I've made it no secret that I'm not a fan of this one. About four years ago, I labelled this as one of the worst BWBA episodes and even had it as an honorable mention on the list of the worst CGI episodes. And to be honest...yeah, that still holds up. But I think it's time I go into full detail as to why, because it recently hit me why this episode is among the worst. So, with that said, what went wrong with Counting on Nia? Let's begin.
Nia is sent to work with Annie and Clarabel for the day, but she gets hindered by the fact that she can't properly read numbers...and yeah, that's basically it.
My first problem with this episode, which is more of a nitpick if anything, is...why is Nia working with Annie and Clarabel? It's a good idea on paper (trust me, I'll get into that in a bit), but there's no given explanation. Is it because Thomas is away around the world? No, we see him at the end of the episode. Again, it could make for an interesting dynamic, but in execution, it's a little forced.
Alright, now we get into the real reason why this is one of the most hated BWBA episodes of all time: Annie and Clarabel teaching Nia about numbers. I've seen a lot of people say BWBA is what regressed Thomas into a baby show, and while I can't say that's true for every episode, it's absolutely the case here. The whole episode feels like a flimsy excuse to teach little kids how to count, and not only is the "number lookalike" schtick ridiculous (like, a clover doesn't look like a 9, don't @ me), but it's done in a way that talks down to the viewer. And the sad thing is, there is a legit idea here, Nia could be struggling with numbers as a result of culture shock so she would need to overcome that. But once you learn Nia can count just fine, the plot falls apart when you learn that the number symbols they use in Kenya are the same as the ones in the UK or US, so in a way, it not only makes Nia look like a numpty, but it just makes the conflict a lot more forced.
Yeah...that was as bad as I remembered. Counting on Nia is one of the worst episodes of the BWBA era. There was a decent idea with this one, but it falls apart thanks to one of, if not the worst script to come from this era...aside from Panicky Percy. I wouldn't recommend this episode unless you're a little, little, little kid, like 2 and under. If you fall under that age window, then A. this is the episode for you, and B. how the hell are you reading this? As for my rating, this gets an easy 0.5/5. It's the first time I saw a Thomas episode and said "I'm too old for this".
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