Series 16, Episode 19 Review: Happy Birthday Sir!

Well, we’ve finally reached it, Happy Birthday Sir! THE LAST EVER EPISODE TO BE WRITTEN BY SHARON MILLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But the last ever to be animated by Nitrogen :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(.

 I must admit that secretly, I thought that this episode might be of better standard, so Sharon could prove that she could have written a half decent script for the show in all these years, and to give a good swansong to Tiernan and team, and any fan who read the info given beforehand about the episode, had their fingers crossed that it would be Thomas and Victoria, tweaked for the CGI series, giving Nitrogen what they always in a script that was a Railway Series love letter, but not surprisingly, it was totally far from it. Sharon Miller ends her reign of terror on Thomas with an average episode of hers, with an engine (or a track inspection vehicle in this case) caring far more about something else instead of his job, three strikes, an incident with the catchphrase, ‘luckily, no one was hurt,’ being said, despite the fact Winston would have got dented in real life by Thomas bumping into him, with his driver probably getting whiplash, and everything being alright in the end. Yes, after 7 years of working on Thomas, we still get nothing but the same old story.

This is the first time we’ve seen Winston, (except if you’ve seen the preview of him in Blue Mountain Mystery) and it was not a good episode to show him in, if we were going to have the series that takes place after the annual special shown before hand, and by the way, it’s the last episode of series 16, and you’ve just had Winston put into an episode  now, he could have been in earlier, because of the fact that any episode could go to any character, and to think, Thomas was actually concentrating on his work in this episode!!!!!!!?????? FINULLY!!!!!!!! We had to wait for Sharon Miller’s finial ever episode to see our number one engine doing what and acting more like how he should.

But as said, Sharon Miller has had her name cursed by Thomas fans for 7 years, she knows we all secretly wish her good riddance, but Nitrogen can’t be told enough how sorry we are to see them leave the show, and a huge THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for all you have done for Thomas, they have done their very best for him in the last 4 years, and we can’t say how much we appreciate it.

But despite their departure, there is going to be brilliant change for next year, one of them being that the new script writer for Thomas is none other than Andrew Brenner!!!!!!!!!!!! The very man who wrote the original version of HENRY’S FOREST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!and several other episodes inserted deeply into us who were children of the true Thomas TV series, and there is a rumor going around that producer, Ian McCue is trying to make a version of the Thomas series, true to the show’s origins, of which, if true, I’m very, very excited about.

I’m sure Arc Productions will be a dedicated team behind Thomas, and the standard for the CGI will be at the same great level as Nitrogen’s, it shouldn’t surprise us if another animation company is just as dedicated towards making Thomas the Tank Engine, within him being the most beloved children’s character of all time.

We all deeply believe the series as a whole, will be much better with the changes next year, but we can all do our part in making the series better We should still write to HiT, saying what we would like put back into the series, or what direction we would like to see the show take, and maybe fan mail will now be taken more seriously. Continue writing essays, blogs (like mine), and videos of your thoughts on the recent Thomas series. If you got another of the same railway book for Christmas, or copies of photographs you took when last visiting one of the many steam railways in the UK, send them in to Arc Productions, so they can use to build their own research library. Do whatever you can to help make what we can all proudly call the modern day version of our favourite show.

Thanks for reading throwout my reviews of series 16, and I hope you will continue reading my blog,

Jacob