Man, Thomas the Tank Engine in the early 2010s seemed to really love the narrow gauge engines, didn't they? In 2012, the engines of the Skarloey Railway made their big return in "Blue Mountain Mystery" and it's here where we also met their newest member of the team, Luke - who loves his job of collecting crushed stone and carrying boulders at the quarry and feels right at home in the noise and dust. But then a year later, the Brenner Era of the series kicked off with "King of the Railway" and among the new characters that were introduced in that movie was Sir Robert Norramby's narrow gauge engine Millie who loves her job of helping to run the railway on The Earl's estate up at Ulfstead Castle rather it being running errands for the groundskeeper or showing visitors around the castle grounds. So, we have two different narrow gauge engines who both love their jobs at two different locations. But among the two of them, who really has the tougher life on the railway? Well, there's only one was to find out because it's time for "The Switch"!
THE SWITCH: Luke and Millie swap jobs at the castle and the quarry.
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Now, being an episode from Season 17, I'm not going to say that "The Switch" is a perfect episode because it isn't since Season 17 was the new production team's first season and they were still learning the ropes and getting a gist of writing for these characters. There's a lot of needless narration in places and the delivery of the dialogue tends to sound robotic, the plot even if it is an overall good representation of the "walk a mile in my shoes" concept tends to feel very Sharon Miller formula-esque and could've been really good had the team not been restricted to the nearly nine-minute runtime, and the animation wasn't the best in this season. But even then, I have to admit that watching a new season that addressed so many of what were the major problems with the show come right off the heels of the copy-and-paste Sharon Miller Era was so exciting and I will say that "The Switch" is...still good.
First off, I like Millie. She has a great French accent and teaches kids different words like 'bonjour' and 'au revoir'. The vocabulary is being expanded well with words like 'estate' which is a great thing to teach kids in my opinion as well as the moral about respecting others' jobs is a nice way to learn about other people's jobs and that all jobs are important no matter what. Not gonna lie, the stare-off she did with Luke was actually funny and the music was much more fitting for their stare-off compared to Daisy and Harvey's later on in Season 21's "A Most Singular Engine". Also, even though I'm sure we will never see Lady ever again in the brand ever since Thomas and the Magic Railroad, I like how Millie uses Lady's whistle as a way of letting the fans know that she hasn't been forgotten. On top of that, and I'm sure that this will make the fans looking for realism in the franchise happy, but I like how Millie and Luke wait for Sir Robert Norramby to see if Mr. Percival granted permission instead of Luke and Millie just puffing off without permission like in Season 17's predecessors.
Speaking of The Earl, him saying that the passengers don't like being "bounced around like peas in a pod" is almost a reference to Season 1's "Thomas and Bertie". Although, I thought the line was that they don't like being "bounced like peas in a frying pan". And finally, and I think it goes without saying, but the castle grounds still look amazing since it really reminded me of the castles that I've seen in Ireland and the UK while I was on vacation there in 2010, albeit just not with a narrow gauge railway. Overall, "The Switch" is a good episode and was directed well especially for a season that planted the seed to grow into something even better for the future of Thomas the Tank Engine and that's why I'm going to give it a rating of an 4/5.
Final Rating: 4/5
