This month I'm going to review Christmas or "winter holiday" episodes (including good ones), and why not start off with an episode about Charlie? Lets dive in.
Thomas and Charllie are shunting trucks at the bottom of Gordon's Hill. Because, you know, that's totally safe(!). Henry passes by and says he dislikes snow. Charlie is determined to make Henry like snow. So he hides behind a random snowman and tells joke, claiming HE'S the snowman. I'll...talk about that later. Henry is terrified of the snowman and runs away. This happens two more times, because it's not like plots can't be different. Charlie finds Henry in his shed and apologizes for scaring the crap out of him. Emily and Edward put in their opinions and Charlie realizes that everybody has their own opinion. He becomes Henry's back engine to the train to the Docks, then some boring stuff at the end leads to them both laughing at a stupid joke.
Ok, this episode is...really pathetic. Not only that, but Charlie's made even more unlikable here. I don't know
That pretty much sums it up.
how that's possible, but they did it. They reduced him down to a stupid idiot who can't take others' opinions. Not only that, but he's literally scaring Henry away. I also find it ridiculous how Charlie could somehow hide behind that giant snowman. And the fact that he thinks Henry would find a talking snowman funny is ridiculous. He doesn't care what Henry says either; he can hear him but he doesn't care about the "It's strange!" and stuff. Charlie has become that selfish and that idiotic. A talking snowman in itself is not funny. Charlie clearly doesn't understand comedy, which is bad because that's what his purpose is.
Speaking of which, what guy built a snowman there? Remember back in the Edward Strikes Out review what I said about contrivance? This is pure contrivance. It does not make any sense whatsoever. Who built it? Why? Another prime contrivance is this: Does Charlie not do any work? That wouldn't surprise me, but it still raises questions. Why does the Fat Controller even keep him around if he does nothing but try and get engines to do stupid things?
Henry doesn't fair any better; he should know that snowmen can't talk and he should be able to guess that it's Charlie. He should have at least seen him behind the snowman at some point! He also shouldn't be this scared of a snowman that can't even move. At least in Flatbeds of Fear his fear is justifiable. Here it's a snowman! Even if he was scared, he probably would not hide in his shed like a coward. Lastly, he would not think a snowman could even smile. My god, seriously?
This episode is also really painful because the jokes are horribly unfunny. I know they're probably not meant to get a laugh out of older people, but seriously, I doubt even kids would find these jokes funny. This is why Not Now Charlie is somewhat cathartic: because Charlie's jokes are predictable and unfunny as heck. Like I said before, the series has thrown in subtle humor. Heck, even fans in their own series have done this. How hard is it to come up with somewhat decent jokes? It's pretty bad when the "comic relief" of your show is bad.
The three-strikes formula is also annoying as heck, as is the rhyming and alliteration. It's not used quite as much as before, but it still gets grating incredibly quickly. The mentioning of the Logging Locos wasn't really necessary either. Charlie's annoying on his own, we don't need them either... But I'm going to review an episode with them anyway....yay(!)
Rating: -9/10
While not the worst episode ever, it is incredibly bad. The jokes are unfunny, the characters are flandarized, the episode itself is pretty boring, and the premise is pathetic. "Charlie tries to make Henry laugh with a talking snowman." That doesn't even sound real! How these premises come to be is a mystery. Not just this episode, but many others from many seasons of the show. This is in the top 3 worst episodes from Season 16, and that's saying a lot when you have a crappy ripoff of Fiery Flynn and a crappy ripoff of Topped off Thomas.
List your opinions below in the comments. Take a guess what the next episode is in the comments too.