Monday 21 November 2016

S20 Ep.6: Saving Time

I had this done before I went over to America earlier in November. It's good to see milkshake not leaving these episodes back longer than what they did for S19 last year. But despite that here are my views on the latest episode: 

THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FANBASE

SAVING TIME
Written by
Andrew Brenner

Directed by
Dianna Basso

Produced by
Ian McCue (HIT)

Air Date
21/11/16 

Plot
Samson boasts to the other engines that he has been given a very special job taking stones from the quarry to the docks. But when he learns that Thomas has been assigned the same task, Samson tries to find another way to show everyone that he’s very important. He decides to take more trucks than he should, insisting that it will save time. But with so many heavy trucks, Samson can’t get over Gordon’s Hill! 

PRO
- Sir Handel's brief classic persona
- Moral: Sounds good but does it deliver?
- Thomas' cheeky persona

CON
- I think Samson might need more development, hopefully in future

Samson can be quite a divisive character among some people from the fanbase. To be honest I do like Samson but I think Philip is getting some proper development at the moment with examples like 'Toby's New Friend' and him in 'The Great Race', we never saw him boasting about his race with Gordon stating that he was 'the fastest' but more about him stating that we can do anything we want to if we just put our minds to it and that his optimism but naive self was showing that. 

The moral, the way that I see it, feels like 'It may sound good but does it deliver?' It sounds good for Samson to save time by taking more trucks but it didn't deliver because of the weight of the trucks and the obstacles that are ahead of him. It's a good moral for kids to think before we act. I do like how Thomas delivers his cheekiness to Samson, it's great to see that rather then him being the typical hero of many stories so good work for Brenner on that and he didn't really feel forced in this episode either. Yes he could've been easily replaced by different engine like maybe Stanley but it just felt natural for Thomas to be there. 

Of course there was Sir Handel from what I can see was his S4 persona, with him laughing at the engines and their quarrel. Of course it was on a minuscule second but it was nice to hear that sound again and plus Keith Wickham had improved his voice for Sir Handel too. A bit squeaky but less nasally. 

Even though I do like Samson and he can be a loveable buffoon, I do wish to see the writing team build up his character in the future. I personally don't want to see him as a one-dimensional character in the coming years, hopefully if the writing team bring on an episode with him and his new brake van Bradford we might see that happening, after all this episode by TV schedules in Japan and North America is set before Bradford's episode. Bradford and him could make a great duo together with Bradford's army style persona and Samson's head strong appearance. Hopefully the team does a good job on that. At the end of the day, the episode was not bad but it could've been much better. It's nice to see Samson again in it as the main role though I do wish we see more development of his character. It might've worked better if it were Samson being tricked by Diesel or Sir Handel as long as they have a reason why to trick Samson like what Diesel did to Hiro in 'No More Mr. Nice Engine'. The story was plain and a simple slice of life story. Not a bad episode but not what consider as memorable among other S20 episodes.

Episode Ratings:
Sidney Sings - 8/10

Overall Rating:
49/50

I will review more episodes of S20 until I get back from America in December. 

Friday 4 November 2016

DVD Review: Full Steam To The Rescue

THESE OPINIONS ARE MY OWN AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE

FULL STEAM TO THE RESCUE
Episodes

Written by
Becky Overton
Davey Moore
Andrew Brenner

Special Features
Bonus episode: The Christmas Coffee Pot
Bonus episode: Over The Hill
Really Useful Engines
The Earl's Quiz
Landmarks of Sodor
The Fat Controller's Tales
Guess Who?
Music Video: Glynn's Christmas Wish

Directed by
Don Spencer
Dianna Basso

Produced by
Ian McCue (HIT)
Robert Anderson (Arc)
Tracy Blagdon (Arc)
Jennifer Hill (Arc)

Release Date
24/10/16

Distributed
HIT Entertainment

So after a long wait, we finally get the last six episodes of the nineteenth season that had aired in Japan back in January 2016. One of the episodes that was released on DVD was 'Wild Water Rescue', as a Target exclusive for a Trackmaster train set over in the US. However we finally have all of these episodes in good quality footage.

This was originally suppose to come out before my 'Ultimate Friendship Adventure' review, however UFA came out before I got my copy of this DVD:

EPISODES
The episodes consist of the last remaining S19 episodes that were aired in Japan back in Jan.2016. My views of these episodes can be seen with the link provided above. The episodes that I do like from this DVD, as mentioned in my 'Ultimate Friendship Adventures' review are 'Thomas the Babysitter', 'No Help At All' and 'Goodbye Fat Controller' and of course my least favourites are the other three. My views though on 'Wild Water Rescue' had changed as the story felt rather plain but it's not a terrible episode with its moral in the end.

SPECIAL FEATURES 


The special features are the same as what they are in the 2016 Christmas DVD over in the US. So my views on them can be seen here. However for the UK audience they were however treated to two bonus Christmas episodes from the 20th season. The next three will be available on the UK's 'Thomas' Christmas Carol' which comes out later this month. I don't know why but I believe it could be because of Channel 5's scheduling for the show? After all they had aired the Christmas episodes of S19 in January 2016 and I think the people behind Thomas might have thought to give these episodes out in time for Christmas, I don't know. But I hope this means we see the UK and US being in sync with each other when it comes to the Christmas releases *fingers crossed*, hopefully the generic releases too maybe. The S20 Christmas episodes will be kept aside during S20's TV run.

OVERALL
The episodes in my opinion are a hit and miss to me but there are fans that would enjoy some of these stories. It's great to see the two episodes from S20 having a spot on this DVD too and the special features can be entertaining for the young audience and for the older audience too. The DVD itself is alright but maybe the DVDs for the UK should revert back the same way as the US ones with just the intro, episodes and intervals and then song and credits. It flows nicely in my opinion.

RATING:
7/10


Thursday 3 November 2016

DVD Review: Ultimate Friendship Adventures

THESE ARE SOLEY MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT INFLUENCED FROM THE THOMAS & FRIENDS FAN BASE

ULTIMATE FRIENDSHIP ADVENTURE
Episodes
Saving Time

Written by
Andrew Brenner
Helen Farrall 
Lee Pressman
Davey Moore

Directed by
Dianna Basso

Produced by
Ian McCue

Distributed by
Universal

Release Date
1/11/16 - iTunes
8/11/16 - DVD

So here we are, the final Thomas DVD release for 2016. To me though this one was strange. The strange thing is that Universal hadn't advertise this as a digital download on their website, they only said that it'll be release on DVD with no mention of it being released for digital download. It wasn't until Michael M, great composer on YouTube and nice guy, had messaged the official Thomas Facebook page about it and placed it on Twitter. 

The question is why didn't Universal advertise it? They did with previous titles before and they hadn't done a preordering thing since 'The Great Race' whereas two years ago when they first started they did that with the yearly specials and episode releases. It's been two years and are the people at Universal that lazy with the Thomas stuff? But aside from that little issue, This DVD features for the first time, the US dub of the remaining last episodes of season 19 and five S20 episodes which are shown for the first time on DVD, although S20 is currently on air in North America on PBS Kids and those four S20 episodes had been broadcasted on TV in the UK. So, here is the final Thomas DVD release and final review for 2016!  

EPISODES



The episodes consist of five episodes from the recent 20th season with four episodes that had made their debut on UK television back in September 2016 and one is awaiting to air on UK, Australian and North American television as well. I had already expressed my views on the first four S20 episodes and the links are provided above. In short those four episodes are pretty good and it gives S20 the ultimate feeling that the entire season would probably be better than S18. 

The DVD also consists of five S19 episodes and these are released for the first time in America. These episodes had been released on television in Japan in January 2016 and had also been released on 'Full Steam to The Rescue' over in the UK back in October 2016. There are some good episodes but some are not, in my opinion. The good ones from the 19th season on this DVD are 'Thomas the Babysitter', 'No Help At All' and 'Goodbye Fat Controller',  you can see why in the links provided above and of course the least favourable episodes in my opinion are 'Rocky Rescue' and 'The Other Side of The Mountain' and once again, my views are provided in the links above. 

The episode 'Saving Time' however will be left aside during S20's TV run. 


SPECIAL FEATURES


N/A

OVERALL

Yeah so the DVD felt like maybe a last minute idea to release something for the North American audience or maybe they didn't have any intervals at the time of making it, I don't know. But overall I think it was an alright DVD. There are episodes that many fans might or might not enjoy, however the best outcome for the iTunes version is that we have crystal clear HD and Arc's animation is beautiful to look at. 


RATING:
7/10

I will be putting my S20 reviews on hold at the moment as I will be heading over to America to visit my sister and her husband. I have the Christmas episodes and 'Saving Time' filed away in my drafts and since I don't know when the air dates for Australia's broadcasting will happen, I have a feeling it would most likely air while I'm over in the United States. I know that S20 is currently airing over in America at the moment, but I most likely won't have time to review what episode airs when I'm over there and I don't think it would be brand new ones as well.