But if there is one thing that many longtime fans who grew up reading the original Railway Series books or watching the original television series will remember the most about Thomas himself as a character is that he likes to have fun with his friends rather if it's playing Hide and Peep with Percy or joking with James. But even though Thomas is an engine who likes to have fun, he always knows when to put jokes aside and be really useful while doing his work or helping a friend in need. So after we just had an episode where Thomas' game-playing while out on a delivery ends up getting him and Bruno lost, the fact that we have another episode almost immediately afterwards where Thomas plays a new game with the Troublesome Trucks called Switcheroo in order to change things up from the usual route that they're making with their delivery to Vicarstown actually makes me appreciate "Bruno's Map Mishap" a little more despite that episode not living up to its full potential.
We're also seeing the comeback of a problem that All Engines Go has had ever since its inception and that is the Troublesome Trucks using their wheels as hands to change the points thus making the lack of humans in this new version of Sodor feel all the more unsettling and once again just forgetting completely that every wise engine knows of course that the signalman works the points to make engines run on the right lines. I don't know, maybe it's just me asking for some realism in this reboot of a franchise that used to be all about realism but some human interactions with the engines apart from Sir Topham Hatt would definitely be nice to see at some point. But you wanna know what was the biggest issue for me? After Thomas hears the chime of the Vicarstown clock tower, he comes to a fork in the track and he goes down the right track towards McColl Farm when he could've just gone left and went straight to Vicarstown. I get that that the point of "Sameroo" was to show how important routines are which is definitely a good moral, but you should also not be afraid to take a chance at something new every now and then, and I swear, I feel like my vein is gonna pop if I hear the word "Sameroo" one more time. I think it's high time that we switcharoo things up as I'm gonna give this episode a 3/5.
Final Rating: 3/5
