get-go! Not to mention how random the mentions of Edward, Henry and Toby are. It almost sounds like they're saying they're still around, but it feels like padding.

Still, Gustavo seems like a nice enough character, especially when Thomas realized that he wasn't as boastful like his Sudrian counterpart. That does remind me; every country he's visited thus far seems to have at least one Sudrian counterpart. Rajiv is an Indian James, Yong Bao is a Chinese Edward, Shane seems to be an Australian Henry (they're both big green engines and are very friendly; that was pretty much the best comparison I could make), and now there's a Gustavo as a Brazilian Gordon. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just something I feel like pointing out.

It's also funny how the closing segment calls back to Thomas, Terence and the Snow as opposed to Terence Breaks the Ice, the episode that included the CGI recreation. That's probably the longest gap between an older story and the newest story since the Thomas' Train callback in Confusion Without Delay.

Rating: Good (7/10)

Is it just me, or did someone at Mattel listen to Neil Young's Harvest album after reading Michael's script, and when "Heart of Gold" came up, they said "that should be this episode's title!"? Don't get me wrong; I like Neil Young's music, especially with Crosby, Stills & Nash, but the writers and/or Mattel seem to have a habit of using song titles for their episodes if Love Me Tender from season 20 and Wish You Were Here (yet to be released in the UK at the time of posting) from this season are anything to go by. But I digress.

Toby has never had the best track record when it comes to starring roles. For the first four seasons, he was very well written as the voice of reason in the branch line trio (himself, Thomas and Percy). But beginning with season five, his personality took a nose dive for the worst. Every once in a while, there was a good episode like Toby Had a Little Lamb and Toby's Afternoon Off, but the majority of roles up to season 16 sucked, whilst Signals Crossed two seasons later was... almost good. And the less said about Three Steam Engines Gruff, the better.

So it never really came as a shock to me when Toby was removed from the Steam Team along with Edward and Henry; you'd have to rewrite their character just to work within the story when they're best off as secondary characters. Yet Toby remains in the reworked Engine Roll Call; perhaps just seven engines wouldn't have worked?

Then comes Heart of Gold. It's Toby's greatest starring role since 1984, no exaggeration. A story about him being mocked by passengers just for his appearance wouldn't have been that great if it had aired during the Barlow era. But Michael White perfectly manages to mix Toby's self-doubting persona with the classic brave persona we know and love. It's the best of both worlds, and add to Toby's occasional stubbornness, it makes the tram engine more three-dimensional, proving he still has a place in the series despite being demoted. (Though I wish they'd do more with Henry than just shoving him into the background...!)

But it's not just Toby who shines as a character. Glynn and Millie's collective small role in giving him support after he was mocked for his appearance shows why they (and Stephen, despite being absent) continue to have great moments whenever they turn up, and one of the passengers who mocked Toby earlier standing up for him against Diesel's teasing was a good little bit of character development. It also helped that he and his colleague both apologized for their remarks.

Some would say that Diesel didn't add anything to the episode and to be fair, the most he does it make fun of Toby for being a museum piece. That being said, him not understanding the message "don't judge a book by the cover" was really funny. As was the thieves simply handing over the crown to Sir Robert after he commands them to. They knew they were in trouble and had no choice but to surrender. Now that's a humble failure after an exciting chase sequence.

Overall, this is the best episode of season 23, buffers down. The characters were on top form, the story flows well, the humor and action were great, and the moral was excellent. You cannot ask for more than that. Even more surprising was that no member of the current Steam Team (if we exclude Toby) turns up physically. Nothing to do with the episode itself, but I thought it was noteworthy.

Rating: Excellent (10/10)