ThomasNATION Reviews - Goodbye, Ghost Scaring Machine

October 15, 2022


In order to review this episode, I had to rewatch the episodes The Biggest Adventure Club and Ghost Train to get a better understanding of what the Ghost Scaring Machine is, and…yeah, it’s just kinda there. It was a little jarring at first seeing something so high-tech in a Thomas series, but half the time, I completely forgot it was there, so as you can tell, I won’t be going into this episode with a high resonance with the machine. But is it worth saying a hearty farewell to the Ghost Scaring Machine? Let’s begin.

Percy feels as though he’s through with his Ghost Scaring Machine since he no longer acts scared or panicky without it. But Diesel says he’s seen something unusual in the Dark Woods, so he, Thomas and Diesel go to investigate.

One of the big promises of All Engines Go! was that the episodes would star Thomas as the lead of every adventure. But thankfully, that promise was retconned here with Percy as the lead. Not to say having Thomas as a lead in general is a bad thing, but the lead of every episode? That’d just leave other characters to not get the development they need. But here, we see Percy going through some growth by feeling like he’s growing up (by the way, how does that work in this universe?) and he’s not as scared as he was before. That’s a little interesting.

Outside of that, the rest of the episode’s just kinda meh. The main thing I don’t like here is the pacing. Everything in the episode either resolves too quickly or just kinda drags. For example, near the end, Percy declares that the Ghost Scaring Machine is good for more than just spooking ghosts. That’s a neat idea, but I feel like he comes to this conclusion too quickly. Personally, I think it would’ve been a little better if he came to this conclusion after saving his friends. And by the end of the episode, it ultimately feels like nothing really happened by the end, there wasn’t really a lesson learned other than “the Ghost Scaring Machine is cool”. In fact, the machine itself just feels like a slew of plot devices rather than something made to help Percy overcome his fears.

So all in all, this was a fairly mediocre episode. I like the growth Percy goes through, but its pacing and display of the Machine itself kinda waters it down to a relatively forgettable adventure, and because of that, you wouldn’t miss much by giving it a skip. It’s a little better than Flour Power because at the end of the day, it did at least use its idea to the fullest, but as is, it still earns a 2.5/5.

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