Series 16, Episode 17 Review: Welcome Stafford

It wouldn’t be a new series of Thomas, without HiT introducing another a one time character, of which will soon be turned into a Wooden Railway model, a Take Along/Take ‘N’ Play model, and  a Trackmaster train, so us fans can add him/her to our huge Thomas collections, and I’m the first to admit to it. Today, we met for the first (and probably last) time, Stafford, all fans were made the more excited when it turned out he was the first electric engine to ever appear in the Thomas TV series. But the script for today’s episode was still as terrible as usual.

Today’s story was so like many others written before, and has the name Sharon Miller all over it. At least, within Stafford being an electric engine, she was more aware of the terminology used for the episode, with Victor even correcting Spencer when saying Stafford could puff. Even though the show is now mostly aimed at the American market, it still surprises me that we heard Spencer say: “battery, smattery!” and call Thomas a little fellow, we the audience of the country Thomas was created by,  feel all the more angry at the Americanising of Awdry’s once very British creation, when hearing this being said by one of the only engines to be introduced since series 6 that has felt like an all-British engine, saying such type of lingo, and let me guess, it will be said in the American version as; “little fella,” (No offence to  Glenn Wrage, who of course, voices Spencer across the pond.)

Sharon Miller has actually received minor praise by fans for finally doing some research, but in my opinion, she probably did nothing, zero, nought. She probably named him Stafford, for probably one of the only things she knows about Thomas the Tank Engine, is  that the UK Thomas Land is in Staffordshire, and Greg Tiernan, used his knowledge of British railway history, in picking the North Staffordshire Railway battery-electric No. 1, as Stafford’s prototype.

As normal, Nitrogen are trying their hardest to put a pretty face on the terrible writing, we all know that, but we should be more grateful towards them, for they are indeed, doing their best, and it’s so wonderful seeing the animation company behind the show to have such passion towards Thomas, along with the show’s roots, and it’s modern image, we sometimes give them criticism that sounds the same as if it is being given to the writing team, for we should realises that, within the fact they do their very best with Thomas, and  we could have had worst, we shouldn’t take them for granted, for we don’t know who we are getting next as the people who are in charge of how our number one engine looks. They do realises what they might not have gotten right, and improve on it in the next series, the fact that break vans should be on every train is one of them, and we’ve seen all the more of the greatness in fixing their errors.

Over all, today’s episode was bad, so it was average, but I too, must say, WELCOME STAFFORD!

Thanks for reading,

Jacob