Originally I was going to be doing a review on The Great Discovery, but seeing as how it's already the first of December (for me anyways), I figured that this would be a much more suitable thing to do instead. As it is already December in my part of the world, I would like to say Happy Holidays (or Winter Holidays if you prefer. :P) to everybody on this wiki. Regardless of the holiday you celebrate, I hope you have a splendid time on this festive season. :)
Back to the main reason to why I created this blog, over the years there have been many festive episodes for the television series, some being excellent while others are considered average or downright terrible by the rest of the fanbase. So today, I'll be going over my favourite and least-favourite Christmas episodes, and then I'll be asking the rest of you what your favourite and least-favourite Christmas episodes are.
Regarding my favourite episode, choosing my favourite was a tough one. I really like both Duncan the Humbug, Last Train for Christmas, and Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree very much equally. However, I ended up choosing the former two episodes as my favourites, both of them very much tied together. Duncan the Humbug was a great episode, it had a great cast of characters, a great plot, and a great moral. Duncan had a superb leading role, and the other narrow gauge engines and Mr. Percival also had great roles. There were even some instrumental pieces of classical Christmas music thrown around in certain parts, which sounded really nice. Oh yeah, and that viaduct shot was stunning! Last Train for Christmas was also a great episode, with some stunning animation, a wonderful plot, and a great cast of characters. I really liked Connor's role in the episode, and seeing the Slip Coaches again was nice, and that little plot twist at the end was also a nice surprise. Some might have expected that ending to occur, but for me, I didn't know what to expect, so it was very nice.
Choosing my all-time least favourite episode was a tough one. I hate Thomas' Tricky Tree, Thomas' Frosty Friend, and The Christmas Tree Express equally, However, whereas I felt some sort of emotion towards The Christmas Tree Express (mostly anger :P) and Thomas' Tricky Tree (mostly because of Sir Handel's return, as I watched this episode before A Smooth Ride), I felt no sort of emotion towards Thomas' Frosty Friend. In fact, it was just as boring as it was bad. Thomas has been stupid in episodes before this, but he's never been so stupid as to not realize that there's something chained to his own buffers directly behind him. The three strikes formula also held the plot back, and nothing interesting happened at all, nor were there any positives (The Christmas Tree Express was the last appearance of the Logging Locos and their deathtrap of an island, so I consider that a positive, and as I said, I watched Thomas' Tricky Tree before A Smooth Ride, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Sir Handel return). The plot felt like Up, Up and Away!, yet somehow it preceeds it by five years, and there was nothing interesting. Don't get me wrong, Thomas' Tricky Tree and The Christmas Tree Express were both bad too - Thomas should know what a tree looks like even under a tarpaulin, and Rheneas and Toby were morons - but I still felt some sort of emotion towards them, whereas for Thomas' Frosty Friend I didn't, and it got boring fast.
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on my favourite and most hated Christmas episodes. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below, and what you would like to see in future festive episodes. I myself would like to see more winter-themed episodes focusing on different holidays as well as some more traditional Christmas music, but let me know what you think.