Episode 339 - Operation Lightspeed

Yay new season! I think I've seen one or two episodes of this season? I don't remember anything about it though, so maybe I didn't. I might just have absorbed it via osmosis. So I'm going into this knowing NOTHING. I can tell you this. I may not exactly like the theme song, but I dig the opening because it shows everybody being a badass OUTSIDE of being rangers. So we start off a brand new season in the desert. There are a bunch of stereotypes walking along with a camel. They find some ruins. These ruins do some Suspicious Ancient Magic-y Things. This bothers me and is not a good way to start out a brand new season. Our Walking Stereotypes end up in some tomb where they are raiding it for treasure. They open a chest and it starts shaking. One of them wants to run in terror. The other convinces them to stay and take what they can. The chest emits a blue light that knocks them out, then spirits fly around and basically kill them. Somehow the flying spirits make it from Stereotypical Middle Eastern Desert to Generic American Oceanside City. In what appears to be a secret military organization, a young woman reports that "they have escaped" and suddenly Guy In Charge, Captain Mitchell, decides to "bring them in". He is apparently her father. We meet Joel first. He is left-handed! Yay lefties! He is apparently a cowboy stunt pilot. Secret Military Men in Black bring him in. Then we meet a rock climber, who I am informed is called Kelsey. She is wearing bright yellow pants. Gee, I wonder what colour she'll be. She is pretty badass. Men in Black are waiting for her at the top and tell her she's going with them. She cops an attitude and will have none of it. Next we meet Chad. He is a whale trainer! He is already my favourite. Because I have a thing for whale trainers. He's also adorable. We'll see if he has a personality or not. Last but not least we meet Fireman Carter. He rushes into a burning building, grabs a little girl, and sees one of those spirit things. It shoots fire at them. He manages to dive out of a window with the kid, saving her life. He is recruited by the young woman from before, with her own Men in Black guard. Clearly he will be the Red Ranger. Also, y'know, fireman. He should totally be Captain America. So they're all shoved in a little helicopter and flown over the ocean to a submarine. I kept expecting the soundtrack to Jurassic Park to start playing. Then they go to an underwater colony where the secret military organization is based. It's almost as cool as Seaquest. But not nearly as cool as the Helicarrier. Joel accuses Captain Mitchell of kidnapping him and is irritating. He kind of grates on my nerves here. I hope he gets better. I don't dig the cowboy thing, but I like greens so... maybe. We'll see. Captain Mitchell convinces them all to sit down and tells them about how 5,000 years ago the world was inhabited by demons, capture, entombed, and buried. They have prepared for the escape of the demons by creating ranger powers and sitting on them for awhile. They hand picked these kids to combat the demons. Joel thinks it's crazy and goes to leave again. Carter speaks up that he saw something. Joel sits back down. There is a report of the city being attacked and suddenly everybody is all "Yeah, okay, I'll be a Lightspeed Power Ranger". I kind of dig that they all had a choice to volunteer for this thing? Then Captain Mitchell's daughter gets the pink morpher. He's apparently been training her for this HER WHOLE LIFE. And that kind of bothers me a little? Because, well, what if she didn't want it? Did he allow her to cultivate her own interests or just push her to Super Secret Military Stuff? Poor kid. She was groomed, not reared. They take their morphers and leave the underwater base in a HUMMER. They had to be flown in, but they can just leave in a Hummer? What was the point of the dramatic helicopter ride? Whatever, there are people being attacked by black spandex wearing goons wearing TINY ADORABLE BAT WINGS. I think I like these guys. I also like that all the rangers TOTALLY FAIL AT FIGHTING. Because they aren't fighters. They're just strong personalities. So they morph and it's kind of... well different I guess. Boring, but different. Yellow does not have a skirt on her morphed suit, but pink does. Was yellow male in Sentai? I know nothing. There is a fight. It is boring. They win, though, and that's nice. They demorph in front of a bunch of people. So I'm guessing this is NOT a secret identity thing? Captain Mitchell kind of kills their buzz because he warns them there are more monsters to come and they'll be fighting for a long time. He's pretty bad at the whole "inspirational" thing. Everybody awkwardly salutes, except his daughter, because I get the feeling she's been saluting him her whole entire life. I have a lot of questions about this episode, but I will let them mostly slide because it's first episode of a brand new season. Like, how did they know about the demons? What made them decide to create the morphers when they did? If this was 5,000 years ago, this was post Zordon. So what was he doing? Also, who the hell opens a cursed chest? And keeps opening it when it does weird crazy things that chests should not be able to do? Also, if Dana has been trained for this for the past 18 YEARS, why is she not red? Carter has no training whatsoever to be a Ranger. Dana was freaking GROOMED FOR THE JOB. She should be red. 2 fish. Not bad for an opener.