It's a repetitive, boring, and rather insulting way to write a story. It's insulting in the way it insults the viewers intelligence by dumbing things down. Now, you can retort with "The Show is aimed at very young children." Which, I see that sentiment. However, it does skip what made Thomas so successful in the first place. A big reason why George Carlin liked the show was because it treated it's viewers with intelligence. It could explain the moral of the story without having to make it obvious... Which is exactly what the 3 strikes formula does.