Henry's Magic Box (Thomas & Friends)

Henry's Magic Box
How to make the worst Henry episode in 9 and a half minutes.
Series: Thomas & Friends Part of Season: 14 Episode Number: 20 (broadcasting order) 2 (production order) Air Date: November 8, 2010 (UK) November 28, 2010 (US) Writer: Sharon Miller Previous episode: "Merry Misty Island" (S14 finale in production order) "Thomas' Tall Friend" (episodic production order for S14) Next episode: Gordon and Ferdinand (broadcasting order) "James in the Dark" (production order for S14).

"Henry's Magic Box" is the 20th and final episode of Season 14 of Thomas & Friends, the second episode of the fourteenth season in production order. It aired in the UK November 8, 2010, and was produced in 2009, a year before the episode's release in the 2010's.

Why It's Not Magical

1. Much like "Thomas' Tall Friend", it's basically a filler episode of the show, but more boring than the latter.
2. Henry displays some of the biggest stupidity that he has ever been, showing how his flanderization has gone way too far.
3. So much obvious narration that you wish that the narrator would stop talking in certain scenes that didn't need narration.
4. Like most episodes in Seasons 8-16, the episode is formulaic and repetitive judging by the usage of the three strikes formula.
5. Henry would know by now that the box full of Christmas trees should not matter anymore.
6. If you count it by UK airing order, this episode is a bad way to end Season 14, and things got only worse in the 15th Season.
7. There are no other engines present than just the eight main engines. As if the eight main engines are the only engines to run on the Fat Controller's railway (which isn't true).
8. The original version of the UK dub still contains the "Winter Holidays" term. Granted, HiT was trying to be "politically correct" when the term was first used in "It's Only Snow", but that doesn't work because saying "Merry Christmas" isn't that offensive.
   • Thankfully, the UK dub changed that to "Christmas holidays" in favour of the criticism given to HiT Entertainment by Hilary Fortman, one of Wilbert Awdry's daughters.
9. Not only does this episode have unnecessary filler, but the reason why this episode felt like filler is that the episode has only two stories into one. This isn't necessarily a bad thing mind you, but it's not used very well.
   • The first half is Henry taking the box of Christmas trees to a field for a Christmas tree show, then he searches his box everywhere he goes, returns back here, and explains the situation to Sir Topham Hatt.
   • The second half shows Henry telling the whole Steam Team to come to Farmer McColl's field and drags on for a good two minutes.
10. "No time to take on water, Toby". What if Toby doesn't have enough to keep making steam?
11. This episode's logic makes no sense:
    • For one, how can all the trees fit into one box?
    • And two, wouldn't a crane be useful enough to take the box off Henry's flatbed instead of having the workmen to do it?
12. The episode's title is not only false advertising but makes the episode itself look completely pointless and ironic. The box isn't even magic at all, and the box was never really seen again after Henry delivered the trees to Farmer McColl's field. If someone stole the box, then Henry would do something about that, and it would make far better sense why Henry was so worried. But that doesn't happen because of what was already said earlier. Then again, the episode's existence is still pointless, and so is the episode's title.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Great animation like always with Nitrogen handling the animation. The Christmas lights look fantastic as well thanks to the CGI technology.
2. Great voice acting in the UK and US dubs like always.
3. The Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt dressed as Father Christmas/Santa Claus, which was clever of him to do.

Reception

"Henry's Magic Box" was detested by fans for Henry's idiocy, the unnecessary filler, as well as Christmas being called "Winter Holidays" (this was changed to "Christmas holidays" from 2011/2012 for only the UK dub). The episode is currently ranked a 2.3/10 on iMDB.com

Hilary Fortman criticized HiT Entertainment for the same reason in 2011 because she responded that "her father didn't write that in any of his books", and because of this, HiT decided to release the "Merry Winter Wish" UK DVD to December 2012, and got a few of the lines saying "Winter Holidays" re-recorded to "Christmas Holidays" because of the criticism. The same wasn't done for the American version until HiT got the show to say "Christmas" in the scripts again starting in Season 17.