The Skarloey Five (Thomas & Friends)

The Skarloey Five refers to the five Skarloey Railway episodes from Season 12 of Thomas & Friends, which are "Mountain Marvel", "The Party Surprise", "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon", "The Man in the Hills", and "Push Me, Pull You!". These episodes aired between September 4 to September 25, 2008, in the UK. While most of the Skarloey Railway episodes from Seasons 4-7 were well received and most of the ones from the HiT Model era garnered mixed reception, these episodes have been poorly received by fans.

In General

 * 1) The primary criticism of these five episodes is that none of them have the same charm as the previous Skarloey Railway episodes from seasons 4-7, and to a lesser extent, the HiT Model era. Even though the HiT Model era wasn't a perfect era for the Skarloey Railway with episodes such as "Skarloey the Brave", at least there are still some good episodes, like "Mighty Mac", "Wash Behind Your Buffers" and "Thomas and Skarloey's Big Day Out". The Skarloey Railway episodes from Season 12, however, all fall off the rails in different areas that could have easily been avoided.
 * 2) All of them are really predictable and formulaic like a typical Sharon Miller episode. Mr. Percival announces something that is a special delivery or a special event, one of the engines volunteers to do the job, the engine screws up three times by either getting distracted by something or forgetting what Mr. Percival just told them, and later the engine gets into trouble (either unintentionally or on purpose), the engine goes "iT's AlL mY fAuLt!" and they apologize after being reprimanded by Mr. Percival, they go back and fix their mistakes, all is happy, and that's it.
 * 3) The pacing is very bad, which makes these episodes boring to watch.
 * 4) Abysmal writing that tops that from the worst Skarloey Railway episodes from the HiT Model era as there are way too many obvious mistakes presented. From continuity errors and inconsistency to out-of-character moves, to stupid moves, to illogical territory, to pretty much everything that shows how wrong all five of these episodes are written.
 * 5) As usual for this era, the narration is way overused and constantly points out the obvious. It even ruins some scenes such as the crashes in "Push Me, Pull You!" and the one crash scene in "Mountain Marvel".
 * 6) As usual for season 12, the use of animation and live action is still inconsistent and badly aged (even for 2008 standards).
 * 7) These episodes don't even teach kids anything given by the fact that none of them provide a moral, all except for "The Party Surprise" (which shares out a good moral) and "Push Me, Pull You" (which has the opposite of a good moral, more info).
 * 8) These episodes ended the Skarloey Railway episodes of the model era on a really bad note since none of them stood out and proved to most fans why season 12 is a terrible season. Because of this, the narrow-gauge engines don't return until four years later in both season 16 and "Blue Mountain Mystery". Duncan didn't return until season 18. However, Mighty Mac and Freddie are never seen or heard from again after these episodes.
 * 9) *This is quite understandable since the show was transitioning into CGI, following most of the same continuity from Seasons 1-12. But at the same time, it's also sad that these are the episodes to conclude the Skarloey Railway episodes in the model era on really abysmal notes.

Mountain Marvel

 * 1) Like its brother episode, "The Magic Lamp", the episode itself feels more like a TV advertisement than an actual episode.
 * 2) Peter Sam's milk churn train has no brake van, which means that Peter Sam is screwed!
 * 3) Peter Sam telling Duncan, Freddie, and Mighty Mac not to take the shortcut feels repetitive. Not only has it taken 53 seconds to get to the point, but it would have easily been cut short to 10 seconds before getting to the point.
 * 4) Plot hole: How come Peter Sam's brakes were dysfunctional in the first place?

The Party Surprise

 * 1) Colin is another one of those one-off characters from the Sharon Miller era who is only there for merchandising as he has no introduction, no backstory and no character build up given to him, Colin is just there. He also has no personality to speak of and is never seen or mentioned after this episode. Talk about how irrelevant he is as a character.
 * 2) For some reason in the UK version, Freddie has an Irish accent, but in the other two episodes from the same season ("Mountain Marvel" and "The Man in the Hills"), Freddie is given a Welsh accent, an accent that Angelis rarely uses for any of the other characters he gave his voices to.
 * 3) *And in one point where he says to Mr. Percival, his wife, and children, he says "The party is now at the Wharf" with James' Liverpudlian accent, and oddly sounds like it.
 * 4) Of course, it's another one of those episodes that refers to Christmas as Winter Holidays.
 * 5) There is very little happening to the story, and it gets really boring quickly when you see how uninteresting it turns out to be. Let alone turn it into a story that almost goes nowhere.
 * 6) The train full of presents Peter Sam was hauling could have been transported inside narrow-gauge mail trucks instead of flatbeds.
 * 7) Freddie is an old and wise engine, so he would know by now that he has to ask Mr. Percival about throwing the Christmas party at the wharf first before setting it up himself.
 * 8) The narrator saying, "Colin was puzzled, but he still had other work to do." is not only obvious to the audience, but also really repetitive and irritating since the audience already knows what is already shown here.
 * 9) Two questions to ask about the scene following Mr. Percival scolding Colin:
 * 10) *How can Mr. Percival not see that the tree, lights, and presents were for the party?
 * 11) *Why would Mr. Percival order Colin to unload the three things if they were for his party?
 * 12) Sadly, with this episode being the last episode where Fearless Freddie is the main focus since he had only one episode each in seasons 10 and 11. It goes to show no one felt like they knew what to do with Freddie, and not even Sharon Miller herself could save Freddie as his episodes that are written from her often suffer from mediocrity. Not to say he is a bad character by any means, but had they used him more frequently and kept more of a consistent continuity with him, he would have lasted longer out of all the narrow gauge engines on the Skarloey Railway.
 * 13) This episode was a bad way to end season 12 and the whole model era on the US.

Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon

 * 1) Duncan acts out of character in this episode. Granted, this episode wanted to show a good side of Duncan where he isn't so stubborn and grumpy all the time, but that worked before previously like in "Duncan Does it All". Here with this episode, it portrays him like he's an actual idiot whose original personality has been thrown out the window.
 * 2) The hot air balloon is inflated on the flatbed. If you remember "James and the Red Balloon", the same balloon Thomas was delivering to Dryaw was deflated before it would become inflated later in the episode. Here because this episode is dense from any reality or logic, they actually show a fully inflated balloon.
 * 3) Continuity error: Thomas does not remember what the red hot air balloon looked like despite having pulled it before.
 * 4) The general episode is the model era version/equivalent of "Up, Up, and Away!", which is even worse than this episode, and to put in one exception; "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon" aired in 2008, three years before "Up, Up, and Away!".
 * 5) The front buffers on Duncan's flatbed biffing the basket would easily break the basket.
 * 6) Duncan's shenanigans, not only are they forced, feel rather pointless since Duncan can just deliver the balloon without making any ideas anyway because delivering the balloon to Mr. Percival's house is far too easy to come up with any ideas at all.
 * 7) If Duncan was told to only deliver the balloon to Mr. Percival's house, then why the heck did he not tell Duncan that he is to pick up Mr. Percival's twin children earlier? This whole inconsistent mess could have been easily avoided/prevented if Mr. Percival sent another one of his engines to pick up the twins so he can give them his balloon ride before Duncan suggested his idea to set things right.
 * 8) Duncan's flag would have been easily burnt by puffing really hot steam and ashes coming from his funnel.

The Man in the Hills

 * 1) This is yet another one of those episodes that Thomas is portrayed as an idiot so the story can happen.
 * 2) Not only does this episode portray Thomas as completely stupid, but he's also blind in this episode, too. He thinks that a dairy man and even a miller are both the Man in the Hills, but he would obviously know the difference between the three.
 * 3) There are two plot holes:
 * 4) If Duncan, Rusty, Skarloey and Rheneas are supposed to be taking decorations, flowers, banners, and balloons, then why are they just hanging out at the wharf instead of doing their jobs?
 * 5) How did Skarloey, Rheneas, Duncan, and Rusty know which jobs they were given to each engine?
 * 6) Sir Handel explaining who or what the Man in the Hills is sounds like poor research despite the episode paying homage to The Long Man of Wilmington.
 * 7) What's even the point of saying that "no one has ever seen the Man in the Hills" if there are railway tracks beside it?
 * 8) This episode gave Thomas' flanderization the know-it-all trait. Would you really think Thomas would know about the Man in the Hills if he’s never even seen or heard of him?
 * 9) Unlike the other three episodes, this one has an excessive amount of alliteration and rhyming used.
 * 10) Sir Handel telling Thomas: "You said you'd bring the best present of all! Now Mr. Percival doesn't have any presents, and we're all late!". is hypocritical since he and the rest of the narrow-gauge engines aren't even doing their own work and are just hanging out at the wharf for no reason.
 * 11) Transporting a birthday cake inside the engine's cab can cause the cake to melt by the time Thomas and Freddie got to Mr. Percival's birthday party at the end of the episode.
 * 12) *Speaking of which, this is actually considered a pointless idea since someone else (that is not an engine) would deliver the cake to Mr. Percival's birthday party on road instead of railway transportation by an engine.
 * 13) Thomas' crew could have told Thomas what this Man in the Hills is instead of Sir Handel.

Push Me, Pull You!

 * 1) Skarloey and Rheneas are 100% miscast choices for two engines fighting over whose going to pull a train since this would be much better suited for Bill and Ben instead of two brother engines who have lived longer on Sodor than any other engine.
 * 2) The plot is downright abysmal: Skarloey refuses Rheneas' help to pull a train for a puppet show and ends up playing games with Rheneas when both decide to play tug of war to show which engine is the strongest.
 * 3) *This is another one of those rare episodes with both brothers acting like little kids than old wise engines.
 * 4) Skarloey is at his absolute worst in this episode, as his flanderization has gone too far.
 * 5) *When Rheneas asks him if he needs help pulling the train considering the fact that it would be very hard for one engine to pull, Skarloey downright refuses his help because he thinks that he’s strong enough to pull it on his own. This is Skarloey at his most childish, even more so than in "Skarloey the Brave".
 * 6) *Somehow Skarloey doesn't get any consequences for his actions. Sure, he crashes into a river, but he never gets scolded by Mr. Percival or even Sir Topham Hatt. This normally happens back in the Classic era, and even the HiT Model era. But here, he has to go fix the mess he created because story needs that to happen so Skarloey can redeem himself at the end.
 * 7) *Sometimes, it's necessary for an engine/engines to fix a mistake they caused themselves to show how they caused confusion and delay, but here, no one would be that stupid to let that slide because Skarloey was responsible for screwing around and he was the one responsible for ruining the supplies for the party. So no, there is no point in letting Skarloey go fix the mess, but get no punishment.
 * 8) Rheneas himself is also unlikable, (particularly at the beginning, though a little and nowhere near as bad as Skarloey) as he also battles to take the puppet show along with Skarloey.
 * 9) There was no reason for Skarloey to run loose during the second and third strikes, which means the last two crashes for the episode were completely pointless and unnecessary the entire time.
 * 10) This episode sends a bad message to children that you can refuse help from others all the time and cause a ton of problems.
 * 11) Idiot move: When Rusty sees Skarloey losing control, he just straight up stops in Skarloey’s way. If Rusty still kept on going, Skarloey would have passed him! Why couldn’t he do that or speed up a little when he sees Skarloey losing control?
 * 12) *Not to mention, Rusty gets cross at Skarloey, even though he was the cause of the crash due to him stopping in front of Skarloey.
 * 13) As typical as it is, the constant narration never shuts up during the crash scenes, which is obvious because the amount of narration in general never takes a break.
 * 14) Although Skarloey is not portrayed as a hypochondriac pansy who is scared over the smallest things without any reason, he is still portrayed as a childish engine anyway. But unlike the wimpy Skarloey episodes, he's actually really selfish.
 * 15) Rusty and Duncan serve no purpose to the episode (neither did Thomas) other than to be test subjects for the sake of the three strikes formula to run rampant.
 * 16) Like the typical season 12 episode would be, the mixture of live-action and animation hasn't aged well (Well, especially for 2008 standards) and goes off and on in some parts.
 * 17) The CGI faces for Skarloey are creepy. If you take a look at how bulgy his pupils are in his eyes, you can tell it's more creepy inducing than nightmare fuel looking.
 * 18) Overall, this is by far the worst of the Skarloey Railway episodes in not just season 12, but the entire show. Not only that, but it also ended the Skarloey Railway episodes in the model era on a horribly sour note. To quote a line from Johnny Test, "Woah. Didn't see that coming."

In General

 * 1) The concepts for the other four Season 12 Skarloey episodes are interesting. A balloon ride for Mr. Percival's twins, a Man in the Hills, a party at the Wharf and a puppet show train, if they were executed properly.
 * 2) The narrow-gauge engines would return to their normal personalities starting in Season 16 and also "Blue Mountain Mystery".
 * 3) Although the narration inserting was really annoying, both Michael Angelis and Michael Brandon still put their effort into their narration for both respective English dubs.
 * 4) "Mountain Marvel", "Push Me, Pull You!", "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon", and "The Party Surprise" are the only episodes without any alliteration and rhyming. Though the alliteration is used only from when Peter Sam is telling Duncan, Freddie, and Mighty Mac not to go to a shortcut, and is proof the alliteration in that episode is minimal and minor, unlike "The Man in the Hills".
 * 5) Thankfully, none of the specials from these episodes given to each of the engines were called "special specials".
 * 6) The model and live-action work for Season 12 is still good, if only HiT Entertainment stuck with either CGI or general live-action instead of both.
 * 7) Fearless Freddie and Mighty Mac are still likeable characters.

Mountain Marvel

 * 1) It is quite nice to know Proteus was not forgotten, let alone give out facts this episode is a sequel to "The Magic Lamp".
 * 2) One of the crash sound effects used from the Classic Series returns once again in the scene where Peter Sam crashes his milk train into the buffers after losing control.
 * 3) Unlike the other 4 episodes, at least this one doesn't use the three strikes formula.
 * 4) The shot where the camera moves an angle a bit during the scene where Freddie stops by Peter Sam is quite nice to look at.
 * 5) Out of all the episodes in the Skarloey Five, it is the least bad of the bunch as there are people such as The Thomas Cynic and Can You See Fish who consider this episode decent/good.

The Party Surprise

 * 1) Freddie and Colin's chemistry is a great idea for an episode, if only the latter was executed properly enough to turn it into a good story.
 * 2) We finally get to see Mr. Percival's twin children in this episode, even though they were minor characters. But, we would not say that this episode is the first that they were introduced.
 * 3) This episode does show a good moral that you should ask first before doing something later.
 * 4) For once we did get a character who is a narrow gauge railway equivalent of Cranky, albeit a one-off character.

Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon

 * 1) The animation with the funnel smoke looks pretty good, although not the best.
 * 2) Duncan reacting to the balloon floating down on the top of a bridge is somewhat funny.

The Man in the Hills

 * 1) The episode was a semi-nice homage to The Long Man of Wilmington, and pays some tribute to British culture.
 * 2) There are only TWO strikes for this episode. That's right, just TWO!
 * 3) The animation for the miller is clever and creative. He is fully white at first until when comes out of Thomas' cab, all the flour comes off after Thomas took him to the Wharf.

Push Me, Pull You

 * 1) Even though Skarloey still acted out of character in that episode, at least he no longer has his flanderized, wimpy, hypochondriac characteristic side of him we all know and hate since it was never used again after "Skarloey Storms Through" from Season 11. And after this episode, Skarloey has fully reverted back to his original personality.

Reception
The five Skarloey Railway episodes from Season 12 weren't received well and met with negative reception from most of the fans of the original 1984 Thomas and Friends series due to the poor storytelling and predictable executions for each plot. Though a lot of fans said "Push Me, Pull You" is the worst episode out of all of the five for all the reasons why and of course no one was surprised or happy this was the sendoff for the Skarloey Railway episodes in model form.

"Mountain Marvel" and "The Man in the Hills both received a 3.2/10, "The Party Surprise" received a 3.9/10, "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon" received a 3.5/10, and "Push Me, Pull You!" received a 2.8/10 all on iMDB.com.

Videos
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Trivia

 * According to concept art, Colin was going to return in the 2013 special, "King of the Railway", but was eventually scrapped from the final cut for reasons unknown.