Season 3.5 - MMAR Roundup

Hey, next week we get to season 4! I can't believe it! ZEO! I love Zeo!

So let's do a quick roundup of MMAR.

Higlights!
The Aquitians are badass.
Delphine is awesome.
First female leader of a team! \o/ We approve of this!
Billy is hot.
Billy is smart and badass.
Skull is a geek <3

Lowlights!
The Zeo Quest
Seriously, every single episode is "The Aquitians need water! Oh noes!"
There were a LOT of fish
Stereotype land!
Seriously, that's how we're saying goodbye to Aisha? REALLY?
Did we mention the Zeo Quest? Because, really. It should be mentioned.

Episode 155 - Hogday Afternoon - Part 2

We've reached the end of the Zeo Quest! FINALLY.

So, we open in Stereotype!Africa, where Aisha and Tanya (Tanya! ♥) meet Ashalla. Aisha remembers that she had a great aunt Ashalla, and wonders if it's the same person. Oh, Aisha. Aisha tells Ashalla about her quest, and Ashalla gives a big speech about how there's a legend that some girl will save them and how Aisha is that girl, and then she gives Aisha the crystal in the hope that Aisha will stay. It's decided that because Aisha volunteered in an animal shelter, she'll stay in Africa and Tanya will go back in her place. (Tanya has been with the tribe for three years, ever since her explorer parents vanished.)

Somehow, I get stuck with attempting to explain the time travel. Here's how I'm going to do it.

FISH.

I don't know if Aisha went back in time, or what, or how Aisha's family ends up with her in Africa. So I'm just going to state what I believe.

1-Everyone remembers that Aisha used to live in Angel Grove, and then she moved to Africa.
2-So no, Tanya has not always been there. People remember Aisha.
3-Tanya is awesome.
4-The fish are strong with this one.
5-Time travel makes no sense.

Meanwhile, in Angel Grove - all the water is gone in the world. Except for some bottles from the earthquake readiness kit in the Command Center. I guess they were concerned about Tommy following his heart or something. For some reason, the Rangers are only concerned about the Aquitians, even though all the water being gone is a really big freaking deal. The clouds are eating all the water. I can't even imagine how much damage this caused.

Billy aims a device at the viewing globe and somehow that makes it rain. The Aquitians fight Hydro Hog, and he stopped the Shogunzord's sword, which is pretty awesome. So then Billy takes the toy Falconzord and uses it to combine with the Shogunzord and they beat the Hydro Hog, which makes all the water come back.

Zordon talks to Aisha, who tells him her plan of staying behind. Zordon tells Aisha that he knew one of them would. Maybe there should have been some foreshadowing? Also, worst sendoff ever. Well, it's up there, anyway. After the awesomeness of how they got rid of Kim, you would think they could have done better for Aisha.

Tanya gives the crystal to Billy, and everyone turns back to their normal ages. Finally! The Rangers (minus Tanya) go say goodbye to the Aquitians while Alpha and Tanya talk.

Underneath the Command Center, Rito and Goldar are trying to figure out how to destroy the detonator. Rito suggests that it's hammer time. But just then, Rita shows up and tells them to steal the Zeo Crystal, so they just teleport into the Command Center. How do they do that? Did Zordon turn off the protections so that other people could get in?

The other Rangers get back, and then the Command Center starts to blow up. This was traumatizing to baby!TSB. Adam is concerned for Zordon! Rocky is concerned for Alpha! Billy throws himself on a console and gets hit with some sort of white light! Then they teleport out and the COMMAND CENTER BLOWS UP. OMGWTFBBQ. Everyone is traumatized, and Tommy (once again) wonders if this is the end of the Power Rangers.

And then we got a stupid preview for Zeo, and I spent the next two months wondering what the hell a triangle had to do with new powers.

Fish: FIVE. Was there even any doubt?

Fic we want: Aisha told Tanya enough so that she could identify Billy. What else did she tell Tanya?

Questions: If someone wants to take a stab at explaining time travel, or how they explain Tanya (I assume Billy will be doing some hacking) or why the Aquitians weren't affected by the time travel thing, or if anyone in Angel Grove even remembers the Aquitians, feel free to go ahead.

Episode 154- Hogday Afternoon Part 1

It's almost over. It's almost over. It's almost over.

So Aisha ends up in STEREOTYPICAL AFRICA! Because all of Africa is apparently the Savannah and it's all populated by lions. She is pulled behind a rock by Tanya to avoid a lion. They must be in Kenya (forget Norway!).

Rito and Goldar are STILL wandering around underneath the Command Center. It's been days upon days upon days and they're still down there. Lost. Must be pretty hungry too. They follow a sign and end up in the storage room (with the potential remains of Alpha 4), where they plant the explosives. Finally. Except Rita shows up and tells them to wait because Zedd wants the crystal intact first. Oops.

Zedd and Rita call the HydroHog from Aquitar. Rita flatters him, he comes, and he drains a lake of water. The Aquitian Rangers kind of fail at stopping him, so he dries up the lake. He calls them aliens. THEY ARE FROM THE SAME PLANET. *headdesk* They pass out from lack of water, and apparently there is now no water to be found in Angel Grove. Why this is only negatively affecting the Aquitian rangers, we're not sure. No wonder there are so many fish in this episode. They had to go SOMEWHERE once the water evaporated.

Aisha discovers the animals are sick. She worked in an animal shelter. Surely she can help! Because she's so much smarter than the Wildlife Rescue people who spent at least 8 years in college specializing in this sort of thing. Or something. Aisha and Tanya run through the setting sun, trying to get back to the village before nightfall, lest they be eaten by hyenas. Because don't forget, they're in AFRICA.

If only this episode had been eaten by hyenas.

5 fish. This gets ALL THE FISH of Angel Grove. LITERALLY.

Episode 153 - Sowing the Seeds of Evil

How did I get the Tommy episode? Whatever, we're still in stereotype land.

The plot.

IN ANGEL GROVE: Billy builds Cestro a shower. Tengas show up and destroy the shower. Billy fights unmorphed and is really pretty. Cestro tells Billy about the Hydro Hog, the Emperor of the Dark Water. Zedd and Rita decide to bring the Hydro Hog to Earth. Billy creates a shield to block them from doing so, stealing Rita and Zedd's plan from 2 episodes ago. Nothing else happens.

QUESTIONS: Why did they build the shower in the middle of Angel Grove instead of somewhere in safety? Wouldn't the Hydro Hog get weakened by Earth as well? Why wasn't there a Zord fight this episode? Is Hydro Hog responsible for there never being an ending to Pirates of Dark Water?

IN STEREOTYPE AUSTRALIA: Baby!Kat is all excited to be home. She meets teenage!Kat who pretends to be confused to see her. She tells Baby!Kat that she knows where the crystal is, and that she will take her to it. They run into Old!Kat who asks Baby!Kat for help getting home. Teen!Kat tells Baby!Kat that if she leaves, she will never get the crystal. Baby!Kat goes and helps Old!Kat anyway. Teen!Kat and her car vanish in a lot of pink. Old!Kat gives Baby!Kat the crystal and tells her that all those who sacrifice their needs to help others will be rewarded. This is a lie.

QUESTIONS: Everyone else is meeting their ancestors. How is Baby!Kat meeting two versions of herself? Why is Old!Kat lying like that? Why is Baby!Kat's quest so much easier than Rocky's?

IN STEREOTYPE NATIVE AMERICANS: There are teepees. Tommy asks a woman to find a big rock, and she points to a hawk. Tommy follows the hawk and meets True of Heart, who tells him he needs to get in touch with his roots and the true Tommy inside. Tommy starts seeing things as nature speaks to him and points him in the right direction. There's apparently a legend about him. (OF COURSE THERE IS.) Tommy tries to commune with nature which causes an earthquake and the two fake crystals to explode. Oh, and True of Heart gives him half an arrowhead. It's foreshadowing time!

QUESTIONS: WHAT THE FUCK. JUST. WHAT THE FUCK. (Also, so Tommy is responsible for all the earthquakes in Angel Grove? HAHAHAA.)

BACK IN ANGEL GROVE: Everyone worries about Aisha because somehow time is running out. Baby!Kat accent fails.

QUESTIONS: TIME TRAVEL DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

Fish: 4.5. RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

Episode 152- Along Came a Spider

I hate the Zeo Quest. No, I really really HATE the Zeo Quest. Epic fail, show!

So Billy is hanging out in his garage lab at his house with Cestro and Tideus. Unfortunately, the device he's working on... isn't working. He can't figure out how to get the sub-crystals to come together. Tideus suggests they find a more powerful device and Billy explains that Earth just isn't that far along. NASA and MIT might have one, but there's no use trying them. He suggests asking around Angel Grove University since it has one of the best science programs in the country (and here I burst out laughing because really? Angel Grove's education? MUST be it's own country... only explanation). Billy heads off, but first he gets snarky and winks at them. Oh Billy and your alien fetish.

Baby!Adam has made it to what it supposed to be Korea but... well it's about as much Korea as the last episode was Mexico. Everyone he encounters speaks English. He knows he's in the past and he's where his grandmother was born. He also is seeking some wise man. How he knows this, we don't know. We're assuming the fish are strong with him this episode. Baby!Adam is met with the WORST ASIAN STEREOTYPES EVER and the rest of our encounters with him this episode leave us both in CAPS mode... rather much like the last episode did with the Mexico Fail, and rather like the next three episodes will do.

Under the Command Center, Rito and Goldar are still lost. They try to draw a map on the wall with chalk and end up playing Tic Tac Toe instead. Clearly they learned Global Thermonuclear War was a bad choice. Perhaps they'll try a nice game of chess next? Rito totally outwits Goldar and wins.

Back in CAPSLOCK, Baby!Adam is a horrible little troglodyte to an old man that is trying to help him, even if he speaks in riddles. Baby!Adam is an idiot and cannot figure out that this crazy, yet wise, old man is the man he is seeking, and so he goes around asking other people and telling crazy old guy to go away. Because Baby!Adam is a douche.

Only good thing about it is the crazy old guy keeps calling him Little Frog. Awwwwww.

Billy ends up at Angel Grove University, where he talks to a very attractive young science professor. She is pleased he's taking such an interest in science and is sorry to hear that his high school lab is ill-equipped to help him with his experiment. So she lends him THE UNIVERSITY'S PHASE MODULATOR. Dude, it REALLY doesn't work that way, okay?

So Tideus is whiny and can't wait for water, so he drags Cestro out of Billy's lab and they track water. They find it at a car wash. Somehow they miss all the water in all the pipes in the entire city, and resort to walking through a car wash. *headdesk*

Rita and Zedd send down a monster. Billy comes back to his lab to discover the power out and he's attacked by the monster, except he's in his lab and the footage of the monster is clearly it in a LARGE abandoned warehouse. Splicing FAIL! Billy is encased in spider silk and I suddenly declare him Frodo (Trini is his Samwise, Rocky is totally Pippin, which makes Adam Merry... and maybe we spent a little too much time talking about a PR/LotR AU). The Aquitian Rangers all come back and fight the spider thing. It's very boring.

Meanwhile, Baby!Adam finally figures out that Crazy Old Guy is the wise old man he's seeking. Crazy Old Guy directs him up a very small waterfall, where Baby!Adam reaches into the water and pulls out the green crystal. Really? That's it? That's all he had to do? He talked to a few people, was a butthead, and then reached into a gently flowing small waterfall. Baby!Rocky had to climb into a freaking active VOLCANO and pull his from lava... some quest this is.

So the Aquitian Rangers are fighting, and the monster grows, and they call the zords, and they win. Surprised? I didn't think so.

All the spider silk magically disappears and Billy is free. He ends up at the Command Center, where he hangs out with Baby!Rocky until Baby!Adam shows up. Rocky is excited to see him and proclaims "He shoots, he scores!" and yes, he will score, one day, when you're both grown up. Ahem.

Billy informs them the Aquitian Rangers are at the car wash again. Really? There is such a thing as a FAUCET in Angel Grove, I'm sure. It's this magical thing that drains water from pipes. It's the same water as the car wash, so they really could have just shoved the Aquitians under the showers in Billy's house and it would have the SAME EXACT effect. *bangs head against wall*

Did I mention how much I HATE the Zeo Quest?



Five fish. Just... enough with the stereotypes, okay show? Two down, three to go.

Billy speak: "I can't align the Zeo sub-crystals into a cohesive matrix, so even if we do get all five crystals, we'll never be able to combine their energies."
"Well I've always been interested in crystal energy coherence, but unfortunately the phase modulator at my high school lab wasn't advanced enough for my experiment."

Best line of the episode: Goldar: "I'm thinking!" Rito: "You must find that painful."

Fic we want: LotR/PR AU y/y/mfy?

Episode 151 - Water You Thinking?

Hey - there's still time to sign up for the holiday fic exchange!

Anyway. This episode. It is RAGE INDUCING. Look, I love the Alien Rangers, but I freaking HATE the Zeo Quest. Why? Because it is all "Let us hit EVERY SINGLE STEREOTYPE we can think of!"

Also, the fish showed up in this episode as an actual plot point. You know this is going to be bad.

So, the episode begins with the baby!Rangers preparing to go on their quests. Aisha is snarky, Adam is worried, and Rocky is confused and has bad hair. It is like, everything I love in the world. The Aquitian Rangers give the baby!Rangers advice on their quests, and they're told to look to their heritage, and there's some nonsense about time travel and ending up in different eras, etc. As soon as they all jump through the hole, Cestro nearly passes out again from lack of hydration. Apparently, finding a pure water source is really hard. Whatever. So they decide to go to the Aquarium and ask the fish. NO, REALLY.

Zedd isn't going to try to use a weak monster, he's going to call in an old friend. Also, he's going to put up a forcefield around the Earth to prevent the Aquitian Rangers from calling their battle borgs. Except, you know, don't they also have the Shogun Zords?

Rocky lands in stereotype!Mexico. I proceed to have a rage blackout over his entire "plot" so I'm going to put it here. Rocky speaks no Spanish, but it's okay, because the random kid he runs into speaks perfect English (his English is way better than his Spanish was) but he also speaks Gratuitous Spanish! Because, you know, he can carry on a (relatively) complex conversation about a crystal in a volcano and a legend, but he doesn't know the word YES. So the kid takes Rocky to the volcano, and Rocky climbs into the (pink) volcano, and pulls out the crystal, and the whole village was waiting for him when he gets out! Because it turns out that the crystal was destabilizing the volcano, and Rocky pulling it out saved the village. But everyone else was too scared to do anything. Oh, and the random kid is Rocky's grandfather. And then Rocky teleports out in a blue triangle. LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN.

Back in Angel Grove, Bulk and Skull are in detention. They have on Alien Rangers buttons, and Skull wants to know who would win in a fight - Darth Vader or the Alien Rangers. Bulk tells him he's stupid, because the Alien Rangers are real, and Darth Vader is not. (He should have asked about Batman instead. Batman exists in their universe!) Then Skull asks about Klingons. And then Dracula. I demand to know the answers to all of these questions. (I bet his next question was about Daleks.) Also, baby!Skull is such a geek, I love him. The boys then claim that they're going to do their science project on fish in honor of the Aquitian Rangers, and I start laughing.

At the Aquarium, Cestro communicates telepathically with a fish, which tells him to go to a quarry to find water. I think the fish are working for Zedd. The rest of the Aquitians stand around and are confused as Bulk and Skull ask to be beamed up to their space ship. So, Cestro gets ambushed and the others show up to help, and as predicted, they can't summon their Battle Borgs, so instead there's the Shogun Zord. The end.

Under the Command Center, Goldar and Rito are still trying to locate the Command Center. They separate, and Goldar leaves a trail of popcorn. Rito eats it. There are hijinks.

Fish: FIVE. ALL THE FISH IN THE WORLD.

Fic we want: AQUITIAN RANGERS VS EVERYONE.

Questions that need to be answered:
1-How are they explaining the disappearance of the baby!Rangers?
2-Where the hell is Billy living?
3-If there's time travel involved, why don't the Rangers reappear at the exact time they left?
4-How are they explaining Billy's friendship with the Aquitians? Is he their bodyguard or something?
5-How do the Aquitians speak Earth!Fish as well as Aquitian!Fish?
6-The only reason Doctor Who wasn't listed in the geeky things is because Skull is secretly The Doctor, Right?

Fic we want: AQUITIAN RANGERS VS DRACULA

Episode 150- Attack of the 60' Bulk

It's the 150th episode! Guys! Guys, we made it to the 150th episode! How awesome! Thanks for sticking by us this long, and here's to another 550+ more.

Today's episode starts with the kids going to a water park with Mr. Wilton, the mean teacher that traded places with Rocky. Semi-continuity for the win! We assume he must have taught elementary school at one point since he's chaperoning this apparently school-sponsored trip. He's grateful for the help from Tommy's Uncle William.

While I love having Adult!Billy and the pretty he brings, I do kind of miss Baby!Billy. He was one of the better child actors. Anyway, they decide to sneak off and contact Zordon to see how the Aquitians are doing. Billy begins to lecture them on using the communicators for frivolous purposes, but he eventually caves to the demands of Tiny Children. The Aquitians are doing well and thank the rangers. We kind of love Delphine's hand motions. Zordon then reminds Billy that the Baby!Rangers may have their memories, but they are in physically young bodies and need the physical release. It sounds wrong, so we spent a lot of time telling ourselves he just meant for them to have fun at the water park and burn off some energy.

Zedd and Rita have a plan. They have an ancient scroll (that is not very ancient nor very scroll-like) that can lead them through the long forgotten tunnels beneath the Command Center. They're going to send Rito and Goldar through the tunnels to destroy the Command Center. It's a pretty good plan, minus the whole sending Rito and Goldar part! Rita and Zedd are adorably in love.

In order to distract the rangers, they're going to turn a bully into a monster. They observe the children at the water park and Zedd decides Earth children are so mindless they can't even be mean. I'm forced to wonder what planet he's watching because it sure as heck ISN'T the one I grew up on. Earth children can be plenty mean.

They stumble upon Bulk and Skull playing Pooh Sticks. They apparently had been laughed at (for reasons unknown to us) by Baby!Aisha and Baby!Rocky. In retaliation, they threw some inflatable tubes off a bridge at the baby!rangers and then ran to the other side of the bridge to see which made it first. Baby!Aisha is adorable and indignant because they aren't following the rules. Billy decides to teach them a lesson and goes to lecture them. Mid-lecture, Bulk gets zapped by Zedd and Rita and turns into a giant brain monster called Brat Boy. His suit is made of video game controllers. I'm going to choose to ignore that fact and hopefully not be offended.

Instead of using his watch communicator to contact Zordon, Billy uses a round purple disc that I think is supposed to be the mini-viewing globe the Aquitians used. It's wet, however, and they have to wait for it to dry, so the baby!rangers take a stand. Billy finally gets through and the Aquitians come all the way from Aquitar to save the day! But then Brat Boy grows and dumps polluted water on them and the water park. Somehow he makes it to the city and the Aquitians call Captain Planet their zords. They are losing, however.

At the water park, Skull is running around trying to find Bulk. Billy and the baby!rangers try to convince him they haven't seen him, but Skull is sure they did because Skull was there when Billy watched Bulk get turned into a monster. Baby!Kat lies (in a bad accent) and tells him Bulk went in a random direction. Don't lie to him! That's rude.

So Billy and the baby!rangers go to the scene of battle and try to talk to Bulk inside Brat Boy. Baby!Aisha wants to help, but they keep telling Bulk they're his friends and... really? They're not. They never have been. They never will be. They certainly weren't friends when they were ten years old, as Bulk and Skull didn't know any of them except Billy. If they needed a friend to get through to Bulk, they should have gotten Skull. Skull would have been far more effective.

Bulk manages to break through and turns back into himself. He's confused and wants his Mommy, and Rita says she's right there. We now want AU fic where she is Bulk's mother. Bulk then gets turned BACK into Brat Boy, and fights it to get BACK to Bulk. It's... poor Bulk. It can't be fun. Rita decides she doesn't want any kids (oh Rita, if only you knew *cough*Thrax*cough*).

The Aquitians are grateful for the help, showing mind and heart can be more powerful than the fist. They go home. Zordon teleports the baby!rangers and unconscious Bulk to the water park, where he wakes up and they manage to convince him that no, they are not Power Rangers, and he just hit his head really hard. Poor Bulk, once again thwarted.

The baby!rangers and Billy teleport to the Command Center where Zordon tells them he has found the shards of the Zeo crystal and they must go on individual quests, through their roots, to get the shards. Billy is determined to go since he's the only one who's an adult again, but Zordon tells him the Zeo crystal will not work for him because he's no longer affected by the spell. The kids have to go, and they have to go by themselves. Confirmation that Billy will no longer be a ranger AND we are heading into the Most Stereotypical Things Ever (expect many rage-inducing episodes to follow).

And so it begins.

3 fish... relatively low for this storyline!

Fic we want: Rita as Bulk's mother. Y/y/mfy?

Episode 149 - The Alien Trap

Previously, on Power Rangers - Delphine and the Aquitian Rangers are awesome. Billy is an adult again, so we get some eye candy. There is angst over lack of water.

I do like the credits for this miniseason, except why don't the Aquitian Rangers get to be in the credits? That is ridiculous.

The episode opens with Tommy and Kat standing over Billy's science experiment. There's a ton of exposition, and frankly, I have no idea how Tommy is able to pronounce all of that stuff anyway. The device is going to do something to turn Earth water into Aquitian water. It's a vaguely freaky looking device, but this in no way makes what happens next ok.

Crazy grandma comes over and starts deciding that tiny children (and they're like 10) should not be allowed to be playing with science experiments. She starts ranting about handing them (and the experiment) over to the proper authorities and starts going on about irresponsible parenting. I think she needs a copy of Free Range Kids.

Luckily, a confrontation is prevented by the arrival of Billy! Who tells the annoying grandma that Tommy and Kat are his little brother and sister and he told them to stop playing with his experiments. Then he threatens to take away their allowance. It is pretty much the best thing ever.

Then we pause to wonder how they explained the disappearance of baby!Billy. The fish are strong with this one.

There's a lot more exposition (mostly delivered by Ms. Accent Fail) and we ignore it because we're distracted by Billy's arms. Nice arms.

Up at the Command Center, Cestro needs to rehydrate. For some reason the only place this will work is at the abandoned part of Angel Grove lake? Look, IDEK, fish.

Everyone is at the lake, and the Aquitian Rangers have discovered ice pops. Then they wander over to the lake where they discover Bulk and Skull fishing. They're horrified by this and attack Bulk and Skull, knocking them into the water.

Um. They're from a water planet. Are there really no predators on the water planet? Do they just eat plankton? Or do they just eat the water? I...I... FISH.

Zedd sends Rito and Goldar down to bother the Rangers, and they easily beat them. Zedd then realizes that the flaw in his plan is that they keep relying on Rito and Goldar, so he instead sends down surfer monsters. Who are going to put Lunar Toxins in the lake.

They're going to dump space shit into the lake, you guys. I don't even KNOW.

The Aquitians fly (WHY DO THEY FLY? THEY ARE FROM A WATER PLANET) and stand on the water (WHY? They are supposed to be ABSORBING IT. Shouldn't they be IN IT?) and start to rehydrate when the water gets all polluted by the space shit.

It turns purple, and we realize what they were really dumping. They were poisoning the lake with leftovers from Ivan Ooze.

Rita then delivers the best line in the episode - "look at the little fish squirm." Indeed they do, Rita. Indeed they do. Because the Rangers are about to steal back the device keeping the Aquitians in the poisoned water by playing tag. And Rito falls for it.

Then Zordon contacts the Aquitian Rangers telepathically and they have to go off and fight, even though they're weak. Because they are Rangers.

Sorry, just got something in my eye. There is a thing that I love, ok?

(Speaking of things I love - David Yost in a wetsuit. Hi there.)

The Aquitian Rangers morph, and then combine their powers to summon Captain Aquitar, and we're straight to a very long Zord fight. It's cool, just because I still like the telepathically controlled Zords, but they summon the Shogun Zords and then the fire sword, and yeah, dead monsters.

The episode ends with Billy saying he can't rebuild the device (... even though he built the original in like, a day, and he already has the plans for it) and the Aquitians have to go back to Aquitar. But they promise that they will be back.

Fish: FIVE. One fish for each Aquitian Ranger!

Episode 148- Climb Every Fountain

Okay, this episode is bad. Really bad. So, to distract me from the bad that is about to come parading our way, we have something Super Mega Awesome to share! It's the Power Rangers Holiday Fic Exchange! It's going to be so much fun, and I highly encourage everybody to take part! You write a power rangers fic, you get a power rangers fic. Awesomesauce! Sign up on dreamwidth here and on livejournal here.

And now I can stall no longer. This episode. Just. FULL of fish. And not just the alien kind.

So we start out with a new opening. I'm pretty stoked the kids get billing next to their unseen adult counterparts. Although Baby!Bulk and Skull do not make it into the credits and the theme song just doesn't quite flow with "Go Go Alien Rangers". It was a good try though.

So we start out with Billy being Super Genius! He's incredibly smart. Cestro gives him instructions for a device to turn them back into their teenage selves, and Billy is all "Yeah, it's cool, I got it." Because he's AWESOME. Even as a tiny child.

Unfortunately, he has to go to school instead of finishing the device. He promises to finish it after school, since Cestro can't because his hands are too big to make the wiring connections. Ahem. Why Billy couldn't just be "sick" that day, I'm not sure, unless it was a case of not encouraging kids to skip school. Though, frankly, if it was skip school and save the world or go to school and the world gets destroyed, heck yeah I want my kids skipping school! Save that world, kids.

Meanwhile, Rita and Zedd have a plan to get it, the power coins, and destroy the world. So they send down Rito and Goldar. They try to flush the kids off the school bus, but the plan backfires because the kids aren't afraid of the monsters and start pummeling them with balls and lots of popcorn. Where all these toys and foodstuffs were stashed I have NO idea. I remember elementary school. No food on the bus, yo. And I was in elementary school when this time warp would have landed these kids (1987 or 1988).

Rito and Goldar get shooed away and the bus driver takes them home. Baby!Adam decides to stay at Baby!Billy's house and help him out. They hang out in the YELLOW garage of the YELLOW house and Billy finishes up the device. It looks like a robot. Like a child's toy robot. So they leave Billy's house, which is now BLUE (I don't even know), and walk down the sidewalk. Rito and Goldar trail them and they don't notice. Oh boys. Billy can't wait to get back to the future so he can surf the internet. (for porn)

Back at the Command Center, Cestro suddenly begins to lose hydration. It's apparently catching because one moment everybody is fine and then Cestro starts falling over so everyone else has to start falling over too. Alpha transports them to the nearest body of water, which happens to be the fountain in the park. First of all, what kind of water do these beings need because not all water is the same! Secondly, what the crap? Alpha can teleport people to the farthest galaxy, but he can't teleport these rangers to the perfect body of water???? Fishy fish fish fish.

Baby!Billy and Baby!Adam meet up with the others and they all toss their power coins (which are non-functional, remember) into the robot. Somehow, this powers the robot and Baby!Billy manages to turn back into Big!Billy before Rito and Goldar attack. Tommy tries to run away with the robot but it's no good. Billy is attacked and the robot falls into enemy hands. Goldar gets the power coins and, with Rita and Zedd now on Earth, they destroy them. Powers gone. Just like that. And... it makes no sense. Whatsoever. Anyway, robot device gets turned into a monster and Billy is all "I'm so going to kick your ass, by myself, because I am fully grown now!" except Alpha teleports them away.

So at the fountain, the Aquitians are rehydrating and all the bystanders are just in awe of the aliens. Nobody is screaming in terror or running away or calling the authorities. They're just all "Oh, look, aliens!". Um... okay? Billy shows Baby!Tommy his authority in insisting he go to the Aquitians to let them know about the robot monster, seeing as he's not a Tiny Child any longer. Baby!Tommy pouts, but defers to Billy's Sheer Awesomeness.

Billy runs up to the Aquitians and is all "Hey, it's me, Billy, you know me, because we're BFF now. There's a monster coming?" and then the monster shows up, the Aquitians morph and begin to do battle, and Billy runs to stand with the other Grown Ups. Who then ask if he knows them and he says NO. Uh... dude, you clearly know them! You were just standing around having a chat! But the residents of Angel Grove totally believe him and are in awe of the rangers. People walk right up to the TENGA AND RANGER FIGHTING and stand very close being all admiring. Really people? Are you THAT dumb? Big monster and aliens in multi-coloured spandex fighting does not inspire me to walk right up to them and be up in their business.

Biggest fail of the show thus far? The Aquitians call THEMSELVES the Alien Rangers. *beats head against desk*

Rita and Zedd make the monster grow and he's suddenly at the abandoned quarry, where the rangers call the zords and do telepathic zord battle. And win. Because they're good like that.

There is a ceremony where a woman (potentially the mayor?) gives a speech thanking the Aquitians for helping them and then gives them all big gold stars. No, really, they get actual Gold Stars... like you'd give a kid on their 100% A test paper. But I won't complain too much because Jimmy Jameson, Reporter Guy, is there! Yay! And nobody wonders why a strange man (since none of them will know who Billy is now that he's All Grown Up) is hanging around with five ten year olds. Baby!Aisha is relieved things are going better now, and she's freaking adorable.

4.5 fish. I'd go with a full on 5 but... Tiny Children! And Billy is not only hot but a super genius so... I'm biased.