ThomasNATION Reviews - Whiteout!
December 16, 2023
You know, I love Christmas and Christmas has always been a big part of Thomas The Tank Engine in both The Railway Series and the television series and that's no surprise as The Railway Series itself was penned by an Anglican vicar. Thomas' Christmas history started back in 1952 in the book Toby The Tram Engine with the story "Mrs. Kyndley's Christmas". Interestingly enough, this was the only Christmas story to ever be featured in a Railway Series book. Then, the television series came along and Britt Allcroft asked the Reverend W. Awdry to write a Christmas story for the final episode of the first season set to air on Christmas Day. The result was "Thomas' Christmas Party". The tradition of the Railway Series spin-offs to coincide with the television series continued into the second season with "Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree", this time written by Christopher Awdry. After Season 2, the episodes were written by the writing staff and remained fairly good for the most part...that is, except for one major issue. Starting in Season 6 with "It's Only Snow", the term Christmas was dropped and so began Thomas' long dance with political correctness. "It's Only Snow" coined the term 'winter holidays' to create a more inclusive holiday that all denominations could relate to except they can't because the holiday being celebrated was very obviously Christmas. Just to clear one thing up, I have nothing against changing different terms in other dubs. But when it's trying to hide the fact that Christmas is in a children's television show, it's just kinda ridiculous. Ironically, it was the phrase 'winter holidays' that offended more people than it comforted for the reasons I previously stated including the Reverend W. Awdry's late daughter Hilary Fortnam. She publicly called out Hit Entertainment on the ridiculousness of 'winter holidays' and even got them to change it back to Christmas for the UK release of "Merry Winter Wish" and all future Christmas themed episodes. For that, we all owe Hilary our thanks and praise.
But speaking of celebrating Christmas on the Island of Sodor, that brings us to this week's festive episode which features Thomas and Percy determined to deliver the Christmas mail to all the patrons of Sodor with the holidays just around the corner even with the snowy weather working against them. Now, remember what I said about the whole 'winter holidays' problem that plagued Thomas' holiday specials for a number of years under Hit Entertainment's tenure as franchise owners? Well, even though it was only briefly mentioned in passing, I'm just as surprised as you are that they acknowledged that there are people in today's world of other religious beliefs that don't celebrate Christmas and instead celebrate other holidays like Hanukkah. Maybe we'll be getting Thomas the Tank Engine's very first Hanukkah special at some point in future, who knows. All I know is, the acknowledgement was cool.
But let's talk about the story now which when you really get down to what it is about, it really does feel like a mash-up of Season 18's 'Last Train for Christmas' where our main characters try to complete their last holiday run despite the terrible weather making things difficult as well as Season 15's 'Spencer the Grand' where the engines have to use their senses to help guide them on their way when they end up getting lost. Also, something I noticed about this episode and this may go into spoiler territory for a future episode I will be reviewing from this season but Thomas seems to have no trouble when using his snowplow which leads me to believe this episode was meant to premiere after 'Snowplow Struttin'' which has Thomas learning how to use his snowplow responsibly.
So overall even though I can see myself easily go back and rewatch 'Last Train for Christmas' when the holiday season comes around, that doesn't make 'Whiteout' bad in any way as I actually think it improves where 'Spencer the Grand' failed in using all senses as navigation and not just using sound to guide your way and is still another very worthwhile story to come back to around the holiday season for the next generation of Thomas the Tank Engine fans and that is why I'm giving 'Whiteout' a rating of a 3.5 out of 5.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
About the Author: True Blue
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