Toad Stands By

"Young Winston is heading for trouble, biiiiig trouble."

Uuuum, she's narrow gauge, not suited to be on the same tracks as the main standard gauge characters (for stuff like N or 009 scale, possibly, but not HO). For Millie, yes she's quite interesting, but I wouldn't put any hope into them making her into a model for this range.

Well, if you think about it, Luke's New Friend actually had some realistic moments (like the other engines telling Luke that the deer doesn't belong at the quarry, especially Rheneas), unlike how the other previous episodes sucked horribly that had animals as part of the plot. I mean, this pretty much beats Percy's New Friend by a long shot if ya think about it.

Luke also refers to the deer as friend, not as Mr. *insert animal name here* from the likes of Percy in the latter mentioned episode...

And come on, Thomas doesn't show up for once!! Thank goodness!!

To me, while it still had a bit of animation goofs, it's at least much better of animal themed episodes by a long shot-to each his/her own I suppose. I personally give it an 8/10.

It was great that we got to see an old, but classic character that hadn't been seen for quite a while, and thankfully, they released him at the right time (I mean geez, imagine what would've happened if they released him in the previous CGI series... *shudders*).

And I'm also pleased that the overall episode felt like reading "Super Rescue" from the RWS. I mean Henry pushing a broken down engine with a crap load of trucks and himself being handicapped as well? Wow... Yeah, this is an episode I can enjoy for a while. Now while it had some little nitpicks here and there (like at the end, Henry and Hiro leave the Steamworks at the same time, towards the exit with only one transfer table... Yeaaaah, you can see where this is going), it had an overall interesting plot and buildup... I personally give it a 9/10

There's also the possibility of making the middle wheels flange-less like the HO scale Emily's coaches/Large scale Emily's Coaches + James, to make things a lot easier for an engine like Hiro to turn a tad tight curve wouldn't it?

This year is apparently a great year for Duck: he's being released for the Bachmann range, the take n play range, and will show up in the upcoming episode, Henry's Hero.

Oh yeah, and Season 17 started airing starting with Kevin's Cranky Friend yesterday and then Scruff's Makeover today in the UK. We'll keep our eyes peeled for the 5th episode, Calm Down Caitlin.

http://thesifblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/news-series-17-voice-cast-changes.html

Ahh yes, and some voice actors had left the series which then made some changes.

http://www.freeview.co.uk/whats-on/tv-guide?tvgBegin=307&tvgListingID=338706346&tvgTitle=Thomas%20%26%20Friends&tvgClipsPerPage=7&tvgPageNumber=1&tvgShowID=571920

Just scroll back to June 11th in the morning schedule and you'll see the updated goodness...

More episode titles: Henry's Hero, Luke's New Friend, The Switch, and Not Now Charlie.

This would be true, for the UK that is. The US will get the episodes in October 7th.

http://digiguide.tv/programme-details/Channel+5/7+June+2013/06:35/Thomas+and+Friends/Animation/

Here's the 8th episode confirmed: Calm Down Caitlin.

Yeah, after looking up her basis, it turns out that her builder/creator is of French origin, thus she is indeed French. Glad to know they researched her basis very meticulously I suppose

If the Thomas sound activated model will be successful that is (hopefully they fix the little minor errors they had on Thomas, Percy, and James when Bachmann first released them).

http://www.hoyts.com.au/movies/2013/king_of_the_railway.aspx

According to this, Millie will be French. Huh, now we have a third narrow gauge engine released into the CGI series that doesn't have a British nationality (I mean Victor is Cuban/Spanish, Luke is Irish, and now Millie will be French). Interesting indeed, that's the only interestind tidbit I found out of that.

Chances of them being grimy looking, not so big, looking at Salty and Mavis as they aren't dirty. They're very clean, so Arry and Bert wouldn't be that dirty...

But then again, I remember a user actually sprinkled on some weathering on them to make them accurately dirty, so even if they don't make them dirty, you can just slap some weathering and badabing you got yourself a couple of dirty diesels

I hope #4 will be either on a closed van (with a more interesting face) or one of the tankers from Toad Stands By. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they'll think of for it in the future.