ThomasNATION Reviews - The Inventor's Spectacular Bridge
July 17, 2020
A long time ago during a very blustery winter storm, Farmer McColl's sheep had starting lambing but they were trapped on the hillside cut off by the snow...and when even powerful Duck's snowplow couldn't get through the snow-blocked tracks, Toby and Henrietta set off to the rescue as he remembered that his old branch line ran out that direction which might have been able to carry his weight yet had forgotten about the rickety old bridge which almost collapsed on them while crossing slowly over of which this episode from the sixth season of the series is still hailed as one of the best Toby stories of all time. Several years later since Toby braved the bitter cold on an old bridge to rescue some newborn lambs and it looks like the bridge may have finally went complete bust, can Ruth help Toby find a way to still be really useful...let's go go go on a big adventure as we prepare to cross 'The Inventor's Spectacular Bridge'!
THE INVENTOR'S SPECTACULAR BRIDGE: When the rickety old bridge collapses trapping Toby and Henrietta on the other side of the ravine, inventor Ruth is asked to build a new one
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PROS:
When you really think about it, Toby has had quite the traumatic history of being on unsafe bridges: treading a collapsing bridge tightrope above a thundering torrent in Season 3's 'Toby's Tightrope', floating helplessly on a broken bridge along a flooded river in Season 5's 'Toby And The Flood', crossing a rickety old bridge to save newborn lambs in Season 6's 'Toby Had A Little Lamb' and who could ever forget the infamous Shake Shake Bridge while finding the perfect Christmas tree with Rheneas in Season 16's 'The Christmas Tree Express', the list goes on, so the main conflict of this episode with Toby being scared of crossing the new bridge Ruth has built that can literally walk itself from one side to another which may turn some fans off from how often we saw Toby as a coward for quite a while in the series was actually totally believable in my opinion as it gives a great opportunity to develop Toby as a character as well as delve deeper into his post-traumatic stress disorder involving unsafe bridges considering everything he has been put in danger in throughout the years that he has been a part of the North Western Railway's fleet.
In a way, it's like Sir Topham Hatt's appearance in 'Sodor's Legend Of The Lost Treasure, he may have been hard on Thomas on the surface but he's the controller of the railway and was dealing with many other things alongside when you look at it so I'm pretty much okay with Toby's personality in this episode.
Ruth's new walking bridge itself is also pretty cool. While it may come across as something being made purely for merchandise to a lot of fans which also might turn them away especially considering how we're getting a Motorized set based on the episode coming soon to retail stores of which they should've had Toby be the main engine of the set instead of Thomas in my opinion, I personally have been amazed by the different inventions that Ruth has managed to create from everything we've seen of her so far in this season not only because she is a positive female role model for girls looking to get into the fields of science and technology but also because the bridge itself is both creatively designed as well as being technologically impressive and giving me vibes of the mechanical spider from the Will Smith movie 'Wild Wild West'. For some reason, it didn't feel like it was ramming down the throat at least to me: probably Mattel gave them the idea and David Stoten took a more creative approach at utilizing the idea to make an integral part of the story which I think was a good move made by him and we'd come a long way from that dreadful Shake Shake Bridge from 'Misty Island Rescue' ten years ago which had a bridge set but was not utilized well in my opinion.
CONS:
N/A
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I hope we get an episode of Toby overcoming his fear of bridges one day whenever this upcoming hiatus comes to an end since this episode was actually a very good one: while it's easy to see how some wouldn't like 'The Inventor's Spectacular Bridge' whether it be from Toby's cowardly personality or a new walking bridge that exists purely for toy purposes, the conflict being presented is totally believable for someone like Toby given his history on top of the visuals still continuing to amaze and the characters continuing to be memorable...I personally feel like we're getting closer and closer towards that really good technology-themed episode regarding this season's theme, but for now 'The Inventor's Spectacular Bridge' gets a rating of a 4.5 out of 5.
Final Score: 4.5/5
About the Author: True Blue
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