ThomasNATION Reviews - Tri-and-a-Half-a-Lon
January 04, 2025
If you were to ask any longtime fan of Thomas what their thoughts were on Brenner's tenure of the original television series as a whole, they would more often than not tell you that the 2016 full-length special 'The Great Race' was unfortunately the beginning of the end of the Brennessaince. It was the era where decisions felt corporately mandated. For example, why was there a scene where Thomas jumps the drawbridge? So they could sell some TrackMaster playset. Why did they have to have a Diesel subplot? So they could sell an ugly Wooden Railway three-pack...remember that? Why did most of the international characters all have one line max? So they could sell toys of them with their names on the box, yada yada yada, you get the idea. Not even Thomas' story was just not interesting in this movie since we had seen this exact story before with all the same tropes. For example - Thomas doesn't like the new character - seen that. Thomas gets angry at someone else for pulling Annie and Clarabel - seen that. Thomas learns the same lessons about self-esteem he's learned in the past. Ya see my point? None of this feels new at all, the best stuff in the movie is the actual racing stuff - you know, the stuff in the movie that the movie is titled after and takes up maybe ten minutes? Why they decided to use these cliched tropes again for this movie is beyond me especially when there was so much better original material present that could have really saved the movie if it had been fleshed out more like the ongoing sibling rivalry between Gordon and Flying Scotsman or the confrontations between Vinnie and Philip.
But with that said, I've gone on record saying how Nia has been one of the elements of All Engines Go that is done better than the original at this point in the reboot. And while she hasn't had the greatest track record in terms of her stories so far in the reboot, I was looking forward to seeing what else they could do with her character for what can basically be described as an episodic version of The Great Race but on a much smaller scale and while I'm happy that we got to see this story told again but with another engine other than Thomas, in fact I still stand by that Gordon should have been the main character of the movie since Gordon's thing is that he's fast and proud of it - I mean, this movie was tailor-made for him. But enough about The Great Race. Here, Nia's just upset because she's never been able to beat the timer even with Sandy and Carly encouraging her to keep practicing before the event which is no different than Thomas trying time and time again to prove himself to Sir Topham Hatt that he is worthy of going to The Great Railway Show in 'The Great Race' only to damage himself in the process and learn that he can only be who he is.
So yeah, 'Tri-and-a-Half-a-Lon' is pretty much just The Great Race all over again but with Nia being the main character instead of Thomas which is both a blessing and a curse if you ask me. But if I were to write a televised episode based around 'The Great Race' on a much smaller scale, this is honestly what I would've come up with if I were a part of the writing team and that is why I'm giving this episode a rating of a 3/5.
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