Today's Lee Pressman episode was a clever introduction to a unique new character. Bradford's military vibe was amusing, particularly as we've never had anything like that in Thomas & Friends before. The mood and humor was very much akin to the Bluenose character in TUGS (for those of you who don't know, TUGS was the short-lived sister show to Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends in the late '80's).
This episode seemed to be a stream of tongue in cheek gags referring to the "dark ages" of Thomas & Friends. Bradford is highly critical of the way things are done on Sodor, citing safety codes that have often been ignored on the railway. All in all, this episode was a neat introduction for Bradford. This episode is also one of the few to emphasize the importance of the brake van. Bradford eventually takes his criticisms too far, leading to a humorous scene with Henry and an extremely tiny crack in his headlamp.
Thomas' somewhat oppositional-defiant attitude rears it's ugly head and he ends up hauling too much stone in his trucks from Blue Mountain Quarry, which I thought was a clever reference to the dark ages and the crazy, unsafe "special. specials."
My only real problem with this episode was the fact that some of Bradford's more legitimate concerns were ignored. Nevertheless, it was an amusing episode, and while I thought it could use some improvement, I'll give it an 8/10 rating, largely for the originality of the new character.
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