If you were hoping for today’s episode to be a rewrite of the Railway Series story, We Need Another Engine, forget it, as soon as I heard the ominous words “I am Gordon, I’m fastest and best, and pull the express,” I knew we were getting the usual, despite today’s episode not being written by Sharon Miller. For it was the normal three strikes with Thomas, being his usual CGI self, for he was thinking only about being in the photographs, and not about anyone else or his job on hand. But it wasn’t Thomas’s fault that James and Percy were diverted into the sidings, it was the signalman’s, and also, having a train go past another at speed is very normal, for on most railways, if there are two lines running parallel, the second is for trains going in the opposite direction.
But enough about the script writing, because for me, the animation in today’s episode was even better than usual, and showed all the more clearly how dedicated Nitrogen are to Thomas, for when James was being put back on the rails by Rocky, it almost looked just like the classic scene from Thomas and the Breakdown Train, and many of us fans were also reminded of Thomas, Percy and the Coal when seeing Percy having a similar incident to the one he had in the original episode we all know so well, but made to look different so not to make it seem like Ms. Sandys Clarke had ripped off what is probably Christopher Awdry’s most loved Thomas story, (even though I’m sure most of the writing team haven’t ever read or seen Thomas, Percy and the Coal, let alone any other Thomas story besides their own, and even they can’t remember it). But we all got a shock when seeing the photos of real engines inside the Fat Controller’s railway book, for there inside, along with a picture of a Beyer-Garratt 2-6-2+2-6-2, (a locomotive type that Greg Tiernan has admitted having a soft spot for) we saw Duck’s old friend, City of Truro.
Now, last week, Greg reviled that he thought it was for the best that Nitrogen’s contract with HiT ended, for they were worried if they couldn’t keep up to the same standard as before, which is fair enough, but what would you rather have in the director of Thomas? someone, who when having to insert two photos of real life locomotives into an episode, chooses one of his favourite locomotive types and a famous engine, known for appearing in one of the original stories we all know and love, or someone who thinks a train is just a train, and puts in 2 locomotives, not caring whether or not they are British, or if they have anything to do with Thomas’s rich, railway realistic past. In fact, that’s a good question to answer in your comments, if you were Greg Tiernan, which two engines would you have put in the Great Railways book? My two favourite locomotive classes are the Gresley A4s and the LB&SCR E2s (which of course is Thomas’s class) but within the A4s are present in the series throw Spencer, I would put in the real life Wilbert the Forest Engine and 60163 Tornado, wonder what yours are going to be.
Thank you for reading, have a nice night, and if you are doing the same thing as me, happy reviewing!
Jacob
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