Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
It’s Day 24 of ‘Bradley’s Basement’s Advent Calendar 2025.
Let’s finish this year’s advent calendar by checking out the last two episodes of Season 1 of ‘Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends’! 🙂
‘DOWN THE MINE’
To think that ‘Down the Mine’ was the original pilot episode for ‘Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends’. I’ve seen the pilot episode and it’s very different to the transmitted episode. 😐 ‘Down the Mine’ was also technically the final episode in Season 1 of the ‘Thomas’ series.
Mind you, I see it as the penultimate episode, since I saw ‘Down the Mine’ before ‘Thomas’ Christmas Party’ on VHS. ‘Down the Mine’ is based on the story of the same name from the eighth ‘Railway Series’ book ‘Gordon the Big Engine’. 🙂 The third story, not the second.
The second story in ‘Gordon the Big Engine’ was ‘Leaves’, later adapted as ‘The Trouble with Mud’ in Season 3 of ‘Thomas’. In ‘Down the Mine’, Thomas teases Gordon for the incident he had in ‘Off the Rails’ where he ended up in a ditch. Thomas finds it so amusing.
His coaches Annie and Clarabel rebuke Thomas for his teasing, but he doesn’t listen. Eventually, he goes to a mine to shunt some trucks. In a rebellious act, Thomas goes past a sign that says DANGER. He ends up collapsing in a large hole where the rails are unsafe.
The Fat Controller saw what happened and tells Thomas off before he summons Gordon to help him. Gordon arrives with his cable winch, which he used to help Percy out of a bank of earth in ‘Percy Runs Away’. Thomas ends up apologising to Gordon in the episode.
‘THOMAS’ CHRISTMAS PARTY’
This ‘Thomas’ episode is rather unique. As well as being the first Christmas episode in the ‘Thomas’ series, this is an episode that was written specifically for the TV series by the show’s creator Britt Allcroft and the show’s director David Mitton, which is incredible.
In fact, Britt Allcrofft and David Mitton requested that the Reverend W. Awdry publish the story as part of ‘The Railway Series’ book series. I initially thought this episode was adapted from the fourth story of the ‘Toby the Tram Engine’ book called ‘Mrs. Kyndley’s Christmas’.
But it turns out it wasn’t that, although the events of that story are referred to in ‘Thomas’ Christmas Party’, including when Mrs. Kyndley was sent to Bournemouth to get better. I do wish that ‘Mrs. Kyndley’s Christmas’ had been adapted as an episode for the TV series.
Regardless, it’s nice to conclude Season 1 of the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ TV series with a Christmas episode. I know ‘Off the Rails’ and ‘Down the Mine’ were shown in January 1985 after this episode, but for me, ‘Thomas’ Christmas Party’ is the final episode of Season 1.
There’s a sense of completion by finishing Season 1 of ‘Thomas’ with a Christmas episode. I know it’s the same for Season 2 with ‘Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree’, but I like how a season concludes with a Christmas story just like every year ends with Christmas.
Thanks for reading and watching!
Check out what Day 24 of my ‘Bradley’s Basement’s Advent Calendars for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 were about!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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