33 Years since Thomas Began on TV

The thirty-third anniversary since this guy jumped onto our screens. My fascination for such an incred little machine has brought me onto great things. To mark the auspicious occasion on here, I felt it worthy to do a count of my favourite episodes from each season.Each are chosen tastefully out of my own pleasure and may not necessarily be the fan favourites, but there are titles that are merely there because of nostalgia.

Season 1: Trouble in the Shed

There's just something really nice about watching the models in the older series, and this episode gives us enough showcase for just that.

Story-wise, the most exciting thing that happens is that Percy makes his debut and gives Henry some two cents, but watching all of the engines in some capacity is rather fantastic.

Season 2: Brake Van

Donald and Douglas were always favourites of mine, and their lack of explanation of just appearing on the Island of Sodor the next episode often baffled me at a young age, later to discover that Hullo, Twins or The Missing Coach never made it to screen. I like that both engines scored a crash of some kind and that the grimness is real.

Not everybody makes it out alive in the end of every episode, and that certainly was the case for the spiteful brake van.

Season 3: Escape

This was one of the all time epics of the classic series, and again, the bells of the scrap yards are tolling through the conversation that Edward and Douglas share in regards to their immediate experiences with such things.

This then encourages Douglas to go save an engine and a brake van on a trip to the mainland delivering a goods train, and we learn that Sir Topham Hatt's railway regime is probably a lot more of an utopia than we realise when the stark, grimey and unfriendly diesel yards are revealed to us.

Honourable Mention: Heroes

Season 4: Train Stops Play

Basically the toned down and more antagonistic spin on Thomas and Bertie's great race.

Stepney was and is one of my favourite engines because the nature of his character is that he exists in real life on the Bluebell Railway in England, so seeing him on the show heightened the experience and authenticity by a mile.

Caroline is also a very fun character.

Honourable Mention: Gallant Old Engine

Season 5: Rusty and the Boulder

When the paranormal reaches the realms of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, you know things are going to hit the wall. A giant boulder, which Rusty believes is alive and sentient, wreaks havoc across the quarries in the mountains causing masses of destruction, which is fun to watch.

Rusty is also a very underused character, so it's nice to see him in some great, if not odd, memorable episodes like this gem.

Honourable Mention: Busy Going Backwards

Season 6: Middle Engine

Middle Engine is one of those episodes that has classic vibes all over it.

The style of the story is very much derived of the nature of the first two seasons and remains simple yet interesting. It's another episode which is just visually nice to watch.

It's also nice to see Arry and Bert get some more characterisation and screen-time.

Season 7: Bill, Ben and Fergus

I always like having new characters matched up with classic oldies, and this is something that the current writing team are doing well.

It is easy to team up the common newbie with the likes of Thomas and Percy, but it's nice to see that in Series 7, a little diversity happened. Thomas met Emily and Arthur, Harvey and Salty met Murdoch, Gordon met Spencer and Fergus met the quarry engines.

All the quarry episodes are visually nice to watch as it is quite a stark difference from the normal green Sudrian countryside, and the twins are among my favourite characters.

Season 8: Percy and the Magic Carpet

This is where the story structure starts to simplify and become less interesting.

The sets however are gorgeous to look at, and everything watched on mute can just be fun to watch in the background while drawing.

This one probably features the most cameos and has Percy go on a wild goose chase.

It's all I can really say about it...

Season 9: Bold and Brave

Bold and the Brave is one of those weird episodes where characters like Ben, completely without Bill, makes some kind of appearance that adds to the story, and it's nice not having someone we're so used to seeing already like Percy or Toby in his place.

Diesel is also a fun character, but the naivety of the show at this point does become tiring in every other episode...

Season 10: Duncan's Bluff

I always really liked watching the narrow gauge fleet in action, and I feel like one of the only characters in this era of the show who really kept and adopted their original traits, whereas others like Skarloey and Rusty were completely changed beyond original recognition.

It's nice seeing James and Duncan interact as well.

Season 11: Gordon and the Engineer

With so many studs filling this era, this episode was actually pretty genuinely humorous.

It features Gordon being full of himself as per usual, as well as Donald and Douglas who have disappeared off the face of Sodor for the last three seasons.

Honourable Mention: Emily's Rubbish

Season 12: Gordon Takes a Shortcut

When the CGI begun to come into play, it was only used for the faces and people.

This season also featured a host of returnees, but only for mere moments.

None of these characters were ever really developed in their appearances, but it was still nice to see them.

This episode features more characters than you can poke a stick at.

If this era of the show proved anything, it brought out the best traits in the original fleet of characters, even if it was a bit simple.

SEASON 13 DOES NOT EXIST

SEASON 14 DOES NOT EXIST

SEASON 15 DOES NOT EXIST

...Phew. Now that we've got that out of the way, we will never talk of Season 13 to 15 again.

Season 16: Don't Bother Victor

Blue Mountain Mystery if anything showed that we as a fandom were halfway out of the dark ages of Thomas, and even though reality differs, it was nice to see a lot of the narrow gauge characters recognised in this episode.

The visuals produced by Nitrogen at this point were becoming a bit more thorough as well.

Season 17: Bill or Ben?

At this point in the show, the new creative team have stepped up and made the show a bit more streamlined and refreshing.

Not only were the stories becoming more entertaining, but we were seeing the likes of Bill and Ben returning to initiate new character relationships and conjure some fantastic stories, such as this one.

Honourable Mention: The Thomas Way

Season 18: Toad's Bright Idea

One of the cleverest things that this season did was interweave an episode in Season 18 to take place at the same time as the events of the annual hour long episode, Tale of the Brave. It also put two unlikely characters together and brought out some proper characterisation that I was hoping to see from Gator in the film.

Toad's voice is also adorable.

Honourable Mention: Last Train for Christmas

Season 19: The Little Engine Who Raced Ahead

If the brief for Phillip was to create a character who could be reminiscent of Thomas' beginnings on Sodor, but had an adrenaline on steroids, then they nailed it.

This episode harkens back to the early days of Sodor, and has a great Railway Series vibe about it.

It is also nice to see Gordon paired up with a new young engine and continue to be disapproving.

Phillip is also just a fun character and this introduction is probably one of the best handled beginnings.

Honourable Mention: Diesel's Ghostly Christmas, Goodbye Fat Controller

Season 20: Tit for Tat

It blew my mind completely knowing that last season would contain stories adapted from the book series, which had not happened since Mind that Bike in 1995.

This episode is everything I wanted it to be and more.

The characters are on point, the music score is amazing and the visuals are gorgeous.

It definitely makes Sodor feel bigger than before and having Teddy Boston and Wilbert Awdry appear in character was an extra special treat.

Honourable Mention: The Missing Breakdown Train, Ryan and Daisy, Over the Hill

Season 21: The Fastest Red Engine on Sodor (... for now)

Although not all of Season 21 has aired yet, it has been on fire.

This episode particularly, as it features one of the first proper brutal crashes we've had for a while.

The other very clever thing about it is that it sets up the plot very nicely for the immediate episode following on after.

It's also welcoming to see a character, who has remained very one-dimensional over the last several years, be renewed and given some proper screen time and a fresh restart.

Honourable Mention: Hasty Hannah, New Crane on the Dock