Perfect 10 is not a phrase I throw around often. However, this magnum opus of the anime genre is certainly deserving of it. Gary Lineker gives a subtle and nuanced performance in the lead role of Ernie, a man who loves his job and the people he works with. Working with him are Millie, the computer operator and Ernie's love interest who he struggles to tell his feelings for, and Mr Rails, the maintenance man who has been around since the beginning of time. The trains also have characters of their own. Hammersmith and City are the twins who harbour a secret incestuous relationship; Victoria, an old lady on the verge of death; Circle, a stoner; Bakerloo, a grumpy old man with a black and white outlook on the world and the sadly deceased Jubilee, murdered at the hands of Colin Wilson in retaliation for taking him to the wrong station. John Deery and Sid Rainey, the creators of this anime should give themselves a pat on the back for giving the world such a fantastic experience that will be treasured by friends and family for generations to come. 10/10, 100/100 best anime best anime.

Underground Ernie hits the Thomas and Tank Engine tracks with the everyday adventure of Ernie (voiced by ex footballer and celebrity crisp eater, Gary Lineker) the human underground supervisor with his fellow team members set in an international train station presumably set in London.The locomotives under Ernie all have characters of their own. There is Bakerloo, Victoria, Circle, Jubilee and the twins, Hammersmith and City. Sometimes trains from across the world including Paris, Brooklyn, Moscow, Sydney join them.The show is aimed at younger children and my own son enjoyed the series when it was first shown when he was a toddler. However as it features anthropomorphic locomotives the show is compared to both Thomas the Tank Engine and Chuggington.However Underground Ernie is a CGI animated series but the animation is rather crude which harks back to the early 1990s rather than 2006 and the crudeness is off putting but the target audience does not seem to mind.

This is a charming, classic piece of British story telling: one of the first wholly CGI animated series to be produced for children. The episodes are warm and funny with uplifting themes and great plots. Unlike Thomas the tank Engine the Underground Trains travel to many locations - the beach, the fairground - and Ernie and Millie, who look after the trains, get into terrific adventures and great exploits. An international element is brought to the episodes with trains from Sydney, Australia and even Japan calling in to visit the British trains. Some of the animation is raw but the overall feeling of the series is safe and happy. It has all the elements of a long lasting and memorable television series. Well done BBC for continuing to broadcast it!

Although the title character is a human, the train characters and the simple stories scream out that this is computer generated grave robbing. The homely, simple charms of Thomas didn't manage to be directly updated in the Magic Railway film so it is no surprise that this obvious spin on the idea falls so flat on its horrible CGI little face. The animation is heartless, as is a problem with so many of these children's animations these days where it is all spat out by computer and lacks any feeling of love originality in the design and creation. The characters look horrid and the "underground" is an unoriginal ideal of London Underground – but with nothing that would require any sort of payment or debate over ownership rights.The stories are basic and lack anything that make it worth following. Things happen but they mostly plod forward with nothing interesting or challenging. I write this obviously as an adult but also with an eye to the child audience; they may be young but why does that mean they deserve tat like this? A few weeks ago I watched the Shaun the Sheep TV series from Aardman – the gap in quality between that and this is so extreme as to make me almost embarrassed to use them in the same sentence. Gary Lineker shows why he doesn't get much acting work as he is terrible and feels like a man providing a character voice and not a person speaking. That said though, the rest of the cast are pretty poor – Weaver matching her character in the annoying stakes.A terrible, heartless TV show then. I'm not saying that letting your children watch it is akin to abuse, but I am saying that children deserve better than this cheap, unimaginative, uninspiring, numbing affair.