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Season 15 - Episode 16 Review: Kevin The Steamie

Simierski

March 2011 saw the sixteenth 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...

I'm not craning my neck to see that again!

---

Kevin the Steamie

Writers: Laurie Israel and Rachel Ruderman


Belle attempts to befriend Toby when she discovers that they have something in common. However her bolshy behaviour overwhelms Toby.


Overall Impressions

"Thomas and Percy didn't want Kevin to feel badly"

To "feel badly" actually implies that your sense of touch is not right. So when Thomas and Percy "don't want Kevin to feel badly", they don't want him touching things badly.


See the problem?


It should have been "Thomas and Percy didn't want Kevin to feel bad about...etc" or simply "didn't want Kevin to feel bad".


Does no one check the grammar on this show? This was the stand out, facepalm moment of the year.


Today's episode took the same format of all the previous episodes, put it through a blender, and just kept on the ever more boring, repetitive themes and problems of the previous fifteen episodes. Unnecessary exposition? Got it.


The exposition at the start, by the way, didn't actually cover the main character of the episode. It was utterly redundant. Why focus on something other than the main storyline? We know what the steam engines do on Sodor, this story is about Kevin, surely?


Well, not quite. Today's episode was in fact James to the Rescue, minus the voice of reason (Toby). Kevin simply did the same thing, resulting in the same problems, until it went horribly wrong. Three times.


Only this time, instead of getting his comeuppance (like James in the latter), it is poor Victor who gets covered in "gloopy goo".


There were actually quite a few problems with the normally terrific animation today, too. First thing was the lack of brakevans on almost every single train I saw. Oil tankers - no brakevan. Flatbeds? No brakevan. Shunting exercises excepted, the lack of brakevans - when we know they are animated, is just not on. Please, please fix this.


I was also a bit perplexed to see Emily's wheel removed and replaced in the manner it was - simply put, they literally took the wheel off the axle to repaint it. Wheels are normally kept in their wheelset (that means, kept on the axle) when removed from a steam engine for repainting. The reason behind this is simple - you don't want to have to quarter and balance the wheelset again prior to refitting it to the engine.


Then there was the question of playtime on Sodor. I simply don't understand why it is felt necessary to have Thomas and/or Percy shoehorned into an episode to extoll the virtues of playing around, particularly in a dangerous area such as the steamworks. Those are good values, right? We're going to play around with heavy, large metal objects whilst in a "hard hat" environment.


There is where my biggest criticism of the writing today went. It should have been a case of "no, you play outside the steamworks. It is dangerous to play around in a confined space/dangerous area". The messages being put out by the writing team in their episodes this season leave a lot to be desired, and assuredly this is one of the worst by far.


The audience this is aimed at, are impressionable. That's part and parcel of being young. You see your heroes on television do something, you want to imitate it. Playing around in a workshop environment, whichever way you look at it, is not something you want children to take away from this, and yet they will, because its all done in a manner which encourages the behaviour.


If the argument is that Kevin wasn't to know he shouldn't be bashing oil cans around a workshop, then what should have happened at the end was more of a stern telling off, Fat Controller style. Instead we simply get Kevin to fix his errors, and we move on.


That's unacceptable. It really is.


Final Conclusions Children's television shows around the world, take note. The politically correct era is in fact, dead and buried. The era in which you expect television shows to be over protective of their audience with regards morals/impressionable stunts/poor writing and themes, is over.


At least, this is what comes across when you watch Thomas & Friends this season. I have heard many criticisms of the show ranging from sexism to over violent stunts, but never have I heard criticisms of the show encouraging poor - and dangerous - behaviour from its audience.


Wake up and smell the coffee, HiT Entertainment! How were half of the episodes this season given the green light for production? If someone other than an older fan, like myself - say, a professional critic for a major newspaper in the US or UK, picked up on these problems, how long do you think it would be until there were so called "soccer moms" protesting against the morals in these episodes?


The problems of the writing team's format is getting dangerously close to the bone. Basic messages such as "don't play around in a dangerous environment" are being ignored. The morals of this show have gone down the pan in one season, this season.


Christopher Awdry, many years ago, wrote a book titled Thomas & The Great Railway Show, volume number 35 in The Railway Series. In this book, there was a story where Thomas was performing on a demonstration line for all the children to watch him. Suddenly, something falls onto the track, and Thomas, brakes hard on, fails to stop in time, crushing what turned out to be a packed lunch in a plastic bag, amid gasps of horror from all around.


The lesson was clear: older steam engines don't stop quickly enough. Don't fool around near the tracks, the consequences could have been more severe. Reportedly, in Reading Between the Lines, the original transcript of that story had a much darker aspect to it. It was intentional: it was to show children that real trains have a very real danger associated with them.


HiT Entertainment do not need to take the series to this level of writing, but a firm overview of the messages their episodes send out is absolutely necessary. Morals which give out, at best, mixed messages must be removed. Does the "three strikes" format have a lot to do with today's problems? No, not particularly. The main problem was deciding that it was okay for Thomas & Percy to play around in the steamworks, and letting Kevin imitate their antics thereafter.


At the end of the day, this is not the first time this season I've had to highlight the alarming decline in quality of this television series, and it's also not the first time I've had to highlight the problems with the overall concept of an episode, at the level of basic common sense, and morality.


Railways are dangerous places in real life, and workshops are just as dangerous. That, more than anything, should have been the moral of the episode today.


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
Total Season Score So Far: 39/160
Average Season Score So Far: 2.4/10

Quick Character Stats


Speaking Roles:

Thomas, Percy, Kevin, Victor, Emily, Spencer


Cameos:

Edward, Belle, James, Emily, Stanley, Mavis, Henry, Diesel, Hiro, Scruff, Whiff


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