ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Thomas and the Dragon

I’ll be the first to say that I really don’t mind BWBA. Sure, it’s far from perfect but most of the episodes are okay, if not a little boring, though I will say that the China episodes (with the exception of Series 24’s Yong Bao and the Tiger) have always been the worst. This review will be slightly different to those I’ve done before, seeing as the episode isn’t available on YouTube so I’ve not been able to watch the full episode. But fortunately the Thomas and Friends YouTube channel has a few compilations of scenes from this episode, so I'll work with what I got. I’ll start of by giving an overview of the episode, then go onto what I did and didn’t like before finishing on the conclusion.

Thomas and the Dragon is an episode in the 22nd season - the first in a controversial soft reboot of the series, and it’s the 4th episode to feature Thomas in China. Thomas is asked to take a dragon to the Chinese New Year festival, which terrifies him. He eventually asks Yong Bao to take it instead, only to be told he can take a lion instead. Thomas spends his journey worrying about this lion and is glad that he never had to pick it up, before it’s revealed that it was a fake one inside one of the coaches. Thomas them meets the dragon which also turns out to be fake, the 3 engines laugh and the episode ends.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never been a big fan of the China episodes and sadly this hasn’t broken the trend. It’s definitely not the worst, since Thomas in the Wild is far too uneventful and The Water Wheel is such a boring story, though this episode still feels… stale to me. Thomas is really annoying here with how over the top he is with his reaction, while the newer stuff is a completely different canon to the classic series, previous episodes and specials such as Emily Saves the World and Big World, Big Adventures confirm that most if not all the events from the previous 21 series had still happened, so surely Thomas would know what a Chinese dragon is, especially after Thomas, Percy and the Dragon.

The “humour” in this episode seemed very cringe-y too. Both the Brenner Era and the BWBA era have had some very funny jokes and one liners but this episode really tries to hard and unfortunately none of them really stick. Also while not a complaint as such, why bother recolouring another 08 when there’s already a nice looking Chinese diesel they could have used.

There were still some bits I did like from this episode though, the beginning bit with Yong Bao and Thomas heading through the peach blossom is really well animated and makes for a fun little scene. And while I have been fairly dismissive of it, I do like how this episode was trying to be more experimental. Davey Moore is a great writer and while I don’t rate all of his episodes as highly he’s written some of my favourite CGI stories. Also I really like how they did the little eye spin after Thomas is shocked by the diesel. Intentional or not, it did give me a big smile on my face.

In conclusion, I’d only rate this story a 2/5, it was trying to be experimental and I do appreciate that but unfortunately I don’t think it really stuck. It’s an okay episode to rewatch if your ever bored but it’s far from one I'd recommend.

Final Score: 2/5