Thomas the Tank Engine: My Beef with Him

I'm not the mom who plops her little ones in front of the tv for hours on end in a day.  I had actually wanted to avoid TV for as long as possible.  Well, enter a nasty cold for Buggy, teething, plus an exhausted very-prego mommy who is up all night with sick toddler.  Yup - OnDemand, here we come (still quite limited, but enough for a weary mommy to get a little break when Hubby is working all the time). 

I had heard a lot of good things about programming through Sprout so we checked it out.  Turns out, Buggy LOVES Bob the Builder.  It is a cute show that has good values.  Characters are not perfect - they mess up.  They are held accountable, but are always loved no matter what.

I was excited to start the Thomas the Tank Engine phase with Buggy and thought he'd love the show (he calls Thomas "truck!" when he sees him).  Well, we won't be watching any more Thomas in this house.  I was amazed to see how negative that show is.  There is a lot of teasing and name calling.  The characters aren't reprimanded for being mean.  Logical consequences do follow (such as trains falling into the sea!) but the show definitely doesn't focus on reconciliation at all.  When a character is mean one day, there will be a comment such as, "and the next day so-and-so was feeling better so he wasn't mean to others."

That's just not the message I want my kids to learn.  We need to be in control of our actions no matter what mood we are in.  We need to be kind to others even when they aren't kind to us.  We need to apologize when we have done something wrong.  We need to be held accountable.  We need to interact with each other without name calling and yelling.

So, am I off my rocker?  What do you think of Thomas?  Any other programs to avoid?  To seek out?