š¶Picture a land where the sky is so blue, a storybook land of wonder, a magical island just waiting for you...Island of Sodor will make your dreams come truešµ
For as long as anyone can remember, The Island of Sodor has been the home of the North Western Railway with engines of all shapes and sizes working hard to deliver goods and passengers to their destinations. There are branch lines that run along the coast of the island serving the docks, the fishing villages and the seaside towns. There are branch lines that run to the farms, quarries and ancient castles of the island's heartland, and there is the main line which runs all the way from Knapford on the west coast of the island to Vicarstown in the east and the line continues over the Vicarstown Bridge where it connects to the mainland beyond. Yes, The Island of Sodor truly is a wonderful world. And if you ever need a definitive example of how to show people who look down on Thomas The Tank Engine as just another kids' show, I would highly recommend showing them the opening titles sequence to the 2015 full-length special 'The Adventure Begins'. Considering that this was the movie that pretty much started everything for people who have never seen Thomas before, they took what could've likely started out with the narrator introducing Sodor talking about how it's coated in railway lines and the engines that work on it but instead went in a completely different direction and they just showed it. The beauty and cleverness of this intro is just so amazing to many longtime fans and some would argue it's their favorite part of the whole movie. It truly captured what makes Sodor so iconic.
With that said, who here remembers when Thomas himself made the understatement of the decade about Sodor being a very safe place back in Season 24's "Emily to the Rescue"? Believe me when I say that if I were to have any job position on the island in general, I would hate to be their insurance agent with how often accidents happen as a result of the engines on the railway not paying attention to their work. So to have an episode where Percy and Kana enlist Safety Engine Emily and go to ridiculous extremes to introduce safety measures all over Sodor, tell me that you weren't getting vibes of Season 14's "Henry's Health and Safety"? Say what you will about that episode or the entirety of the Nitrogen Era as a whole especially considering that this was the start of Henry's character flanderization, but at least his hypochondriac behavior over railway safety was justified in this one because of how often you would find rolling stock just left in the middle of the line for oncoming engines to crash into during this era of the series and his fears weren't taken to the extreme like they were later on in the CGI Series.
Here however with Percy, it's almost like we've reached the levels of "Panicky Percy" from Season 23 all over again when it comes to Percy's character flanderization and any longtime veteran of the fandom will tell you that that episode may just be the worst Percy episode of all time in the original series. Granted that it was cool to see the show staff finally doing something with Emily again especially with her role as Sodor's safety engine which she was given back in Season 24's "Emily to the Rescue", but to think that all of this trouble could've been avoided if Percy and Kana had paid attention to the signs and signals in the first place as explained by the Troublesome Tankers throughout the episode.
So yeah, not only did "Seeking A Safer Sodor" fail in its mission in making the island safer but all it did was remind us longtime fans of better or worst episodes that did this same concept and thus gets a 2.5/5.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
