March 2011 saw the seventeenth episode of Season 15 of Thomas & Friends...
...but before the review, the usual disclaimer:
The views below are entirely those of the author and not representative of the Sodor Island Forums as a whole.
On that note, it's time to get this review underway...
Whistle while you work , Thomas is a twerp!
He's half crazy, so's the railway...!
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Wonky Whistle
Writers: Neil Ben
Thomas' Whistle is broken, so he goes to the Steamworks to have it repaired. However, he rushes off on a delivery before it is properly repaired.
Overall Impressions
I just wonder sometimes if a series about talking steam locomotives is relevant to today's youngest generation. Steam locomotives are seen sporadically on the mainline, hauling the occasional railtour. These railtours are not on, for the most part, on days or at times that today's children will be able to see them thunder past: if of course, any of today's youngest generation travel by train to school or similar.
Only on a preserved railway will children be able to get up close and personal with a real, live, and breathing, steam locomotive. What will they think, I wonder, when they see it suddenly bark smoke from its chimney, and blow steam furiously from its cylinders as it starts to move?
It is something of a contradiction in terms, that children's first contact with railways will always be through Thomas & Friends. Modern trains - which run Britain's vast network of railways on diesel fuel and electricity, whilst running on the same tracks and lines as the steam engines which populated our island long ago, have no real connection to that seen in the current Thomas & Friends series.
For a start, there is a clear and distinct difference between the health and safety I see in my scrapbook, on modern railways, and then Thomas & Friends, which seems to throw any rulebooks and common sense out of the window, and simply play around.
I mean, what part of Thomas ignoring Victor's words, and then pulling away from the Steamworks, while workmen are still on top of his boiler, did the writing team think was acceptable material for the series and its young audience?
Never mind the fact that the workmen could have quite easily fallen off and broken a few bones, or that having a faulty whistle - from 1832 onwards - has been the one thing that is guaranteed to take a steam locomotive off the rails?
Reportedly, George Stephenson intervened to make it a rule that all locomotives should carry an "audible signalling device", known then as a "steam trumpet", after an incident where a locomotive collided with a horse-drawn cart at a level crossing on the Leicester and Swannington Railway.
Although this incident is disputed by historians, there is general agreement that the use of a steam driven whistle on all steam locomotives originated from in and around that date, and from Stephenson's original patent for the "steam trumpet".
It became a rule - and later, law - that steam locomotives were not allowed to run without whistles, or correctly functioning ones. There is the amusing case of a Peppercorn A2 Pacific failing a "fitness to run" exam, and missing its booked train as its whistle was clogged!
Whistles, and now, horns on the diesel and electric locomotives which run on today's modern railways, are extremely important. They are an audible warning of a train approaching. Drivers are required by law to whistle/hoot/signal at every level crossing, every tunnel entrance and exit, upon entering sections where permanent way works are in place, and many more real life examples besides.
But why is any of the above relevant? The research part of writing children's literature has taught me to always check the facts and figures, and whether or not something you think might be correct, actually is. In this case, a faulty whistle would have stopped Thomas from being allowed out at all.
The whole episode could have been played out differently. A different character in the limelight, and Thomas sidelined, but wanting to play a part in the festivities of the fair. Being able to recognize that some portions of the old world of steam locomotives, and unfitted rolling stock, with four wheeled vans and trucks aplenty, still has some great significance on the modern railway, would have gone some way to enforcing firmly that railways can be dangerous places, and that you should always err on the side of caution when you are near them.
As it is, we got a fairly asinine story in which Thomas ignores all help and advice, pulls off a dangerous stunt in the middle of a dangerous workplace - the steamworks - and then pulls away from a platform while men are still loading a train.
This is where a brakevan, complete with guard, would have prevented this exact incident from happening. You could have had Thomas hearing another whistle, and thinking it the guard's whistle, thus starting off prematurely. That would have been historically accurate to some extent, it will have happened somewhere - but to simply leave while people are still working on your train?
The dangers involved in this episode do not by any means outstrip yesterday's farcical events, but once again the moral messages being given out are mixed at best, if not entirely inappropriate. The writing makes such unacceptable behaviour acceptable by never resolving its issues.
Final Conclusions I don't know why there is such a difficulty in writing for this show. I really don't. I have been writing my own material for nearly seven years. Filed away, are nearly two hundred scripts for The British Railway Series. I only intend to use thirty of them, but should I ever feel the need to keep going with my films, the stories are there, waiting to be used.
As I type, I look down to my right, and on the floor is a large scrap book. No ordinary scrap book - it contains seven years worth of research on real life incidents on the railways, ranging from the plight of the Flying Scotsman in 1952, to the myths and legends surrounding Fowler's Ghost.
Taking stories from real life invariably means the incidents only happened in exceptional circumstances, but whilst out doing a normal, routine job. Flying Scotsman's injectors stopped working, and the crew had to damp the fire down, and coax them to work, while she worked a top level express from Leicester to King's Cross London. You can read the full story in Andrew Roden's book, The Flying Scotsman: The Extraordinary Story of the World's Most Famous Train. It's a fantastic read.Research is part of the job description. Writing stories on railways is all about checking to see what really happened. You'd be surprised at the wonderful anecdotes that pop out at you whilst you are reading on the life and times of Britain's railways.
Therein lies the problem. Thomas & Friends hasn't been written with the real railway in mind for over a decade now. The problems started first, when the writing format began to change, with the introduction of new and numerous writers. David Mitton kept on board a railway advisor, someone who would explain how things would really happen on a railway when something came up that the production team simply didn't know how to resolve.
Railway realism for a children's show is possible. We saw it in motion for nearly ten years, leading up to the end of the fifth season of Thomas & Friends. There was a basic understanding that trains run between signals, which divide the lines into sections. There was an understanding that goods trains require brakevans, and a guard in the brakevan to apply brakes, and signal to the driver to start/stop the train.
The method of writing stories for this show is clearly flawed. We have steam locomotives with no purpose, pulling trains from places, without destinations. We have sometimes horrifying stunts being pulled, giving extremely mixed messages to the children this show is aimed at. It is heartbreaking to watch a piece of my childhood, so twisted and broken beyond all recognition in many ways.
It is far more heart breaking to know, that my godson Geraint, won't be watching these episodes. I simply can't inflict these on him - having recorded them all thus far for him, I don't think they are appropriate in any way for him to watch.
The dangerous messages being put out - that playing around in dangerous workspaces is fine, moving off while people are working on you is okay, if someone is different to you then they are inferior...all terrible, terrible concepts and acts which should have never got past the writing stage, simply on the basis that they are never resolved, and pointedly told that it is unacceptable behaviour.
Children are impressionable, that's part and parcel of growing up. If you see your heroes do something on screen, chances are you'll be imitating them later on. To that end, Thomas & Friends has lost the plot completely this season. Dangerous stunts, dangerous messages on personal safety, deriding people for being different - how has it come to this?
How did they get past the writing stage with this season? Railway realism may sometimes have a dangerous stunt involved - like a crash scene - but, when they were shown in the original series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, they always had a very firm, well voiced moral to the story that always resolved its issues.
For example: snow and ice can be treacherous (The Flying Kipper, Season 1), signals must be understood and obeyed (Percy and the Signal, Season 2), playing around in a dangerous area can have severe consequences, but acting calmly can also prevent catastrophe happening (Heroes, Season 3).
In Down the Mine, one of the last episodes of the first season (and the pilot episode, in fact), Thomas throws his driver and fireman off the footplate in order to ignore a "Danger" sign, and go past it. Dangerous stunt, dangerous antics. But Thomas falls into a hole, and gets resoundly told off by the Fat Controller.
Dangerous Stunt > dire consequences > telling off and resolution.
It was shown to be unacceptable behaviour, and that's where the key difference between the episodes of old, and this season's dire episodes, lies.
There are so many more examples of the original series making the message clear its unreal: almost every episode had an incident, a moral, and a message relating in some way to safety and the correct way of doing things, with a clear and firm resolution at the end enforcing the idea that certain forms of behaviour are unacceptable.
The series absolutely must return to this idea - railway realism, followed up by by a firm and clear emphasis on personal safety, and how a situation can be resolved safely.
When characters do dangerous stunts, they must be told off in equal measure and made to understand the severity of their actions, and suffer the consequences.
As it stands, we have a bridge which shakes itself to bits every time someone breathes on it, we have engines playing around in workshop environments, doing dangerous stunts, we have one steam engine deriding another for being different, and various other mixed and dangerous messages thrown every which way, in the apparent name of children's television.
That the engines get away with bad behaviour is the biggest problem with the whole series and its writing as it stands, followed quickly by a severely poor understanding of railways in general.
Sad to say - but Thomas & Friends is no longer appropriate viewing for children. It had already gone past the point of quality viewing nearly a decade ago, but now it is a shameful shadow of its former self, and no longer relevant to today's youngest generation nor the world it exists in.
Individual Episode Score: 2/10 - Gordon and Ferdinand 4/10 - Toby and Bash 3/10 - Emily and Bash 5/10 - Edward The Hero 1/10 - James to the Rescue 2/10 - Happy Hiro 1/10 - Up, Up and Away! 3/10 - Henry's Happy Coal 2/10 - Let It Snow 2/10 - Surprise, Surprise 4/10 - Spencer the Grand 3/10 - Stop That Bus! 2/10 - Stuck on You 3/10 - Big Belle 1/10 - Kevin the Steamie 1/10 - Wonky Whistle
Total Season Score So Far: 40/170
Average Season Score So Far: 2.3/10
Quick Character Stats
Speaking Roles:
Thomas, Kevin, Victor, The Fat Controller, Farmer McColl, Bertie
Cameos:
Edward, Hiro, Percy, James, Bash, Toby, Mavis, Henry, Flynn
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