ThomasNATION Classic Reviews - Too Hot for Thomas
June 05, 2021
Well, it's almost summertime once again and things are about to get very busy indeed on the North Western Railway as many vacationers (or holidaymakers, for our friends in the UK) will be coming from the mainland and all over the world to explore the Island Of Sodor's many attractions including the many sandy beaches...but on days as hot as these can be, it's always best to look for ways to stay cool during this time of year whether it's a swim in the pool or enjoying a sweet treat and none comes more to mind during this time of year than ice cream of which Thomas could definitely use after racing about his work to enjoy the summer fun. Will he find a way to be really useful during this heat wave? Let's find out because things are about to get 'Too Hot For Thomas'!
TOO HOT FOR THOMAS: Thomas is dismayed when he has to get ingredients to make ice cream instead of taking children on a hot day at the seaside.
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I used to enjoy this eighth season episode when I was a ten-year-old kid watching this for the first time on my 'It's Great To Be An Engine' DVD...but after looking back on it again after so many years as an adult fan, this episode is not great or good but I will say that it's on an okay level. While I understand that taking children is debatably Thomas' favorite thing to do as established throughout the original series, writer Paul Larson should've at least made Thomas care more about his work than taking children to the seaside just like him back in the old days of the series but I mostly attribute that to the new 'three strikes' writing formula that Hit Entertainment placed onto the series when making their own version of Thomas The Tank Engine after having bought the franchise a year or two prior.
Also this is more of a nitpick, but while this argument can be debated for the truck carrying the strawberries seeing as this continued into the CG-animated transition for the series, the way that the cocoa powder was loaded onto the trucks was unhygienic since they should've been covered up with a tarpaulin or they should've been loaded onto a brake van-in fact between this and the transportation of fish from an earlier episode in this very season as well as flour later on, I'm surprised all of the people on Sodor haven't died of food poisoning, because that's kinda gross. I know that this was done so the viewers could see what was actually in the trucks, but the Reverend W. Awdry focused his stories on railway realism and that is how Thomas The Tank Engine started, making it all the more jarring.
But overall, 'Too Hot For Thomas' is fine enough but it could've been done better and for that earns itself a rating of a 2.5 out of 5. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go cool off with some ice cream.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
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