Episode 319 - Mean Wheels Mantis

Wow, this episode was a) dull and b) makes no sense. A whole episode about getting a new toy, with nothing else to offer. I apologize in advance. Recapping races (of the non-wacky variety) is really dull. We get a shot of some mountains, and the geography of this colony still makes no sense. Maya is, for some reason, up a tree, and having a conversation with her fugly zord. She insists that talking to her zord is easy, and starts pulling a Pocahontas listen with your heart thing. Meanwhile, Trakeena has a new monster courtesy of Deviot, and he's really annoying. He's a Mantis on a bike, and seriously, I wonder how the colony manages to keep rebuilding all the buildings that are destroyed. I mean, its not like they have unlimited resources. They are on a space ship. Maya and Kendrix show up and fight him, and the girls are pretty awesome! Just as the other Rangers show up, Maya and Kendrix get turned into trophies. Mantis is all "Won't change them back unless you beat me in a race" and at least this episode is giving me an excuse to link to Wacky Races. The boys start chasing him around the dome, and seriously, the geography of Terra Venture makes NO SENSE at all. The monster is, of course cheating, and Kai gets knocked out by a rope placed on the road. Damon gets taken out by some falling rocks, so only Leo is left. Leo and the monster fight and the monster manages to beat him via more cheating, and the monster vanishes with the trophies of Maya and Kendrix. Leo is blaming himself for this, even though a) monster cheated and b) Damon and Kai also got knocked out. Damon is all "our bikes are trashed, we're screwed" and he also insists that its too dangerous. Of course, since Damon is also Miles O'Brien, he will come up with something brilliant. But really, he is only one man, and he can only do so much. The Fug Zords try to talk to Leo, and somehow he understands that they're telling him he needs more power? Or something? So he takes his bike (which is fixed, because Damon is brilliant) and goes to find the monster. Leo puts up his saber as the stakes for the race. The monster continues to cheat by shooting at him and jumping on his bike and just generally cheating. But Leo thinks about his friends and listens with his heart and somehow that makes his bike morph into a new bike. I... am not sure how listening with your heart manages to create a new bike that can also turn into a fireball but whatever, for Power Rangers, this somehow makes sense. I guess. The fish did it or whatever. Damon is really impressed with the bike, and I still have NO IDEA HOW THE BIKE WAS CREATED. Anyway, since this episode is even more about selling toys than normal, we get the zord fight on top of the buy the shiny new bike toy propaganda. Leo tells Maya that he learned about the cycle from the beast, and then tells her a story about baby galactabeasts, which is adorable, but also bullshit. Basically, Leo's whole plan boils down to keeping his fingers crossed and hoping for the best. I bet he supports the Chudley Cannons. And then the team has an orgy. Fish: Five. Seriously. What. This was the most blatant "buy the new toy" episode in a while.

Episode 209 - Shadow Rangers

This episode started off SO WELL. And then it turned into... well, Turbo. *sob*

So, Justin is helping Tommy work on his car. Justin's shoelace gets caught on the gas peddle. The car's engine blows. Tommy still insists that this isn't Justin's fault. EXCEPT IT TOTALLY IS. Oh, and we find out that someone has been stealing stuff from the garage, so Justin builds a homing beacon that he'll put on something in the hope that it's stolen and will lead them to the thief.

Divatox has a new monster, the Chromite. Chromite appears to be marrying Elgar. Congratulations, may you two live happily ever after SOMEWHERE FAR AWAY. Divatox is going to send the Chromite down to leave a detonator in the construction site.

Adam and Tanya are off on a date walking together (after engaging in some practice to better get their Zords together) when Kat joins them. They promptly get attacked by the Chromite, who steals their morphing energy and creates shadow versions of them! We're actually really excited, because HEY, EVIL RANGERS. It's a thing that we like! The unmorphed fight against themselves is seriously great! Adam gets beaten up a lot! *approves so hard* Of course, then they get captured and thrown in a cave.

Then Justin and Tommy get attacked. Tommy has seen this before, and tries to stop Justin from morphing, but that doesn't work, and Justin gets his power stolen and he's kidnapped. There is a nice fight where fake!Kat and Adam beat up Tommy. I approve.

Now that he's all alone, Tommy goes back to the Power Chamber to get Dimitria's help. Unfortunately, since she's from the planet Inquirus, she can only inquire about things, so she answers all questions in the form of a question. At least she'd be good on jeopardy. BUT SERIOUSLY, she is so annoying. If they wanted to frame it instead as a "you are adults now and need to learn to figure things out yourself" I might not be as annoyed. But really, part of the reason they've always had a mentor/support staff is so that they don't need to do everything themselves, because sometimes they have to be out there fighting while someone else DOES THE IMPORTANT RESEARCH. Instead, Tommy is left to be the science guy (and this is where I start laughing hysterically and wondering if this is what leads to him faking his doctorate) and he discovers that the shadow rangers are made out of light, so if he just makes it dark, everything will be okay.

He fights the shadows and even though it's daylight out he manages to destroy them all. I call bullshit.

Justin has activated the homing beacon, so Tommy goes and rescues everyone else. Then they morph and fight the chromite and summon zords, and wow, this episode sucks.

Turns out that monkey!Bulk and Skull are the thieves. They're now living in the youth center, which is under new management. Ernie's foreign service unit has recalled him (he's going to build a bridge in the amazon or something) and now Lt. Stone is running things. (And hey, isn't anyone WORRIED about Bulk and Skull being missing? WORST FRIENDS EVER.)

So in the last few episodes, we've lost Billy, Jason, Rocky, Zordon, Alpha, human!Bulk and Skull, and Ernie. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO US, SHOW?

Fish: 5. EVERYTHING IS BAD AND WRONG.

Episode 207 - Shift Into Turbo - Part 2

Previously on WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS - Bulk and Skull got turned into monkeys, and the Rangers are the worst friends ever. Also, it's time for them to graduate high school in their gender segregated robes.

This is going to be one of those multi-parters where they stretch it out way longer than they need to, isn't it? *checks* YEP.

I'm somehow the one who ends up commenting on theme song & costume changes. So. Theme song - I like it, QR doesn't. It's not quite as great as the original, but it's still catchy. I do miss the go go power rangers, though. :( As for the costumes, even with all of my reservations about this season, it's actually one of my favorite Ranger suit designs. It's a lot better than Zeo, anyway.

Okay, the episode. So, Adam and his awful hair are all concerned about Justin, who has not shown up to graduation. Adam, you've known Justin for 30 seconds, and he has a communicator. Stop it. So instead Adam WALKS OUT OF GRADUATION and then calls Zordon, who tells him that Justin was supposed to call if there's any trouble. Adam still has a bad feeling, so he pulls Kat and Tanya out of the ceremony right before Kat is about to give her valedictorian speech. Principal Caplan is all "... what are you three doing?" but since he totally knows they're Rangers, he lets them go and stalls until Kat can go and give her speech. I totally feel bad for the person who was talking before Kat, since they're totally ignoring her.

The Rangers barely make it into the parking lot, before Divatox shows up herself with some Pirahnatrons and there's an unmorphed fight, and it's GLORIOUS. You know JYB was thinking "THANK GOD. LAST SEASON WAS SO DULL FOR ME" because there's a ton of him showing off, and I am totally NOT complaining, although seriously, his HAIR. Adam volunteers to fight the Pirahnatrons himself, while the girls go and help Justin, and then I was randomly reminded that back in 97 I read a ton of Divatox/Adam, which I personally don't get, but it makes me sad that there is more Divatox/Adam bad and wrong fic than there is Scorpina/Adam bad and wrong fic. *pout*

Zordon calls Tommy for backup so that he can help Adam, and then all five Rangers end up at the power plant. The fight scene ends with the Rangers winning, but the detonator is still ticking. Just as I'm discussing with QR about how stupid it is that they're all looking together and they should split up, Tommy says they should split up, and man, I hate it when he agrees with me. So Adam and Tanya go off together, and so do Tommy and Kat, and Justin is sent to the Power Chamber to retrieve the Turbo Navigator so that they can find stuff.

Up in the Power Chamber, Alpha is all distracted by wormhole opening and is totally confused when Justin shows up. Yes, the wormhole is very important for them, but HI, THERE IS A FIGHT GOING ON. Stop failing so hard, Alpha and Zordon. Justin goes back with the navigator and Zordon summons Lerigot.

The Turbo Navigator finds the detonator, and Tommy plugs it into some car, which lets it explode safely or something.

Back at graduation, Kat delivers her speech and then Caplan pronounces them all graduated. They didn't walk at all! At the Youth Center, we find out Tanya has a summer internship working at a radio station, and Adam is going to be a stuntman at the amusement park.

Lt. Stone has taken charge of monkey!Bulk and Skull, and this ends with him being covered in both banana split and monkey.

Oh, and Divatox knows about the wormhole, and she's determined to prevent Zordon from going back to Eltar. To be continued...

Fish: 4.5. Honestly, if we gave this a 5, we'd have to increase the fish scale to 10!