Episode 356 - A Face From the Past

Previously. Ryan is no longer shirtless every episode. Woe.

Kelsey is rollerblading through the Aquabase, because she is a) apparently not very good at it, and b) a failbot. I mean, I like her. But that is super irresponsible.

Captain Awesome then tells them that he has an important assignment - they need a day off! Which, hey! Is good. Because all work and no play makes them a very dull team. Or something.

Everyone decides to go to the beach, and Joel is busy being an asshat in a wifebeater, Chad and Kelsey go surfing, and Dana decides to bury her brother. Dana, unbury him so we can ogle. Carter, on the other hand, is going to go train. Captain Awesome is all "I told you to take a day off" but Carter is all "from training? Never." So Captain Awesome offers to be his sparring partner.

Captain Awesome is all "don't go easy on me just because I'm an old man" and he ends up flipping Carter. Then they go jogging. Carter offers to slow down for him, but Captain Awesome is all "you're too slow."

The villains then decide to knock out the power to Mariner Bay, which should also shut down the Aquabase. Because they don't have backup generators or something.

Captain Mitchell is all "when I was your age" to Carter, and he tries to convince Carter to take a day off. SERIOUSLY BEST DADDY, EVEN TO KIDS WHO AREN'T HIS.

Carter tells Captain Awesome about the fireman who saved his life as a kid. Carter wants to be as good as him, even though he doesn't know who the mysterious firefighter is. He has such issues. But it is an adorable bonding moment that is sadly interrupted by monsters.

Carter and Captain Awesome show up at the burning power plant, (which was being visited by a field trip of tiny children) and Carter morphs, and Captain Awesome dons firefighter gear and they both go in to help. Because apparently there are just spare uniforms lying around. and the firefighters aren't going to notice or care.

Captain Awesome and Carter make a good team. The rest of the Rangers all show up to help, and Ms. Fairweather calls in to say another power plant is under attack. Captain awesome sends all the Rangers to help that one, saying that he'll handle things here. The tiny children just huddle in the burning building, when Captain Awesome, who is apparently the only firefighter, shows up. Unfortunately, one of the tiny children forgot her bear, so she goes back for the bear.

Meanwhile, the Rangers fight the monster and beat it. (Seriously, super dull.) Then they go back to the fire, and discover Captain Awesome has gone back for the girl and her bear. Carter runs in after them, and Carter realizes that Captain Awesome is the one who saved him years ago. And as he has his realization he just STANDS THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIRE, before Captain Awesome yells at him to run, and Carter gets the girl out.

A fireball comes out of the building, and Dana flips out, assuming her dad is dead, but he has managed to escape unharmed. Then there are hugs. Unfortunately we have to cut away from the heartwarming moment because zords and monsters growing. Luckily, the fight is over quickly, and the villains go talk more about the planets aligning or whatever. Vypra's acting is pretty bad, as usual.

Back on the Aquabase, Carter walks in on Ms. Fairweather patching up Captain Mitchell, and he sees a burn pattern on the Captain's back. The Captain confirms that he was the one who saved Carter all those years ago. And then he's been stalking him ever since. It's both creepy and sweet.

Carter is all "I'm going to train even harder to make you proud!" The Captain again tells him to go take a day off.

And now I ship them. I AM GOING TO HELL.

Anyway, back at the beach, Carter shows up with his shirt unbuttoned. Everyone is like "Carter can have fun? What?" So he decides to spray them with a super soaker while Captain Awesome looks on approvingly.

Fish: 3. It was super cliche, but in a good way.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie Part 1

Oh god this movie, guys. THIS MOVIE, GUYS. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ALCOHOL IN ALL THE LAND.

So we start off with a really bad scrolling text Star Wars ripoff. Only this movie is the tiniest fraction of coolness that Star Wars is. And I'm even talking Episode 1 here, people, that's how much I hate this movie.

Lerigot is a wizard. He's actually the mutated child of an Ewok and a Monchichi. He is being chased by weird fish robot looking things. He manages to get himself to Earth, where he is stranded somewhere in Stereotype Land Africa. I keep hoping he'll run into Aisha. That would totally make this movie worthwhile. Alas, he meets a family of chimpanzee instead.

In Angel Grove, Rocky is trying Very Hard in a boxing ring while doing martial arts. He fails at fighting Tommy. He fails at fighting Adam. He fails at kicking a gloved fist, falls out of the ring, and messes up his back. THIS IS NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN. And that's not just my love for Rocky talking, that's "this actually cannot happen" talking.

Meanwhile, Kat and Tanya are on a bus full of children from the local orphanage. They are singing rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. NOBODY wants to sing that on a bus. No wonder Justin looks all sad and mopey. I'd be sad too if I were trapped on a bus full of people singing rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Justin sees Rocky being hauled away in an ambulance. Justin now REALLY has a sad.

Then we meet Divatox. She is strong and powerful and awesome. Except I'd respect her a lot more if she wore more clothing. I mean, why does an amazing woman need to wear what amounts to underwear and a bit of string... while attempting to attract a man/monster/lava thing? Really? *sigh* I do not like any of her henchmen. This... is not going to be the best season ever.

Justin goes to visit Rocky in the hospital. He is flat in bed with a neck brace on and an IV. He is clearly high on morphine. He doesn't notice Justin and the rangers come in right behind him, so Justin hides under the bed. Instead of asking how Rocky is doing or trying to make him feel better, they have a conversation about Justin. Because they are BAD FRIENDS. Zordon contacts them and they teleport away. Justin witnesses it all.

Kat and Tommy are sent to Africa to find Lerigot using a Star Trek The Original Series tricorder (Billy totally created Starfleet). Why, I have no idea. Wouldn't Tanya be the better choice, since on Planet Angel Grove, Africa is a small continent where everybody knows everybody else and there is only one small grouping of animals, mainly lions, which is where Aisha is? WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN AISHA. Kat gets hurt, of course, after spending lots of time screaming for Tommy and flailing in the water... she was the Olympic diver, y'know, not Tommy! Oh show. Anyway, they get Lerigot and get him back to the Power Chamber. Moving on.

Somehow Bulk and Skull are back on the Police Force. No talk of France or leaving their fake!Daddy or anything. They managed to get captured by Divatox and her crew, but not before accidentally covering Lt. Stone in mustard. Their minds have been wiped. Bulk now thinks he's German and Skull thinks he's Spanish. It's... odd. Jason and Kim are scuba diving near Divatox's ship and they get captured too. We like to believe Kim went to comfort Jason after his power loss. Divatox uses Lerigot's wife, whom she has kidnapped, to send him a message. She shows Zordon that she has Lerigot's wife and child, plus Kim and Jason. Lerigot prepares to give himself up.

Zordon shows them the new Turbo Zords and gives them Turbo powers. Adam gets a minivan. I love minivans, and I'm not being sarcastic. I really actually love minivans. *is weird* So anyway, we get no mention of why the Zeo powers cannot be used. No mention of what happened to the Zeo powers. It's as if they just... disappeared. Adam asks about Rocky's Zord and is told it'll just stay there for awhile. They take off for a lost pirate ship. Once they get there, the blue Turbo Zord shows up. Out steps the new blue ranger, who is presented as THE NEW BLUE RANGER, and not the Temporary Replacement Blue Ranger. It's Justin. IT'S JUSTIN YOU GUYS. Tanya makes the exact face I made the first few times I watched this. It is the BEST FACE EVER. She is clearly confused and horrified at this new turn of events. WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK? I BLAME THE IMMENSE AMOUNT OF MORPHINE ROCKY WAS CLEARLY ON.

They see the pirate ship off in the distance. They manage to get to the pirate ship with their zords. They manage to get ON the pirate ship where Justin finds a box of treasure. They use their Turbo morphers to make the ship set sail. Meanwhile, Divatox has found them and launches living torpedoes at their ship. GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE.

To be continued in Part 2...

5 fish. Oh god, why isn't it over yet???? I hate this movie. I HATE THIS MOVIE.

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 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 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!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie- Part 2

Previously on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie- Adam is a frog! That's... really probably the most important bit.

So now in Angel Grove Ivan Ooze is controlling the parents. He's making them dig up his ectomorphicons while he lazes about. In a very creepy and slightly terrifying scene, he makes one parent do a series of dances. The dancing in and of itself isn't scary, but the implications, that he can make them do literally ANYTHING, absolutely terrify me to my core.

Anyway, the dancing is interrupted by the return of the Snot!Tengus. They claim to have destroyed the Power Rangers, but Ooze sees right through them and the eventually confess to a horrible monster driving them away with noisy sticks. Ooze works out that it's Dulcea and he's sure this will ruin his plan, so he better hurry and get those ectomorphicons out of the ground. He blows up the Snot!Tengus in frustration.

Back on Phaedos, the rangers have waited for sunrise and are now ready to set out in search of the Great Power. They walk a lot and look very very pretty with their floppy hair.

Back in Angel Grove again, Fred has managed to sneak down into the pit. Nobody has seen him or seems to notice him, and he investigates what's going on. Sadly, nobody will respond to him because they are all zombiefied by the ooze. We're left wondering why Fred is the ONLY person trying to figure out what's going on. Seriously? Are there no childless adults in Angel Grove? Where the heck is everybody else???

On Phaedos, the rangers have stumbled upon a dinosaur graveyard, which is very symbolic what with giving up their dinosaur powers and moving on to other powers. Adam welcomes them to Jurassic Park and I squeel in delight (one of my top ten favourite movies EVER). Or, rather, they stumble upon what is supposed to be a dinosaur graveyard but these skeletons look nothing like any dinosaurs I know. The skeletons wake up and begin attacking. The main attacker is what might have been a Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, or possibly a Monoclonius, only it has sharp teeth instead of the flat rows of an herbivore (which all actual ceratopsidae dinosaurs were). So... either the set designers really fail at biology or the dinosaurs of Phaedos were all carnivores. Anyway, it attacks the rangers. First Rocky goes after it to defend Aisha, but he gets knocked aside. Then it chases Kimberly into a ribcage and Tommy has to jump on it's back to get it away (while she screams her head off for Tommy, despite being so awesome in the first half of the movie). Biology fail abounds as Tommy wins by pulling out a single bone in the neck which causes the head to fall off and the entire rest of the skeleton to collapse. Billy makes a bad joke about biology finally paying off. Oh Billy, didn't you know? Biology pays off every single day of your life!

Back on Earth, Ivan is packing up all his mass produced snot, I mean ooze, to be shipped out for... we don't know what. His ectomorphicons are unearthed, he's pumping snot ooze through them to bring them to life, and he's basically done with the parents of Angel Grove. So he sends them away. To leap to their dooms. Which they start chanting in the best line of the movie.

Phaedos has a conveniently cut out path through the jungle for the rangers to follow to get to the Temple where they'll find the Great Power. Instead of some big huge quest or some awesome proving themselves worthy, they only have to fight four golems. You'd think there would be some kind of "facing worst fears" or something, but no. It's an easy fight, overall, and there are some great lines. Billy uses his brain, though he states the obvious a lot. Adam and Rocky fight in sync and do a great job defending each other as well as the other rangers. Tommy stands around primping or fixing his hair or something until Kim needs him and then suddenly he's in the action. He does make an awesome comment that has us both rolling and thinking Tommy really shouldn't be commenting on the mental aptitude of the golems. There is, however, massive physics fail.

They beat the golems, of course, in what is probably the easiest NEW power acquisition of the entire series. They get their powers, new zords, and go on about their merry way while Dulcea watches in owl form. Good job, Rangers.

Fred has found all the kids of Angel Grove partying and he manages to convince them something isn't right, despite their initial apathy to the whole missing-parents thing. Really kids? Obnoxious little brats, you all are. They decide they need to go stop the parents, thanks to Fred, and hopefully save the day.

Ivan is destroying the city with his ectomorphicons. The reporter is wondering where the rangers are as people run screaming and the mayor evacuates the city. The rangers then show up all morphed and ready to fight. They call on their zords and epic battles ensue, destroying an office building yet not denting the pavement even a little. Ooze proclaims his losing inconceivable and I think he's awesome, except he's no Vizzini! Frustrated, goos his way into one of the ectomorphicons and begins to fight the rangers himself. Tommy has to delay forming the Megazord to go bridge a gap in the monorail track so Fred and all the other kids can go save their parents from leaping to their DOOM.

While the rangers fight, the kids eventually reach their parents who are very slowly making their way to the edge of the pit where they dug up the ectomorphicons. Took them long enough to walk there, right? Anyway, Fred gets the kids to try to hold back their parents while he wrangles Bulk and Skull into helping him operate a lift that shoots water. He begins to spray down the parents hoping to stop them.

The rangers, meanwhile, have taken the fight with Ooze to outer space in the hopes of getting him in the path of the plot point comet mentioned at the beginning of the movie. They fly past the Rita and Zedd snowglobe and it prompts Rita and Zedd to cheer them on in beating Ivan Ooze. Aw, show! I love that bit. The rangers and Ivan struggle in a tight embrace, upon which Ivan asks if they've hugged their zords today, and then Aisha uses the Big Red Emergency Only button. To knee Ivan in the crotch? How in the world does that work? Or make any sense? I... don't get it. But it makes him let go of the MegaZord and he flies straight into the comet while the rangers fly back to Earth. Lamest ending to a villain ever. Ivan was way too cool to go out like that!

In Angel Grove the parents come out of their zombiefied stupor and begin hugging each other and the kids. Fred's dad finds him and pulls him from the heavy machinery in a heartwarming hug. Awwww. Bulk would also like a hug from Skull, but Skull only offers him a handshake. Poor Bulk, denied affection yet again.

The Rangers make haste to the Command Center where they fear it's too late to save Zordon. Tommy remembers that Dulcea said with the power, anything is possible, so they all circle Zordon and hold their hands up. Their power restores both the Command Center and Zordon's time warp tube, which saves Zordon's life. Or something. I... don't really know how it worked. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Not and smile and try to get past the sap.

Angel Grove has exhausted it's massive fireworks budget in a celebration of the rangers saving them yet again. Bulk and Skull are telling a large crowd of people how they saved the day, while Fred approaches our heroic teens and modestly accepts congratulations on helping out to save the day. Billy says he hears that Fred is in line to be a ranger himself one day, and Fred determines that he wants to be the Gold Ranger. We approve of this since, in our headcannon, Fred grows up to date Justin.

Credits start to roll but we get a mid-credit clip of Goldar sitting on Zedd's throne and proclaiming himself King Goldar. Until Rita and Zedd walk back in. Hehehehehe. And... more credits.

The end! I love this movie.

No full list this time, since it's the movie and all, but we HAVE to rate it on our scale of fish! This movie, much as I love it, gets 2 fish. It wasn't too bad and most discrepancies can be explained away since this IS an alternate universe.

Episode 99 - Rangers Back in Time

I almost can't believe that this episode exists. I mean, neither of us remembered very much about it other than "Rangers get turned into kids" but I'm going to have to watch this episode a million more times because it is PURE GOLD.

You may not agree with me, but apparently a thing that I love is "people get turned into children." There needs to be SO MUCH FIC of baby!Rangers. And fic where Trini/Jason/Zack show up and have to babysit the baby!Rangers! And I just... yeah, I would read a million words of this. Or watch this episode a billion times, even though it makes no sense whatsoever and baby!Rocky has the worst hair I've ever seen.

Anyway, onto the actual episode. We open and the Rangers are in first grade. Well, not really. They're still in high school, but they are having show and tell. Their assignment is to bring in a photo of themselves as a kid, and talk about what it means to them. So Aisha has a picture of herself at a dance recital, Kimberly has a picture from her first gymnastics meet (she lost, I'm amazed) but it taught her to be a good sport. Tommy has a picture of him from a karate match (hard work), Billy took apart his mother's vacuum, Rocky learned responsibility from his dog, Buster, and Adam loves his dad. Bulk and Skull have a joint photo, of how they became BFF. (Or at Bulk put it, how Skull dropped a grape popsicle on Bulk and Bulk decided not to beat him up after. I love them so much.)

I officially have so much fanon about their childhoods it is now officially completely ridiculous. I could babble about that for most of the recap, but I don't think anyone but me wants to read a million words about Adam and Rocky playing in the sandbox together and then Aisha dumped a bucket of sand over both of their heads and told them that they were doing it wrong.

Zedd is all "AHA! I know! If I turn them into children they can't fight me anymore!" Oh, Zedd. This never ends well. So he creates the rock of time which will somehow turn them into children or maybe make time go backwards. It isn't really clear.

Back at school, Billy notices that the clock is running backwards, and he tells Miss Applebee, who is really freaked out about it. She doesn't know what to do. For some reason, calling a janitor is not one of the suggestions. And I have no idea why changing time would make the clocks run backwards. That isn't how this works. No, really. REALLY. I have opinions on time travel, I read a lot of scifi. (Maybe the clock is controlled by fish?)

Then the spell takes hold, and suddenly we are distracted by tiny!Rangers. They look like they're in... third grade? Just a guess? So about nine. Somewhere between eight and ten anyway. But we're suddenly distracted by the horrible hair. It isn't just Rocky's thing, which looks like a cross between a mullet and a hedgehog. Miss Applebee also has an awful wig, and Adam's hair isn't that great either. They just keep going as if nothing is wrong, and we're suddenly distracted by the giant swarm of fish that just swam across the TV.

Okay, the questions. If they did go back in time, why are Tommy, Adam, Rocky and Aisha still in Angel Grove? Why are they in the high school classroom? How have their memories changed so that they still know each other, but they don't know that they're Rangers? Why did the clocks run backwards? Why did their clothes shrink? Why are they doing more advanced work as children then they were doing in high school? Why does Rocky have a mullet? Why isn't Zordon affected? How is Zedd unaffected? Are they back in time, or did they just all get new memories? Is this an alternate reality? How is baby!Aisha so freaking awesome? Why did Queenriley and I accidentally decide that Zack is the Face of Boe? (The answer to that last one is actually that I made the best typo ever.)

So, Miss Applebee and her awful hair ask the students to do long division, and Kimberly gets called up to the board. She does long division, explaining step by step how to do 900 divided by 30. Aww, Kim. You kick ass at math. She goes back to her seat, and it turns out that baby!Bulk and Skull had tried to put a shaving cream balloon on her seat while she was up at the board. But their plan backfired, and they end up covered in shaving cream, and Kimberly only gets a speck on her jumper. Miss Applebee asks what happens, and Aisha stands up to tattle.

I take it back, CLEARLY Aisha, Rocky and Adam became BFF when she ratted them out for doing something. Also, she totally becomes a lawyer when she grows up. Nothing will convince me otherwise.

After class, the baby!Rangers and Bulk and Skull all go to the park. Adam and Billy try to fly a kite together. (Bulk and Skull then steal the kite and manage to get themselves tangled up in the string, at which point all the Rangers make fun of them. Apparently some things never change.) It is so adorable I can't even deal. But both Zedd and Zordon are watching. Zordon is concerned that bringing the Rangers to the Command Center will scare them, and Zedd is out to destroy them. So Zedd sends down some putties to attack the baby!Rangers. Kimberly clings to Billy, and Billy wonders if the putties are lost. And then Adam asks if they want to play, but the Putties attack instead.

I'm sorry, this fight is too adorable for words. Tommy manages to kick a dodgeball into the Z of one of the Putties. All of the Rangers join in, and even baby Bulk manages to destroy a putty! Aww, I am so proud of them! *pinches their cheeks* Zedd is not pleased that the baby!Rangers have managed to defeat the putties, so he turns a camera into a monster, and traps the baby!Rangers in a polaroid.

At the Command Center, Alpha works on a device to fix things, while Zordon worries. DUN DUN DUN.

To be continued. On Thursday.

Fish: FIVE. There are SO MANY QUESTIONS. But this episode was still AMAZING. I hope part 2 is as good.

Covered in: Bulk and Skull get covered in shaving cream, and some random lady at the park gets covered in garbage

Fic people should write us: ADVENTURES OF THE BABY RANGERS.

Episode 90- Mirror of Regret

Today we see a rarity. Power Rangers, in it's natural habitat, performing the seldom observed Character Development. Come, let's observe.

So Adam and Rocky are showing off their pretty pretty talented selves. To a class of Small Children. Whom they are supposedly teaching martial arts to, except really they're just showing off and the kids do something completely different. I do like that they're all synchronized and matchy. It's cute. Anyway, one child is not so hot at the routine they're working on and he keeps bumping into the kid next to him. Despite being the same height, Slightly Chubby Boy (who is set up to look obviously chubby) insults Awkward Boy and calls him "shrimp" and "small fry". Adam and Rocky tell him to knock it off, that the kind of attitude Slightly Chubby Boy is demonstrating isn't a team attitude at all. Uh... since when is martial arts a team sport?

Adam offers to give Awkward Boy, aka Shawn, private tutelage in the park. They go off together and Adam gives him some useful advice like "feet apart". He then tells him not to let the bullies bother him, that he used to be small himself but then he grew. He really should have gone the route of there's nothing wrong with being small and then listed benefits to being small. Not all kids will grow and big and tall, and really there isn't anything wrong with being short. Anyway, there are about a million reasons NOT to pick on somebody and Adam addresses... um... none of them really.

So Awkward Boy does much better and then he heads off to the Youth Center by himself. Adam stays in the park for no discernible reason other than to be attacked by putties. You see, Zedd came up with a plan. He stalked Adam and realized he suffered from a lack of self confidence as a small child and he plans to make Adam relive all the teasing to wear him down and make him weak. So Zedd sent Goldar and a bunch of putties with the Mirror of Regret, a large mirror that shows Adam his past.

We see a terrible coach pick everybody for a team EXCEPT Tiny!Adam. We see him asking to play and other kids saying they don't want him on their team. Goldar brings Adam to his knees (and we figure it works since Jason is gone... he needed somebody to obsess over now...). We see Tiny!Adam being Emo. And so Big!Adam becomes Emo. And so it begins, the era of Emo Ranger! (not a knock, I love that Adam is Emo Ranger and he pulls it off SO WELL)

At the Youth Center, Bulk and Skull are tired from trying their martial arts from a book. They go to the bar and Ernie prompts young Shawn to abandon his homework and go show off his moves, thereby making Bulk and Skull feel like crap. They determine, however, that what they really need is MOAR SPACE. So off they go to practice.

Meanwhile, Zedd makes a monster that will laugh at all it's victims. He bases it off a laughing hyena, despite the fact that it looks nothing like a hyena, nor the skeletal structure of a hyena. It laughs like one though, and it's thematically appropriate, so I give her a pass. Zordon finally notices something is going on in Angel Grove, so he calls the other rangers, tells them what's going on with Adam, and then says they have to fight Skellerina without him. They go fight and lose horribly to... a group of putties.

Kim and Aisha manage to take out a putty together, but the rest of them seem to be doing pretty badly. Back in the park, Goldar is going to deliver the final blow to Adam by showing him Shawn and his lack of confidence. Instead, Adam sees Shawn proud of himself and sure he can do his routine. It gives Adam the strength the break the spell and regain his own confidence. He fights off the putties and then Goldar just vanishes.

Adam joins the others in the fight. Alpha has been working on a Plot Device Power Cannon and finishes it just in time for Adam to join the fight. Tommy tells him Skellerina is really powerful, yet they haven't fought her at all yet so I don't know where it came from. Alpha beams the Power Cannon to them, they all charge it up, they fire it, and it blows up Skellerina. Awesome! A non-Zord fight! We have too few of those. Zedd, pissed off his awesome plan failed so miserably, berates a groveling Goldar.

Back at the Youth Center, everyone is watching Adam and Rocky's class of Small Children do their routine. Only the class is all standing back and Shawn is the only one doing the routine. The others are in awe of his abilities and Slightly Chubby Boy apologizes for teasing him. They become friends (yeah, like THAT happens in real life). Shawn goes all doe-eyed and thanks Adam for all the help and encouragement. He's completely enamoured. Bulk and Skull come in from having practiced in the park and attempt to do their thing in the middle of the Youth Center. They knock each other over, however, and Shawn mocks them. Everybody laughs. Good job show, give an example of how bullying is bad and then turn around and bully people.

List time!
2 fish! It really was very consistent!

Billy speak: none, alas :(

Covered in food: nobody

Episode 82- The Ninja Encounter Part 1

OMG IT'S STONE CANYON TRIO TIME! I am very much going to miss Jason, Zack, and Trini, of course. But I adore Rocky, Adam, and Aisha too much to not love these episodes. And I think we all know 's feelings on the subject.

So we open on Angel Grove Park with our group of six rangers. They're hanging out and jamming to some music on a huge radio. I feel old. Even more telling, Tommy is wearing green. How very random and not at all a cover for using old footage due to no longer having Thuy Trang, Walter Jones, and Austin St. John on the payroll. *cough* Ahem.

Anyway, so then we see some wholesome looking teenagers rollerblading down the sidewalk. They stop and say hello to Mr. Anderson. No, not THAT Mr. Anderson, but rather a middle aged teacher from Stone Canyon High. Mr. Anderson is pushing his son in a stroller and discuses the upcoming ninja tournament. Later, on a park bench, Mr. Anderson is sitting with Jacob, his son. His toddler son. His roughly 18 months to 2 years old son. And he's just... sitting. On the bench. Quietly. Who is this toddler and what drugs did they give him to sit still for that long? Drama Queen and Emo Kid both could never sit still for that long at that age... heck, at 8 and 4 they still can't. So Unnaturally Calm and Quiet Toddler Jacob pushes his stroller and it runs into some motorcycles. The trio of Bad Teens confront Mr. Anderson (and dear lord, I will never hear that name without hearing it in Hugo Weaving's voice), who then puts Jacob in the stroller and apologizes for what happened, despite the fact that flimsy plastic stroller rolling at about 2 miles an hour down a hill does NO DAMAGE to a freakin motorcycle.

And I think we all know what happens next. The stroller, with Unnaturally Calm and Quiet Toddler gets bumped and takes off rolling down the sidewalk! Unattended! Oh noes! Whoever will save the freakishly quiet toddler?!?! Who will stop him as he careens down... grassy hills? Seriously? Has anybody on set ever bothered to push a stroller, particularly over grass? They don't move well, quickly, or easily. It takes a lot of effort. But despite, the stroller runs away and we are wondering who will ever save this poor not-of-this-world baby? Why, Rocky, Adam, and Aisha will give it a go! They hear Mr. Anderson scream for Jacob and take off blading towards the runaway stroller. Luckily, Kim, Billy, and Tommy also hear the screams for help and they take off running too. As the stroller goes shooting past Bulk and Skull, with the Stone Canyon Trio knocking into Skull who hits a hot dog vendor who squirts something all over Bulk, Bulk and Skull realize a baby is in distress and THEY join the chase as well. There is lots of physically impossible stunts from both the actors and the stroller (seriously, they don't come with a steering wheel... they can't just veer around trees like that). Aisha and Kim both get launched into the air and grab hold of the stroller just as it gets ready to careen off a cliff. They pick up Jacob and hand him over to Mr. Anderson, who has finally caught up. Bulk and Skull, satisfied the child is safe, collapse onto a picnic table, out of breath from the chase.

Mr. Anderson takes Unnaturally Calm and Quiet Toddler away and our Ranger Trio get to know the Stone Canyon Trio. Adam and Aisha alternately hold hands, when Adam isn't staring at Kim's breasts. But frankly, we can't blame him. Who wouldn't want to stare at her breasts? The Ranger Trio ask if the Stone Canyon Trio are there to watch the Ninja Competition and they are not even remotely subtle when they answer "Something like that". They then make fun of Bulk and Skull some and that makes me sad because y'know, they were just trying to help and did literally nothing to provoke it. It's not nice to make fun of people who are genuinely trying to HELP.

We jump ahead to the actual ninja competition and we see the back of people who are obviously not Thuy Trang, Walter Jones, and Austin St. John. It's like they didn't even TRY. The ninja competition is more a case of martial arts in a ninja suit than ninja-like. I would have expected a test on stealth or ability to silently scale walls or something, but instead it's just a lot of jumping around and kicking with their faces covered. The team in black plays really dirty and the team in white is wholesome and rule abiding and they win. Of course, our wholesome ninjas just happen to be our wholesome rollerblading Stone Canyon Trio! Mr. Anderson stands up and hands Unnaturally Calm and Quiet Toddler over to Bulk so he can cheer for his students. Mind, why he can't cheer while holding his kid I don't know, but whatever. The Stone Canyon Trio are very excited and hold their trophy high while Rocky gropes Adam in the middle of the ring. He's totally thinking "I'm going to pounce on you in the locker room." and Adam seems quite pleased with this plan.

Outside, our Ranger Trio are congratulating the Stone Canyon Trio and they all agree to hang out together sometime VERY VERY SOON. The Ranger Trio heads out while Mr. Anderson puts Jacob in the car and the Stone Canyon Trio get ready to leave with him. But wait! Zedd wants to capture these awesome ninja teens and use them for his own nefarious purposes, so he sends down Goldar to wrap them all up in the Glowing Rope of Doom (and bondage)! The Ranger Trio turns to help but then get attacked by a pyramid of putties. So they fight the putties while Goldar grabs Mr. Anderson and then disappears. Bulk and Skull, having seen this, immediately go to make sure "the baby" is okay. He is fine, but sitting in the most atrocious carseat ever. I know 90's safety was lax compared to what we have today, but Holy Internal Decapitation Risk Batman! Jacob is sitting in a shield booster, which is deadly, and no harness. For a kid who is supposed to be under 2, that's... frightening. Emo Kid was 4 before he turned forward facing and he's still in a harness. Drama Queen was over 6 before getting out of a harness and into a booster, and she's still in a high back booster at nearly 9. And in the early 90's, it was appropriate to put toddlers in what amounts to a death trap (though for the record, I was in a harness until I was 4... in the very early 1980's... so it's not like the safe seats weren't available, it's just that most people didn't know better). I feel really really old now.

Uh, anyway, my rant aside, we move on to Bulk and Skull walking off with Jacob to keep him safe. It's freaking ADORABLE. The Ranger Trio see that everybody has been taken and immediately contact Zordon. They appear in a very bad combination of new footage where they look off screen at the non-existent Jason, Zack, and Trini and old footage where everybody is on screen. Except there is a huge discrepancy in quality between the old footage and the new footage so... yeah. Anyway. The Stone Canyon Trio and Mr. Anderson are all chained up in a cave. Rocky doesn't know who Lord Zedd is and Adam says they'll (atrocious dialogue alert!) never use their powers for evil. Rocky is wearing a vest with no shirt underneath. I feel his removing this vest would vastly help the escape plan they are formulating. Not that I'm biased or anything...

In the park, Bulk and Skull are trying to entertain Unnaturally Calm and Quiet Toddler. He is... unnaturally calm. And quiet. Skull tells him to go fetch a squishy cube, but he is... unnaturally calm and quiet. Bulk pulls out a grocers worth of food from a bag, but he is... unnaturally calm and quiet. Skull pulls out a bottle and squirts milk all over Bulk on accident and Jacob is... unnaturally calm and quiet. Bulk and Skull sing I'm a little teapot and it's ADORABLE! But Jacob is still unnaturally calm and quiet. Seriously, this little kid is freaking me out. It's just... toddlers don't sit still! Toddlers don't have a volume control! This kid is FREAKY.

Back in the cave, the Stone Canyon Trio have come up with a plan. Before they can do anything, Aisha must pull a Very Convenient bobby pin from her hair and pick the lock. She PICKS THE LOCK people. Because she is AWESOME. And somehow knows how. And as she's doing so, we get a big To Be Continued...

List time!

Good lord that was a lot of "plot" for one episode.
2 fish. It was consistent! It had plot! It was Very Very Pretty!

Billy speak: none

Covered in food: Bulk in something from a hot dog stand and milk

Episode 55- Second Chance

This was an incredibly boring and pointless episode. It... ugh. Should have had a beer. Would have made it easier. I think I'd rather suffer through Devon's Not-Actually-A Ghost again than watch this episode one more time.

So we start out in the Youth Center with Jason and Zack on a date. It's adorable, but that's the last interesting thing that happens. A bunch of kids run off all happy to have made Ernie's soccer team. Why Ernie is running a soccer team, we have no idea. There is one little boy who is very sad. Or rather, we suspect he's supposed to be very sad, but really he's just wooden and expressionless. I think the kid from Phantom Menace could act better than this kid. Anyway, Boy Who Can't Act, also named Roger, didn't make the soccer team. Jason suggests he practice. Ernie says if it was up to him, he'd hold another try-out (why this will help, I have no idea). Zack throws logic into an episode that lacks any and says it IS up to Ernie, who then says "Oh yeah" and sets up for a second try-out.

At school the following morning, Zack wants to do soccer tricks in the hallway. Bulk and Skull take the soccer ball. Kim is mean to Bulk (something about nobody seeing him on a soccer field... it was cruel, we'll just leave it with that). Bulk manages to kick the ball right into Ms. Applebee as she comes around the corner. She gives them detention. Zack chastises them for doing soccer tricks in the hall... which he was just about to do too... and I want to bang on the keyboard, but won't because I like my computer and don't want to break it.

Oh, and somewhere in there, Tommy slammed his wrist and communicator against the wall and broke it. He goes to first period, which he doesn't have with the other rangers but does have with Bulk and Skull (and what in the world do their timetables actually look like? I can't figure it out). His communicator keeps beeping and Ms. Applebee takes away his "pager", yet doesn't question that it looks like a watch and not the little heavy boxes with the tiny screen that pagers used to be. Oh goodness. Pagers. Dear readers, we feel very old right now.

After school that day, Jason and Zack practice soccer in the park with their Inappropriately Young Friend, aka Boy Who Can't Act. The kid is bad. They encourage him and instead of actually showing him how to do things, they just keep throwing the ball at him. So then they get attacked by putties. And then they get attacked by Rita's not-fully-charged Soccadillo. Oh show. The best part is the putties get together and start playing soccer with the Soccadillo. That was actually really cool. Not as cool as pumpkin!putties, but still pretty neat.

Zordon calls the other rangers in and Trini goes to stand by Boy Who Can't Act while Billy and Kim go after the putties. I'm a little confused as to the logic here. I mean, I know Trini is mostly Informed Ability, and she's only shown as being awesome in her (very very few) focus episodes, but I certainly doubt a novice and a girl with no martial arts training would be more skilled fighters than somebody who takes specialized martial arts classes with her own personal trainer.

Anyway, they get their rear-ends kicked by the Soccadillo (okay, so I know everywhere else lists it with only one c, but since it's a word smush and soccer has two c's, I'm going with that). They teleport to the Command Center and we're left wondering what they did with the kid. We can only assume they gave him some fish and went about their merry way.

They morph and go fight in the Inexplicable Abandoned Rock Quarry again. They blast and blast and apparently forget it's an ARMOURED mammal, so the firepower really isn't going to work against it. Meanwhile Tommy is trying to get his communicator back from Ms. Applebee and is surprised to discover it did not, in fact, magically fix itself while locked in her desk drawer all day. Zordon teleports him into the fight and they call Zords. Yada yada yada, Power Sword Saves Them All, explosion, the end.

Back at the Youth Center we discover every kid made it onto the soccer team because Ernie couldn't bear to let anybody down and made a second team. Bulk and Skull tell Boy Who Can't Act that he really didn't have to practice after all and he says he did, but frankly, they're kind of right. He would have made the team regardless of his actual skill level because EVERYBODY made the team no matter what. But Skull decides to show off, has something sticky on his hand, gets the soccer ball stuck, knock both Bulk and himself over, and then get covered in milkshake.

And I'm just glad it's over.

4.5 fish. It made little sense and was just BORING.

Billy speak: "Looks like a member of the dasypodidae family. [beat] An armoured mammal."

Covered in food: Bulk and Skull in milkshake.

Times I had to go back and edit out where I accidentally typed football instead of soccer and didn't catch it until the end: twice

Episode 40 - Doomsday Part 2

You know, considering how great part 1 of this episode was, you would think that part 2 would be awesome. And there are some good moments, but honestly we spent about half of it chanting fish at each other.

So, we open at the Command Center, and Zordon is going over the threat again, and he points out that Goldar hasn't brought out his awesome zord in 10,000 years. Of course Goldar hasn't brought it out in 10,000 years. He's been sealed in a can. While we're busy rolling our eyes at that, the next ridiculous statement is made. Apparently it requires 12 hours to charge back up the Megazord. Right now the Zords are only at half power. If they fight at half power and get destroyed, apparently it can destroy the grid. Wait, seriously? Since when does it take that long to charge up? And obviously they've fought at below half power before, considering that the Zords are currently charging. Fish fish fish.

So, they go, and promptly get beaten up. In fact, the Megazord gets its arm cut off. And seriously, that Zord has to be at least semi-sentient at this point, because while the Rangers are all freaking out (seriously, it's the best reaction shot ever) the Megazord manages to defend itself anyway. So they call in the Dragonzord, which promptly loses part of its tail. They keep getting beaten up, and then suddenly the Zords start to disintegrate, and seriously, that was pretty incredible. I mean, the special effects are ridiculous, but seeing the Zords get destroyed like that is pretty powerful.

The Rangers all abandon ship, and demorph back in the park. Apparently Rita is jamming the frequency of their communicators so they can't call the Command Center. Oh, and don't worry, because Billy's about to pull a Billy Ex Machina, and it turns out that the Zords have a failsafe where they teleport back to wherever it is they stay if they're about to be destroyed. If so, seriously, why haven't we heard about this before, and why was Zordon so busy going "blah blah destroy the grid" if you go?

So they head back to Billy's garage, and we get a shot of the Radbug. And I thought we've already established that if you can't contact the Power Chamber, you take the radbug. But Billy apparently has some wacky tool that will fix the communicators. Of course, there hasn't been enough drama in this episode yet, so Goldar and some putties show up to menace them.

Meanwhile, at the Command Center, Zordon is all "woe is me, I can't find the Rangers without their communicators", which is frankly bullshit. But Alpha tells us that since Rita's awesome moon palace is on Earth, apparently they can hack her systems now. I'm getting weird Independence Day flashbacks.

Back at Billy's garage, Goldar is still just standing there and being vaguely threatening. He hasn't even tried to attack yet. And he just watches as the Rangers teleport back to the Command Center.

And guess what? Apparently it must have been WAY MORE than 12 hours, because all of the Zords are just fine! Including Titanus, which must have been rescued from the sandpit by some flying sand-fish. Some other stuff might have happened at this point, but there was a long series of ????? and !!!!!! and flailing and screaming about fish and seriously, show, you could at least try to be consistent within the same episode. Zordon's big plan is that if they just keep changing Zord configurations, they can overwhelm Goldar's Zord. Which... apparently works. Big fight scene. Things blow up. Nothing to say about it really.

So after Cyclopsis blows up (it lost its head last time and still recovered!) Finster blames Goldar, and then Rita packs up her palace and goes back to the moon, and for some reason that makes the entire town reappear in the Park or wherever it was they were gathering.

Some little kids start arguing over which Ranger is the best. One boy likes the Red Ranger, another boy likes the Black Ranger, and a third boy likes the Blue Ranger. A little girl says she likes the Pink and Yellow Rangers, and seriously, couldn't you have gotten a second girl? Or maybe have one of the boys like one of the female Rangers? Is that too much to ask?! Of course, Tommy then makes an appearance (wearing all green, of course) and he tells them a secret - they are all the greatest. (I was really hoping he would say the Green Ranger is the greatest. Oh well.) So the Rangers show up and the all walk up and clap him on the shoulder, and seriously, how come nobody realizes Tommy used to be the Green Ranger?

The mayor makes a speech about how the Rangers are awesome, and that's the end of Power Rangers Day.

But wait, there's more! Back at the Command Center, Zordon says that while they haven't defeated Rita, they have dealt her a major blow. He then offers them the chance to quit. None of them do. Until they go off to a Peace Conference or move to a fish planet, anyway. That would be a great place to end the episode, except then Alpha says he caught a virus. A computer virus. GROAN.


Fish: Four fish. None of the Zord stuff made any sense.

Billy speak: "Rita's undoubtedly jamming the frequency"
"I'm adjusting the modulator to read an alternative signal"

Questions to be answered: What did the people in town experience while they were caught in the alternate dimension? What sort of events should happen at Power Rangers Day?

Episode 13- No Clowning Around

We start out this episode really happy because it's a Trini-centric episode, but the happiness is short lived. This is the creepiest, weirdest episode I think I've watched thus far. I spent most of it unsure what was going on, actually.

It opens at some kind of carnival or fair. It looks like it might be fun with a ferris wheel and carousel (I love carousels), but there are clowns. And clowns are creepy. If you didn't think they were creepy before, you will after this episode.

Zack is walking around on some rockin' stilts and we're impressed. He's awesome! Billy throws out some typical Billy-speak and then Zack shows off by dancing. He's not half bad either... until he falls over. He is caught by Jason in what is probably the most romantic pose ever to happen in the entirety of Power Rangers. Seriously, Zack literally falls into Jason's arms, is encompassed by him, and lowered safely to the ground in Jason's warm embrace. Zack sing-songs "My big strong hero" and then kisses Jason on the cheek. I'm not even kidding, it's actually there on screen. Zack and Jason, in this scene, get more action and romance in this one scene than anybody in Power Rangers does until Tommy shows up. Zack/Jason is totally canon, and probably the only thing in Power Rangers I didn't ship until... um... well, now. But now I do and we wants fic!

Moving on we see Trini running to catch up to the gang with her Random Relative of the week, Cousin Sylvia. We meet the creepy clown who's name is Pineapple and we struggle to not make Pennywise references. Yeah, it didn't work. Pineapple the Clown offers to teach children juggling, but Billy kind of takes over and jumps at the chance. He sucks at it though so his eggs (why they're juggling with raw eggs I don't even know) end up flying through the air and landing on Bulk and Skull in what proves to be their only appearance all episode. Sylvia wants to stay and juggle with leering Pineapple the Clown, but Trini reminds her they need to stick together and drags her off to attempt a human pyramid. It fails and Sylvia, apparently unimpressed, runs off to see Creepy the Clown again. She looks to be about 10 years old. She really ought to know better by that point.

Trini ends up in a minor state of panic until she finds Random Relative Sylvia with Creepy the Clown. Trini tries to pull her away, but Pineapple gets grabby with the little girls and won't let go of Sylvia. He turns her into a cardboard cutout and then runs away. Yeah... I don't even know what's going on at this point.

It ought to be noted that while Trini ran off to find her wayward cousin, the rest of the Rangers just up and went on a park ride. They didn't help look for the missing kid. Trini catches up to them, their fun time now over, and shows them Cardboard Cutout Sylvia. She is sent to Billy's garage to use one of his devices to turn her back into a human and we just have to stop and love the fact that Billy has a machine to turn cardboard into people. In his garage. Because he's Billy. I could smush him.

Jason grabs a megaphone and starts calling out for the evacuation of the carnival. Instead of questioning a random teenager telling them to run, the residents of Angel Grove just run away. Either they know he's a Ranger (probably) or they're very well trained to hide at the slightest inkling of a monster attack. Billy ought to have gone to help Trini, but instead ends up leaving the others to deal with putties while he chases after Pineapple on his own. We think he might have a clown fetish. We marvel at the ingenuity of the Rangers using their environment to help beat the putties. They did an awesome job of improvising with the carnival rides.

Meanwhile, Alpha is in Billy's garage helping Trini reanimate Sylvia. He discovers all the water has been removed from her body, thus turning her into cardboard. Um... wha??? Again, I don't even know. We were yelling FISH by 10 minutes into this episode. That's never a good sign. He dumps some buckets of water on the cardboard, she comes back to the life, Alpha runs and hides, and Trini apologizes for what I don't know.

Trini runs to assist in the fight, they summon the Zords, and then Billy throws his Triceratops horns at the overgrown clown that now resembles some kind of deformed plant. He calls himself the Pinoctopus. He neither resembles a pineapple nor an octopus, so I'm just left scratching my head.

Zack uses his Zord to freeze the Pinoctopus and we see a nice background shot of a glacier. Which is amusing since the Mastodon Zord was standing next to the other Zords on... grassy flatland. Mmkay. Angel Grove geography is just weird. That not being sufficient, they form the MegaZord and Billy suggests something akin to lasers. That's good, but not good enough apparently, as Jason so harshly points out, and so they do... something? and defeat the Pinoctopus. It looked like somebody pulled a wire out of the ground and made dirt fly up and then he exploded, but we're not entirely sure what it was supposed to be. Again, no clue what's really going on, so fish fish fish.

The day is saved, Random Relative Sylvia thanks Trini for teaching her not to run off (seriously? she's ten and nobody taught her this before?), and then Billy is adorable on not-stilts. Credits roll. The end.

I'm still scratching my head and not sure what I just watched.

List time!
Covered in food: Bulk and Skull covered in raw egg

Billy!speak (and lots of it!):
"Remember to keep your center of gravity correctly proportioned."
"I estimate we'll lose structural integrity in about 8.3 seconds."
"We're in imminent danger of collapse!"
"She's been subatomically transduced into a two dimensional space."
"The quasitronic molecular generator in my garage could be the answer."
"Bipedally ambulate to the nearest convenient outlet."
"According to my calculations a multi-phased energy blast should overload him and bring on his destruction."

Overall we give this episode 4 fish due to the sheer rediculousness of the water turning a cardboard person back into a person, Billy's clown fetish, the weird battle, creepy grabby clowns, and the overall wtf-ery of the entire episode.

Episode 7- Big Sister

I strongly dislike this episode. It's horrible. It's a struggle to get through it. This episode contains some of the worst dubbing EVER. The plot is... um... well I'm sure it's there somewhere and I might be able to find it if only I could dig deep enough. Alas, I haven't the fortitude. As it is, TSB required a glass of wine and I downed an entire beer before we could watch this episode in it's entirety. We needed the alcohol to numb us.

We start the episode with Kim and Trini, atrociously dressed, looking frantically around the Youth Center for a little girl in pigtails. We learn she's twelve, named Maria, and part of a Big Sisters program for which Kim and Trini volunteered their time. Thankfully we get to be distracted from the blindingly bad clothing by Jason and Zack sparring. Jason's arms are dazzling and Zack is shirtless. It's so pretty we've decided Zack should have spent the rest of the series shirtless. That is one good looking young man.

We're then treated to the apparently hilarious sight of a group of teenage boys running out of the shower, soap in their hair and towels around their waists. Maria is laughing by the valve for the hot water, having shut it off to get Kim and Trini's attention. Why she needed to pull a prank (and way to be supportive and understanding, Rangers, laughing at the poor mostly naked boys) to get the attention of two teenagers who spent the past half hour looking for her, I'm not sure.

Rita has found the Power Eggs, some sort of weapon she's been looking for for all of ten seconds. She can't open the box, however, and needs a child. She commands Finster to make her a monster to kidnap a diabolic and mean child, and requests the Chunky Chicken. He does not even remotely resemble a tin of questionable meat, though that's all I can think of when he's on screen. Chunky Chicken. Bad name for a monster. Bad name for a food product at that.

Kim and Trini have taken the Not-A-Twelve-Year-Old to the park for a picnic. Kim has asked her about boys, apparently assuming all twelve year olds are interested in them (surprise surprise, they're not), when, oh no, they're attacked by putties! The Not-A-Twelve-Year-Old is not even the slightest bit scared and instead manages to get herself kidnapped. The girls race back to the Youth Center (why didn't they just use their communicators?) only to find Jason daring Zack to eat an enormous ice cream sundae. It was surprisingly typical behaviour for teenage boys and I'm amazed it made it into the episode. They hardly get a word in before the communicators start making an odd sound and we find out they're not working! We don't know why they're not working, and we never find out, but how very convenient for the plot.

I can forgive that, however, as we're introduced to the most awesome vehicle ever, the Radbug! Billy has been working on it in his garage for awhile as a surprise. We can only assume Trini, despite all the time spent at Billy's, did not know about it because Billy wanted to surprise her... in a very uncomfortable place. I also must mention that Trini, Jason, and Kim all fit in the back. Of a Volkswagon. In a very uncomfortable place, if you know what I mean. The Radbug gets our heroes to the Command Center in record time where we discover Zordon knows absolutely nothing about what's been going on. Zordon's observing skills really need some work. Zordon has been fearing Rita would find the Power Eggs for ten millennium, yet he didn't set up some kind of watch to see if she'd go after them? It took her all of ten seconds to find them... Zordon!fail.

The Rangers take the Radbug to the location of the Power Eggs and meet up with Goldar, Squat, Baboo, and the Tinned Meat Product. They morph, they fight, and then we see Rita flying on her bicycle! This whole episode could be worth it just because we get to see Rita on her bicycle. That's one classy villain. The Rangers call the Zords in the Longest. Summoning. Sequence. EVER. I think it took a quarter of the episode just to summon the Zords. The MegaZord catches Maria just as the Tinned Meat Product cuts the ropes that are dangling her over... somewhere. We can't help but cheer on the Tinned Meat Product. We don't particularly care what happens to Maria and the Bad Dubbing of Doom, despite Jason's creepy obsession with saving "the little girl". Billy summons the Radbug and it, like the true hero it is, saves the day by getting Bad-Dubbing-of-Doom Maria off our screen.

I must note that the Rangers talk to Maria while they are holding her in the MegaZords hands and she can clearly hear them. While doing so, they call each other BY NAME. Way to be discreet and protect your secret identities there, guys.

We are treated to the shortest fight scene ever and then back to the Youth Center. Mr. Reporter Guy is reporting on some environmentally conscious youths in the area when he interrupts the story to tell us the Power Rangers saved the day and rescued a little girl. Good job, Mr. Reporter Guy! Ernie then asks Kim to get his bowl of freshly made vegetarian chili, declares it on the house, and then a crowd convenes around Kim causing her to throw the chili. It lands, rather predictably, on Bulk in his only appearance in this episode.

And that's the end of that one, thank goodness. List time!

Billy speak: None really.
Covered with food: Bulk gets covered in vegetarian chili and the poor guy doesn't even get a line.

Rating: 4 fish. Were it not for the Radbug and Rita's bicycle, this would have been a 4.5 at the very least.