ThomasNATION Reviews - Stink Monster
June 14, 2025
It goes without saying, the engines on Sodor work hard to keep the island clean and tidy since there is always trash to be trashed, scrap to be scrapped and junk to be junked. But the engines are always happy to help because they all want to be really useful and where does all the rubbish go once it's been collected, either to Crocks Scrap Yard so that Reg can recycle it or to Whiff's Waste Dump - and anyone who's ever known Whiff knows he is cheerful and optimistic as he enjoys his job of collecting rubbish. He either does not seem to care what the other engines think about him or is oblivious to their opinions. But despite that, he is friendly and always does his job well at the Waste Dump. He is somewhat naĆÆve as he does not realize why the other engines try to avoid him so much as they do with the Smelters Yard. However, he is shown to know a bit about Sodor history since he did know about the tunnel connecting Misty Island to Sodor...which by the way, how did he know about that? But here's the thing, that's just the Whiff that we all know and love from the original Thomas & Friends television series as the Whiff that we have now in the All Engines Go reboot has not only gone from being a rubbish collector to a recycler. He also shows great respect for the engines, is always willing show them some of his new inventions and much like his Nitrogen Era counterpart, he also seems to know a lot about the history of Sodor like how there used to be tunnels under Lookout Mountain.
So now that you know the stink about Whiff, is this week's episode smell as sweet as flowers or as rotten as moldy cheese? Well, stop me if you've heard this one: after our cast of heroes discover something very unusual while working, they are eager to find out what could have made that thing only to discover the surprising answer at the end and discover what they were afraid of wasn't scary after all. Now, you might be wondering "why am I talking about the plot of 'The Mystery of Lookout Mountain' when I should be talking about 'Stink Monster'". Well, considering that I watched 'The Mystery of Lookout Mountain' not long after this, it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone whether you're a longtime fan of Thomas The Tank Engine or a newcomer to the franchise that the episode 'Stink Monster' is literally just an episodic version of 'The Mystery Of Lookout Mountain' and not to mention that we knew about the surprise reveal of Whiff being the 'stink monster' for a while now since the episode first aired in Mexico before anywhere else in the world.
While this isn't an exact copy of 'The Mystery of Lookout Mountain' since they did add or change some things to make it different and while some of those changes made are ones that I actually think this episode did better than the movie, taking a plot from another story is one thing but taking a plot from another story that's from your own franchise especially so soon after having seen an elongated version is just wrong and that is why I have to give 'Stink Monster' a rating of a 2.5/5. While not a bad episode, it will always have an empty feeling of something lacking. Man, what a stinker!
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