If you were to ask any longtime fan of Thomas what their thoughts were on the original television series as a whole, they would more often than not tell you that Diesel became an incredibly annoying character as of the CGI seasons. When he was first introduced in Season 2's 'Pop Goes the Diesel', he was very devious and maniacal, a 'pulls the strings behind the curtains' type of character, the type of guy that would flip any situation in his favor and win it if he put his mind to it. But as the show went on, he just turned into a brute reduced to nothing but a selfish bully who picks on others just for the sake of it...he was a shell of his former self. Many longtime fans, including myself, didn't particularly like modern day Diesel since we thought an episode with him can be very entertaining when he was paired with a good character foil like Paxton as seen in Season 18's 'Disappearing Diesels', but Diesel himself...we don't like since we all find him incredibly one-dimensional. Whenever he screws up and is subsequently forgiven, it never feels earned because we know he hasn't changed and he never will. He never progresses, to think it took Daisy The Diesel Railcar herself-a character that used to be arguably just as rude and selfish as Diesel himself when she first arrived on The Island Of Sodor-to give him the kick in the pants he needed to start changing his ways in Season 21's 'Springtime For Diesel' and it speaks volumes about how far she has grown as a character. I love that episode even if the character development was ruined by the next episode.
So as you can imagine, there were a lot and I mean a lot of angry adult Thomas fans who were up in arms when All Engines Go was first announced and it was revealed that Diesel who while still retaining some of his original personality from the original Thomas & Friends series was now portrayed as one of Thomas' best friends which didn't make any sense at all in the grand scheme of things surrounding the reboot. Granted, he's presented as a comic foil to the main characters at times and you even have those little moments where he is a rival to Thomas and the gang but that doesn't happen as often as many longtime fans including myself would've hoped since he's just one of the hombres half of the time. But with this in mind as we get this fourth season of 'All Engines Go' started, would this fall into the same category as other Diesel episodes that we've gotten in the reboot so far or was this episode full of surprises...see what I did there? The answer is...seriously, we're doing this 'Thomas vs. Diesel' plot again?
Yeah, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that I'm honestly getting really sick of seeing Thomas and Diesel constantly trying to outdo each other at their own game in everything we've seen so far in All Engines Go since it always follows the same old formula of the two engines competing against one another only to realize they were idiots and put aside their differences to work together. 'A Wide Delivery' from Season 1a may have used this trope as well, but what made that episode memorable was how it presented the moral about finding common ground with an enemy which is something that wasn't even taught before in the original series.
But here, however much like what I said in my review of 'Pop a Wheelie' from two years back, the other engines become so sick of seeing these two constantly trying to show who's better than the other that you're actually laughing out loud and applauding the moment when Gordon crosses the finish line first by sheer coincidence and gets his name on the plaque outside the tunnel thus proving yet again that he's the most important character of the Thomas & Friends franchise whether it's in the original series or the reboot.
So yeah, 'Tunnel Troubles' just ended up causing more confusion and delay than it needed to and that is why I have to give this episode a rating of a 2/5.
Final Rating: 2/5
