U.S. Title: James Learns A Lesson
Air date: October 30th, 1984
Adapted from: James the Red Engine, "James and the Top Hat" and "James and the Bootlace"
James is enjoying his new life on the Fat Controller's railway, but he has to learn from his mistakes according to the Fat Controller. Later, he and Edward get to double head some coaches. Edward advises James to not bump the coaches too hard, but James is too excited to listen and eagerly blows off steam, causing a shower of water to fall onto the Fat Controller's top hat. James quickly wants to leave, but Edward and the coaches are annoyed that he is going too fast. As they complete their journey, he wonders about what would the Fat Controller would say about his top hat.
Later, the Fat Controller severely warns James that he will paint his red coat blue if he doesn't behave properly. This makes James angry enough to be very rough with the coaches that as they set off, he causes a leak in a coache's brake pipe. The Guard asks one of the male passengers can hand out a bootlace to repair it, but the man refuses and everyone is angry. Eventually, he gives the bootlace and the pipe is repaired and James sadly continues his journey, knowing that he will be in a lot of trouble with the Fat Controller.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Berserk Button: James being told by the Fat Controller that he will paint him blue if he doesn't behave well, and he was even more cross when none of the passengers came near him.
- Compressed Adaptation: The episode merges "James and the Top Hat" and "James and the Bootlace" from the book James the Red Engine. From the former story, the episode omitted the scenes of James and Edward struggling over Gordon's Hill and James accidentally scaring a woman with a hiccup after laughing about Gordon getting stuck on his hill. From the latter story, the episode omits the detail of James fetching his coaches and being told to move to another platform.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Following him getting the Fat Controller's hat wet, the Fat Controller warns James that if he can't behave, he will take away his red coat of paint and have him painted blue. James doesn't like this at all.
- A Day in the Limelight: The first one focused on James.
- Doomed New Clothes: It's brought up that the Fat Controller's hat that James squirted water over was brand new.
- Downer Ending: James not only is embarrassed and depressed by the accident with the coaches, but also dreads of the fact he will be in even more trouble with The Fat Controller because of it.
- Flashback Cut: The episode shows a flashback of James' accident in the previous episode.
- Foreshadowing: James complains about how Gordon is the only engine who never has to shunt his own coaches. Seven episodes later, he, Gordon, and Henry are shunting their own trains.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Pompous James is left rather upset by the endless problems he's caused.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Using a bootlace to mend a hole of a passenger coach.
- No Name Given: In the original book, the man who eventually gives James' crew his bootlaces to help fix the pipe leak is called Jeremiah Jobling, but here he is not referred to by that name and only gets introduced as "a smartly dressed man".
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: James bumps one of the coaches so hard that he made a hole in of them. In order for the train to continue, he needed a passenger's bootlace to mend the hole in the coach. Many episodes after that, engines will remind James of the bootlace incident, much to his annoyance.
- Series Continuity Error: The episode mentions his accident with the trucks occurring during his first day, though he was seen working on Sodor since the first episode.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: James, over and over.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Fat Controller lectures James about his bad behavior. After he still causes trouble, the passengers are very vocal about it to him, his crewmen and the passenger unwilling to hand his bootlace to fix the mess. Also, even though James promises to never bump coaches again, it actually won't happen until many seasons later.
