Thomas & Friends is a children's television series about the engines and other characters on the railways of the Island of Sodor, and is based on The Railway Series books written by the Reverend W. Awdry.
This article lists and details episodes from the twenty-second series of the show, which began airing on 3 September 2018 in the UK, and on 17 September 2018 in the US.
Retitled as Thomas & Friends: Big World, Big Adventures!, Series 22 saw the first major changes since the show switched to full CGI animation in the thirteenth series. The episodes kept their eleven-minute-long runtime, but were now divided into seven minute-long stories, with an additional four minutes reserved for a variety of segments, such as sing-along karaoke songs and music videos, or Thomas talking directly with the audience about lessons learned during a particular episode.[1]
Production for series 22 began in fall of 2017. Clips of the series were released in October of that year, almost a year before its premiere on television.
The series introduced new characters Nia and Rebecca and also retired third-person narration, with Thomas now talking directly to the audience about the day's episode and during the learning segments. In addition, the show had a brand new theme song.[2] Similar to Chuggington, the vehicular characters now move their bodies.
The series is set directly after the events of the Big World! Big Adventures! movie. Episodes are split into two halves; the first half sees Thomas travelling around the world, while the second half takes place back on the Island of Sodor. The series was released on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu in the fall of 2018.[3]
The following voice actors were listed in the closing credits for the series:
The following are also considered main characters but were not listed in the credits:
After a crash at the back of Tidmouth Sheds for showing off, a sad James is waiting at the Steamworks to be repaired. He hears that there might not be enough red paint to repaint him and gets worried he will be repainted a different colour. He dreams he will be blue like Thomas, Edward, and Gordon, green like Henry and Percy, and silver like Spencer, and gets into a crash while showing off in every dream.