Rusty Saves the Day (Thomas & Friends)

"Rusty Saves the Day" is the twenty fifth episode of the sixth season of Thomas and Friends.

Rusty Saves the Day
From plain boring to being a complete nonsensical mess.
Series: Thomas & Friends Part of Season: 6 Episode Number: 155 Air Date: October 18th, 2002 (UK) February 14th, 2003 (CANADA) April 26th, 2003 (JAPAN) July 22nd, 2003 (USA) Writer: David Mitton (story) Paul Larson (written) Director: David Mitton Previous episode: "Dunkin' Duncan" Next episode: "Faulty Whistles"

Plot

The Fat Controller closes Rheneas and Skarloey's line down and sends them to the quarry. But when the quarry will be blasting for two weeks, Rusty decides to use that time to help Elizabeth repair the line.

Why This Episode Didn't Save The Day

1. The biggest and most glaring problem with this episode is that the main plot is rather a slap in the face to the show's continuity. The Fat Controller closes Skarloey and Rheneas' line down all because Rusty took up so much time working on their line despite the quarry having work for him there.
2. Speaking of continuity, consistency, and main plot, this episode clearly has a huge lack of continuity and consistency. Due to this, this episode feels like a rewrite on Sodor's history, even though nothing was broken from Sodor's history.
3. Almost nothing from this episode makes any sense beyond belief. Either that was all done through continuity errors or just thrown in nonsense that has not even been shown in any of the Narrow Gauge Railway centered episodes in general.
   1. Why would Skarloey and Rheneas's line grow from serviceable to decrepit in a few days?
   2. Wouldn't Duncan, Sir Handel, Peter Sam, or Duke also help Skarloey, Rusty, and Rheneas out if Rusty is fixing Skarloey and Rheneas's line with the help of Elizabeth?
   3. Why does Rusty have to work at the quarry when pulling maintenance trains was the very reason he was purchased in the first place?
   4. Skarloey and Rheneas' line is effectively the mainline of the Skarloey Railway. Meanwhile, they are all still expected to work at the slate quarry, even with the line to Crovan's Gate closed. The map created by Sam Wilkinson in 2014 does rectify this a bit by showing the SKR having more than one connection with the North Western Railway, but in 2002, nobody knew this, so it came off as The Fat Controller shutting down the Skarloey Railway.
   5. If Rusty can't help at the quarry, then why can't Skarloey, Rheneas, Peter Sam, Duncan, Duke, or any of the other narrow gauge engines? This whole mess could have easily been avoided!
      1. And who's to say The Fat Controller didn't engineer the crisis? He may have let the line fall into disrepair so he could justify shutting it down and replacing it with a standard-gauge line so he could give the North Western Railway more business. That's incredibly corrupt and out-of-character for him.
4. There is a noticeable error that can be seen here. When the narrator says "Rusty could see they were not happy" (indirectly referring to Skarloey and Rheneas), the two engines look happy their line is being closed down. That's really off putting and definitely not right.
5. The title is false advertising: Saving and repairing the railway did not take place within a whole day, as what the Fat Controller said, it only takes two weeks. And there's another thing, this episode's title should have been given to Elizabeth since she was doing the most work alongside Rusty.
6. With the exception of the voices for Elizabeth and Sir Topham Hatt, Alec Baldwin's narration in Season 6 is really boring, dead inside, and straight up abysmal to listen to like usual.
7. Overall, the episode served no impact to the 1984-2020 Thomas & Friends series whatsoever since none of the events of the episode were mentioned again. You can watch any Thomas episode you want, but only skipping "Rusty Saves the Day", as well as a few other stinkers that fans like to treat/call non-canon, and anything too important would not be missed.
   • This is also one of David Mitton's worst stories from the Classic era of Thomas, and not even Paul Larson's management with writing the story was any better. How could Paul mess that up?
8. Just like every Season 6 episode, the lighting is very bland, dull, and boring to look at.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The story idea of Rusty repairing the railway is a good concept to start off with, even if it is standard. But the latter was executed poorly due to the lack of continuity and common sense.
2. Although the US version sounded really bad due to Alec Baldwin's monotonous narration and voices, his voices for Sir Topham Hatt and Elizabeth are still passable.
3. The UK narration from Michael Angelis is still good.
4. The sets and props are still great like always.
5. Great music by Mike O' Donnell and Junior Campbell.
6. Thankfully, this episode does not come off to be one of those episodes that tries to make the audience pity something but fail because the episode's story mocks and insults its audience. Unlike Some Episodes.

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