Power Rangers Jungle Fury

Super Sentai Equivalent: Juken Sentai Gekiranger (Beast-Fist Team Fierce Spirit Ranger)

Long ago, the Beast War occurred on Earth. Mighty transforming robots known as Maximals battled against the evil Predacons to harvest the planet's energon... okay, yes, I'm getting tired of this gag too. It has a passing similarity to something else, let's move on.

Long ago, the Beast War was fought among the animal spirits, between those who followed Dai Shi in his belief that humans had no place on Earth, and the Order of the Claw, also known as Pai Zhuq (pronounced "pie shwa"). The Pai Zhuq masters prevailed and sealed Dai Shi away inside a magic box. There he remained for 10,000 years, until some jerk named Jarrod came along and donked it all up. Freaking Jarrod, am I right?

Anyway, with Dai Shi free and the Pai Zhuq master Mao slain in the battle, the three remaining students will travel to... some city the name of which we never learn. There, at Jungle Karma Pizza, they will find the last Pai Zhuq master, kind-of-a-dick New Age slacker bro R.J. With his help and their totally lame sunglasses, they will become... Jungle Fury Power Rangers!

In terms of story, Jungle Fury starts off pretty strong, actually. The heroes are likeable (even R.J., in spite of his being kind-of-a-dick) and with good personality. The villains have a level of complexity approaching In Space and Lost Galaxy. The show was able to teach the occasional moral lesson without coming across as (too) contrived or condescending. The writing was tight and focused. It was going somewhere.

...and then the Writers' Guild Strike of 2007 to 2008 happened, and all of that went away. The story fell dead in the water. It became stagnant and mired in plot holes and out-of-character moments. They even attempted to introduce a new character during this time, the Rhino Ranger, and he ended up being a black hole of plot almost on tier with S.P.D.'s Omega Ranger... almost.

Fortunately, at least, the strike did end in time for the last few episodes to not totally suck.

The series also managed to have some pretty cool ideas, like the animal spirits being means to an end that were neither good nor evil and could be used by both the heroes and villains. I also felt that this series formed an interesting counterpoint to Wild Force, with Wild Force's Orgs representing industry and pollution, while the Dai Shi and his minions represent uncontrolled nature. I would have loved to see a crossover between the two series exploring this, but that doesn't happen. Actually, Jungle Fury is the first series of Power Rangers since the Zordon era to not have any crossover elements with any other series. Even Mystic Force had a guest appearance from S.P.D.'s Piggy!

They also took some more risks with the source material, creating their own Rangers for the first time since Lightspeed Rescue. It is slightly undercut by the fact that they - by their own admission - only did it to have some more toys to sell, and the three Spirit Rangers have very little to do in the show... but it's still pretty cool.

In all, Jungle Fury is a good series that might have even been great if not for the writers' strike. I honestly feel like I owe Bruce Kalish an apology. Nothing I said about Kalish or the shows he executive produced is necessarily untrue, but I just don't feel like it's fair to put it all on him. Disney gave him an absolute mess and told him to fix it, then gave him basically zero resources with which to do so, and in spite of that he still managed to turn out two passable series (S.P.D. and Operation Overdrive), one good series (Jungle Fury), and one of my top 5 favorite series to date (Mystic Force).

At the time of my writing this, my reviews for the Kalish series actually still haven't gone up (at the moment the latest review I have up is for Lightspeed Rescue) but I'm not going to rewrite them. Like I said, nothing I said in them is really untrue, and also I feel it's important to write about them as I thought of them at the time.


GOOD

PROS:	CONS:
+ A solid start and finish. Really, very good writing and characters for at least half the series	- The Writers' Guild Strike screwed up everything in between.
+ Had some really cool ideas.	- Having cool ideas means nothing if you don't explore them.

Power Rangers Operation Overdrive

Super Sentai Equivalent: GoGo Sentai Boukenger (Rumbling Team Adventure Ranger)

Many years ago, Last Sunday A.D. The elemental brothers Moltor and Flurious wrought havoc on the universe searching for the magical crown of the gods, the Corona Aurora. They were defeated and imprisoned by the mystical Sentinel Knight. In order to prevent the crown from being fought over any longer, Sentinel Knight took the crown jewels and scattered them across the Earth. In the present day, adventurer Andrew Hartford discovers the crown, accidentally releasing the evil brothers into the world once more. In order to correct his mistake, he'll gather a team of the most talented individuals in the world, to become the Overdrive Power Rangers!

As always, I'll start with what the series did right. The Rangers aren't bad. This is the second series after Lightspeed Rescue where the Rangers are explicitly recruited for their skills and they actually have a certain degree of competence and maturity to them, though they can still be a bit whiny at times too. There's also a pretty interesting plot twist involving the Red Ranger, Mack, which I won't spoil. In all I found them pretty likeable, I enjoyed the interactions between them... not bad.

On the downside, the plot is pretty weak and it's all Disney's fault. According to the crew, the show was pitched as the Power Rangers take on Indiana Jones, with "a new exotic locale in every episode." Disney loved it so much that they gave the show a shoestring budget that made that impossible, and demanded the use of even more stock footage. One has to wonder why Disney even wanted this franchise if this is how they were going to treat it. Haim Saban might be a greedy dick, but at least he kind of cared about what he was doing.

The villains are pretty weak too. They get their small victories, which is important as I mentioned in my review for Mystic Force, and that at least puts them a step above Lightspeed Rescue's villains. They're just... not really interesting. And they come so close too...

For example, let's talk about the aforementioned elemental brothers, Moltor and Flurious. These two actually used to be human, but they turned themselves into monsters in order to gain power. "OMG! Spoilers, man!" Except not really, because in order to be a spoiler it has to be an actual plot point and it isn't. The only reason I even know about this is because of a single throw-away line in the penultimate episode, in which Mack calls Moltor out on sacrificing the "precious gift" of humanity. It means nothing.

Oh yeah, and even though they're brothers, they hate each other! Why? Well, when they were kids, Moltor broke Flurious' favorite toy sled. Haha, that's sure silly, I guess... but wouldn't it be cool if it was replaced by an actual backstory instead?

Oh yeah, and the kalishplosions begin to reach critical mass, to the point of watching things like the villain Flurious shooting the Rangers with ice, and causing them to explode in a giant ball of FIRE. What?

There's a little bit to like here, but not enough to make up for the show's flaws.


MEDIOCRE

PROS:	CONS:
+ Rangers are pretty okay.	- Story is pretty weak and never does much to stand out.
+ Villains get their small victories.	- Ice beams explode into fire because Bruce Kalish is a lunatic.
+ Multiple villain groups creates the potential for some interesting interactions.	- The villains' potential is totally squandered.

Power Rangers Mystic Force

Super Sentai Equivalent: Mahou Sentai Magiranger (Magic Team Magi Ranger)

In a world where Lord of the Rings is a hot new property and Pottermania is in full swing, one soulless megacorporation will stop at nothing to cash in on the fantasy trend!

Meanwhile, in the city of Briarwood, a great evil is emerging. In the nearby mystic forest the dreaded Morticon is rallying his armies of the undead, preparing to emerge from his dark pit and wage war upon the world of men. The only hope of stopping him is five warriors of prophecy, humans who will take on the power of magic to become Mystic Force Power Rangers!

Going in, I honestly didn't expect a lot from Mystic Force. It's still executive produced by the much-maligned Bruce Kalish, plus it's heavily focused on magic which I assumed meant less cool martial arts. Well, the first of those two things is more or less true. Kalish' taint is all over this series; the story is basically unchanged from Magiranger, and bad CGI and kalishplosions are everywhere.

That said, no, Mystic Force is pretty solid. The focus on magic didn't have any real negative impact on the Rangers' ability to be kickass martial artists. The Rangers are all likeable and the writing is pretty enjoyable. There's also a memorable reappearance from Rita Repulsa near the end of the series. In all, this is definitely one of my Top 5 Rangers series and in my Top 5 Ranger teams too.

And the villains? Well...

Let me be real for a moment. Look, we all know the villains are going to lose in the end. That's not to say there aren't works that let the villain win, or that the story can't still be good in spite of that... just, let's face it: Power Rangers is not Chinatown. The villains are going to lose, and we want them to.

That said, even if we know the villains are going to lose in the end, if they always lose at every single tiny thing they try to do, that's a problem. It makes them look incompetent, and when they're incompetent it makes it hard to feel threatened by them or to care about what they do. That was one of the major things that hurt Dino Thunder and S.P.D. - the villains never won, not even small or temporary victories. "Oh, look, Zeltrax has a plan to destroy the Rangers. I'm sure this time it totally won't end with him retreating after taking a single--wait, he's already run away? Shocker."

On this front I'm glad to say: Mystic force does it right. The villains get their small victories, and that makes the Rangers' bigger victories more satisfying. The villains also manage to be fairly interesting... some of them, anyway. There are still plenty who are just your typical mindlessly evil monsters, but they're mostly pretty cool.

I've also heard complaints about Mystic Force giving too much focus to the Red Ranger compared to the others... and while I guess that's sort of true I also really didn't even notice... maybe because giving all the cool plots and powers to Red Ranger is something EVERY series of Power Rangers EVER has done.

KR Rating: [4] GOOD

PROS:	CONS:
+ Pretty decent action, usually.	- Plays it safe with the source material.
+ Villains are actually threatening, get their small victories.	- Still an overreliance on bad CGI and kalishplosions.
+ The Rangers are pretty good too.	- Go away, Bruce Kalish!

Television Review: Power Rangers S.P.D.

Super Sentai Equivalent: Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (Special Investigations Team Detective Ranger, "deka" is a Japanization of "dick", the slang term for detective)

It's the not-too-distant future, Next Sunday A.D. The battle against illegal immigration has finally been lost and Earth has become a planet-wide sanctuary city for aliens who've basically just gone ahead and taken our own homeworld away from us. Earth for Earthlings, I say! Send the aliens back to Alpha Centauri!

But the future isn't all liberal Democrat fantasies. Evil Emperor Gruumm has come along with his vicious and quasi-loyal minions to conquer Earth for himself! The only hope of stopping him is Space Patrol Delta and their elite team of A Squad Power Rangers! ...who immediately go MIA in their first battle. So now it's time for the S.P.D. B Squad to step up and take the fight back to Emperor Gruumm!

As usual, I'll start with the good. S.P.D. does a lot to set up the future world established in Time Force. Space Patrol Delta, with their "take the villains in alive" policies, and their teams of Power Rangers feel like a worthy predecessor to the Time Force Patrol, and a successor to Lightspeed.

Also, the series starts off pretty strong, actually doing something new to the franchise. The first ten or so episodes play like a police procedural, with each episode involving the team investigating to track down alien criminals.

Unfortunately, that disappears pretty quick. As with Turbo and Time Force before it, the series totally wastes its premise. For the vast majority of the series it's just bog-standard Rangers Save The Day action, and unlike those other two series you can't blame Dekaranger for this one.

With Wild Force and Ninja Storm Disney stumbled their way into the franchise, struggling to figure out what to do with it. Dino Thunder proved that they could do it right and if they built on that it would be really great. Then this series... this series is where they gave up.

Disney brought in a new executive producer, Bruce Kalish, to take the franchise in a new direction. That direction: cheaper and faster. The writers were pushed to stop writing their own stories and start just adapting Super Sentai stories. The general thought process among the production crew, according to Kalish himself, was "why bother, it's just Power Rangers."

Worst of all, they shifted away from practical effects and choreographed martial arts, and came to rely heavily on wire-fu and the infamous "kalishplosions." What is a kalishplosion? Imagine, if you will, that you're an evil space monster. You want to kill the guy in front of you, so you shoot at him... but for some reason all you can manage to hit is the dirt, ten feet in front of him. For some reason, this causes a gigantic 50-foot fireball to erupt a good thirty feet BEHIND him.

That's a kalishplosion, named after the aforementioned Bruce Kalish. To be fair, Kalish didn't actually create this effect; nonsense explosions had been a thing from the beginning, and this particular variant was invented by Mark Harris for Ninja Storm. S.P.D. is where they really came into prominence, though, as dictated by Disney, allegedly as part of the company's frankly ridiculous anti-violence policy. Do you think putting the explosion 10 feet behind a character makes the fact that they got shot with an assault rifle no longer violent? If so, you might be an idiot!

I guess I also have to talk about the characters. If the effects are where the whole thing fell apart, the characters are where the pieces crumbled into ash and blew away in the wind. The Rangers are unlikable and whiny little snots. Look, I get it. They're teenagers with attitude, that's the entire point. I can't expect them to totally have their act together. The point is to watch them grow and mature, and yeah, they do get less insufferable by the end. Still, these kids are buttheads even by this franchise's standards, and it's especially weird since they're meant to be military cadets but I find it very hard to believe they could have made it through boot camp without washing out.

At least their commander, Anubis "Doggie" Cruger (guess what kind of alien he is!) is pretty cool, both as the commander and as the Shadow Ranger. And I guess the villains... well, they get the job done. They're not as bad as Divatox or King Mondo, but they're not great either.

The worst, however, is the Omega Ranger. How bad is he? Well, his civilian persona is a CGI energy ball because the producers didn't feel like hiring another actor. Alright, I'll admit that could have been cool, but they totally squandered it. They gave the character a bunch of "things." He's an energy being! But he used to be human! Also he's from the future! But just having a bunch of weird things doesn't automatically make a character interesting, especially when the list of things he DOESN'T have includes a personality, character development, a backstory... His backstory is literally just "I'm an energy being from the future who used to be human." We don't even know how or why he became an energy being. Freaking YAWN.

Oh well, at least it's bookended by a solid start and a decent finish.


BAD

PROS:	CONS:
+ Takes good steps in setting up the future world of Time Force.	- The Rangers are unlikable and whiny.
+ The first ten or so episodes are good, running like a police procedural.	- The Omega Ranger squandered a neat idea.
	- An overreliance on CGI, wire-fu, and kalishplosions.

Television Review: Power Rangers Dino Thunder

Super Sentai Equivalent: Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger (Burst Dragon Team Outrage Ranger)


After retiring from being a Power Ranger, Tommy Oliver becomes a professor of paleontology. He begins experimenting with the integration of recovered dinosaur DNA and cybernetics, because that just sounds like such a great idea that couldn't possibly go horribly wrong. His experiment ends in a very predictable disaster, creating an evil mutant named Mesogog who wants to revive the dinosaurs and destroy humanity in the process. Earth's only hope lies with three teenagers with attitude, who will join Dr. Oliver in becoming a new team of Dino Thunder Power Rangers!

Let's get this out of the way first: Tommy Oliver is back! As I mentioned back when I reviewed the original series, he is pretty much the most iconic and popular Ranger of all time, and his return is a big part of why this particular series is so beloved. Indeed, Dino Thunder has gotten a lot of praise from basically everybody and is often cited as one of, if not THE best series of the franchise. But does it deserve it?

I'll start by saying that Dino Thunder definitely feels like a worthy spiritual successor to Mighty Morphin'. In fact, I'll go one step further: Dino Thunder is what Mighty Morphin' should have been. The teenagers with attitude actually have real attitude problems and flaws. The villains never once get humiliated by ten-year-olds with water balloons. Dino Thunder perfectly captures the feel of the original series, only far more polished and basically just better in every way.

There are also a few really cool episodes, like "Fighting Spirit" where a comatose Tommy meets and battles against each of his previous Ranger personas.

Of course, this is still Power Rangers, so there are also a lot of really corny episodes, like "Game On" where the Blue Ranger gets trapped in a computer game. Still, even in these episodes the show manages to maintain a certain level of dignity. Dino Thunder can get campy, but it never gets STUPID.

All of that being said, the show has its flaws too. I mentioned in my review of Ninja Storm that the sixth ranger storylines from that show felt too rushed. While Dino Thunder's sixth ranger story takes more time, it ends up feeling just as forced. With apologies and a SPOILER WARNING beforehand, the character who becomes the white ranger finds his dino gem purely by accident and becomes evil because it was experimented on by the villains. He then has his "evil encoding" get destroyed, also purely by accident, at which point he instantly turns good and is very easily forgiven.

That right there is the biggest flaw of this series, and it isn't just with regards to the white ranger. Most of the time plot points just "happen" with little or no foreshadowing. They never really feel earned at all, and oh yeah, spoiler again - the series finale is a huge letdown compared to other finales. At least it ties up all the loose ends and gives us closure on character arcs, but it doesn't manage to feel very climactic or epic at all.

Coming in off of Wild Force and Ninja Storm I thought this would be the series to make me start enjoying Power Rangers again. Instead, this was the second time I legitimately considered breaking my promise to review the entire series and giving up.

To be fair, unlike the first time this happened (that being Alien Rangers) it's not because Dino Thunder is bad. I think it was more just series fatigue. Power Rangers is NOT the kind of show that you binge watch on Netflix, and I did take a several month hiatus at this point before coming back to finish this series and then go through the rest of the Disney series after it.

When I did come back I didn't find the show nearly as grating as the first time... but I also didn't find it particularly engaging. More polished than Mighty Morphin', sure, but it's not like that's hard to pull off. Honestly, if it weren't for Tommy Oliver I would probably have found this series to be entirely forgettable.


MEDIOCRE

PROS:	CONS:
+ Good blend of campy and serious.	- Major plot points just happen and never feel earned.
+ Fewer Rangers means we get a lot of time with each one.	- As creepy as Mesogog is, he's still kind of a joke whose plans always instantly fail.
+ Tommy Oliver is back.

Television Review: Power Rangers Ninja Storm

Super Sentai Equivalent: Ninpuu Sentai Huricanger (Enduring Wind Team Hurricane-ger, with Ninpuu also being a play on Ninpo, or "Ninja Magic")


In a world where nobody remembers what Power Rangers are but ninjas are basically all over the place, evil space ninja Lothor returns from exile to make the Earth's ninjas pay for banishing him. He draws all the world's ninjas up into his spaceship, leaving behind only three young ninja cadets who will don magic suits to become Wind Ninja Power Rangers! ...what, you thought they were going to be called Ninja Storm Rangers? Ha!

Ninja Storm was Disney's second stumbling step into the franchise. Alright, alright, I will start by admitting there was some good - the action scenes were pretty good, and that's not just because of Huricanger either. There were some really well choreographed fight scenes done using the western actors out of costume too.

That said, the story just took a nosedive. How should I put this... it's at least one step above Alien Rangers? Sure, that works. We're talking some of the worst parts of MMPR camp here. The Rangers are entertaining to watch and are generally likeable but they're never really compelling. There are actually two "sixth ranger" storylines here - one involving the Thunder Ninjas who have been brainwashed to serve the evil Lothor, and one involving the sensei's son Cam coming into his own as the Green Samurai Ranger. They're also both way too rushed and don't take the time to build up any suspense.

Oh, and the villains... the villains are the worst. There is nothing interesting about them. They're mostly just obnoxious and screamy. I feel like they were trying to evoke memories of Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, but... first off, we've come to expect more from the series at this point than just watching the villain scream about how he or she has a headache, and second, Lothor is no Rita Repulsa.

Let me say this to any aspiring writers out there - there is a huge difference between telling jokes and being a joke. And no, before you say it, I'm not just someone who hates fun. I love parody. But like I said, and I'll say it again just so everyone is absolutely clear - THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TELLING JOKES AND BEING A JOKE.


MEDIOCRE

PROS:	CONS:
+ Solid action scenes and fight choreography.	- Doesn't take its time with the story.
+ The rangers are generally likeable.	- The villains are a big pathetic joke.
+ It isn't Alien Rangers.	- Except the joke isn't even funny.
	- Seriously, they suck.

Television Review: Power Rangers Wild Force

Super Sentai Equivalent: Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger (Hundred Beasts Team Roaring Ranger, Gao is a Japanese onomatopeia for a beast's roar)


In a world where Power Rangers is no longer owned by Haim Saban, but instead by Disney, one question remains... which of this franchise's two owners is MORE greedy and evil?

Alternately, when the Earth finds itself under attack by the Orgs, living embodiments of pollution, Princess Shayla, the guardian of nature who lives on a floating turtle island in the sky, calls forth a team of five young heroes to form her Wild Force Power Rangers!

Wild Force was sort of a return to the series' roots, at least in terms of focus, with Wild Force placing much greater importance on the combat action as opposed to the plot and character interactions. (It wasn't as much of a return in terms of tone, though. Wild Force was overall much less cartoonish and idealistic than the original series.)

There is an overarching plot that does manage to get fairly decent into the latter half. Sadly, that's mostly just because it follows the story ofGaoranger to a tee. I know that's not exactly something new, but it's worse than ever here, with fans of both series even pointing out shot-for-shot remake moments.

The best part of the story was the friendship between Toxica and Jindrax, the villain's two lieutenants who had worked together for a thousand years awaiting their master's return and who had a lot of good chemistry together. Even that was just ripped off 100% from Gaoranger, though.

It's obvious that Disney's writers had no clue what to do here and all the stuff they made themselves was a flailing, confused mess that couldn't stop bashing you over the head with environmental messages.

Oh, also Ann Marie Crouch as Princess Shayla was a definite low point. Her line readings are stilted and wooden and never come across as sincere. She's not quite as bad as Vypra from Lightspeed Rescue, but... she's BAD.

KR Rating: [3] MEDIOCRE

PROS:	CONS:
+ Toxica and Jindrax are really fun to watch.	- Too scared to deviate from the source material.
+ Decent action with lots of zords meaning there's always a new power to see.	- Environmental messages as subtle as a bag of anvils.

BONUS!

Of course, any Power Rangers fan knows that a review of Wild Force would be incomplete without mention of the famous - or perhaps infamous - episode "Forever Red" which brought together every red ranger in the franchise (aside from Rocky DeSanto, the second Red Ranger of Mighty Morhpin') for a massive battle to stop the remains of the Machine Empire from re-activating Lord Zedd's lost zord, Serpentera.

"Forever Red" is... well, I'll just say it: it's awful. Actually, Serpentera is a perfect metaphor for this episode. Serpentera was constantly referenced throughout Mighty Morphin' as being this unstoppable menace that would conquer the Earth in a day if it was used, but whenever Zedd brought it out it always seemed to conveniently run out of fuel just before it could reach Earth or do anything of importance.

That's "Forever Red" in a nutshell. It has potential, but ultimately it was just too packed, too rushed, and way too full of plot holes. For example, Jason Lee Scott (the original Red Ranger) and T.J. Johnson (the Red Turbo Ranger) both LOST their Red Ranger powers in their respective series. Jason gave his up to Rocky DeSantos, and when Jason returned it was as Zeo Gold. T.J.'s powers were destroyed by Divatox, and he got his power back as Space Ranger Blue. So how are they both back to Red? No one knows, and the episode doesn't even attempt to explain it.

I know some people are going to say "oh, you can't complain, it's just fanservice!" I disagree with that, though. For one, yes, you can totally still complain about fanservice. Second, does this even count as fanservice when all it does is disrespect the material? Is it really serving me as a fan to pretend that I'm too stupid to remember the ending of Power Rangers Turbo?

Like I said, "Forever Red" had potential. The episode should have been made as a two-parter. The writers would have had more time then to flesh out their ideas, explain how Jason and T.J. got their powers back, and give us some more time with the characters we all loved... and also Aurico the Red Alien Ranger who just has to be there by default, I guess. Thanks for not spending ANY time on him or even showing his stupid face without his helmet though, Disney. I'm not even being sarcastic here. Screw Aurico.

Television Review: Power Rangers Time Force

Super Sentai Equivalent: Mirai Sentai Timeranger (Future Team Time Ranger)

In the year 3000, delivery boy Fry is thawed out after 1,000 years in cryogenic suspended animation... wait, no, wrong series. Let's start over.

In the year 3000, Earth has become a peaceful planet where war and strife and even crime are a thing of the past... almost. Ransik and his army of evil genetic mutants have terrorized the world, but one by one they've all been captured and cryogenically frozen by the Time Force patrollers. Ransik comes up with one final desperate plan... stealing an entire prison full of frozen mutants and traveling back with it to the year 2001, where there is no Time Force. The only hope of stopping him is the same crew of Time Force patrollers who were disgraced by his escape... stranded in the past with him, they'll use their future tech to become a new generation of Time Force Power Rangers and transform all the villains back into action figures!

Time Force would end up being the last series of Power Rangers produced by Saban Entertainment before they were bought out and merged into the Walt Disney Corporation, who continued producing the series themselves for a decade or so before its original owners would pull themselves back together as Saban Brands and buy it back.

So is it a worthy send-off? For the most part, yes. The writing is pretty decent. The villains have a fair level of complexity to them, approaching In Space levels. The Rangers are pretty decent. There are a few moments here which could be counted among the top moments for all of Power Rangers. (Which you'd better believe is a list I'll be writing someday in the future when I've gotten through more of the series.)

That said, it isn't perfect (though, did you really expect it to be?) There are also a lot of really bad moments, and episodes where a character grabs hold of the "Idiot Ball" and starts acting like a moron just so that the audience can learn a moral lesson, or so that the villains' plan of the week can get off the ground, or even just because.

My major complaint about Time Force is that I felt it wasted its premise. (You may recall I also listed this as a major complaint when I reviewed Power Rangers Turbo. Get used to it, because it's not going away anytime soon.) When I first heard about Time Force I imagined a crazy adventure through time, visiting different time periods. They even show this happening in the show's intro sequence, with clips of battles being fought in a jungle full of dinosaurs, and one in ancient Egypt.

This doesn't really happen in the show... there's some time stuff, of course. The villains and most of the heroes are from the future. (All except the Red Ranger, who is the original Time Force Red's distant ancestor.) The Rangers hang out in a clock tower, their powers and weapons have a clock theme to them... there are a few episodes that involve actual time travel, but these number in the single digits. For the most part it's just typical "Rangers saving the city" action. Honestly, I'm not really surprised... but still a bit disappointed.

In the end, though, Time Force is a worthy enough send-off to the Saban Entertainment era of Power Rangers, and a decent show.

KR Rating: [4] GOOD

PROS:	CONS:
+ Some really good story moments.	- Also some really bad story moments.
+ A lot of cool creative ideas.	- Wasted its premise.

Seven Things that Superhero Stories Need to STOP DOING

Between the glut of Marvel movies we've been getting, and my own masterplan to watch every terrible-to-almost-decent series of Power Rangers, I've been watching a whole lot of superhero stuff lately. Below are 7 things I really wish that superhero stories would stop doing.

Oh, and before I begin, I'd like to point out one thing - this isn't necessarily a negative review for any of the stories I mention below. A lot of them are good or even great... but that doesn't change the fact that there are some things they need to stop doing.

7. Secret Identities For Their Own Sake
Do note, I'm not complaining about secret identities as a concept. I totally get why there is a need, on occasion, to fight from the shadows. I get that.

This entry is about secret identities that seem to exist just because heroes are "supposed" to have secret identities. To give an example of what I mean, I'll tell you when I first started thinking about this one. It's when I watched the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I found myself asking, "why are the Rangers using secret identities?"

The usual explanation is to avoid the villains knowing who you are for fear of them going after your friends and family. Fine, except that Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd already know who the Rangers are, and target them out of costume regularly. The first fight in the entire franchise is out of costume, in fact. There's no one to hide from and they know it.

Alternately, sometimes it's to avoid the heroes getting in trouble for vigilantism, such as is the case with Batman. Again, fine, except the Rangers aren't vigilantes. They fight monsters that no one else can handle, and there's nothing in the show to suggest that the rest of the world has anything but undying love for the Rangers.

Maybe there was a logical reason why the Rangers needed to hide who they were, but the show definitely never told us, unless you count "because Zordon said so" as a logical reason. It felt like it was only being done because "the rules" for superhero stories say you need to have a secret identity... and yeah, that's probably exactly why they did it. Mighty Morphin' wasn't a good show, what do you expect?

6. Heroes Never Kill
Before you say it, no, I'm not saying that every hero needs to be The Punisher. No one is saying that Batman and Superman need to start just executing random street toughs. ...but seriously, why hasn't Batman just killed the Joker already?

You're never going to rehabilitate the Joker. Even if I believed that it was possible to rehabilitate somebody like Joker, why does he deserve that chance? More pertinently, why is it our responsibility to give him that chance? Why is it the obligation of all the good and innocent people in the world to just keep turning the other cheek and agreeing to let ourselves be victimized over and over until Joker finally decides he's done killing people?

Hell, not only are you never going to rehabilitate Joker, you're never even going to actually keep him locked up, and you definitely should know this now that he's broken out for the gazillionth time. Every time you take Joker back to Arkham, you do so with full knowledge that he WILL - not might, WILL - break out and go kill more people, including... wait, including Jason Todd, the second Robin?! Then you saved the Joker's life when Jason Todd came back from the dead and tried to do your job for you?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, BATMAN?!

5. Heroes Also Never Cheat
Obviously cheating is bad... in certain circumstances. If you're playing a game, yes, cheating is bad because it goes against the spirit of competition. If you're in school, yes, cheating is bad because cutting corners costs you the opportunity to learn and really only hurts yourself. In those circumstances, yes, cheating is bad.

But when you're a superhero facing off against evil villains... when losing means that you die, your friends and family die, everything you care about and everything you've fought for are wiped out forever... then why on Earth would you ever fight fair? And I do mean "EVER." I'm not just talking about cheating when you have to - if someone wants to kill everyone you love and you give them a fair chance to do so, even if it's because you're sure you'll win anyway, then you're a traitor. A person who isn't willing to cheat, is a person who clearly has nothing worth winning for.

4. All the Villains are Secretly Good
Hello there, Marvel. I see you've been doing this one a lot. Every villain is a well-intentioned extremist who wants to fix the world but is going about it in a bad way, even villains that were never actually like that in the comics. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, just watch Avengers: Infinity War. Notice how Thanos is a contemplative individual, who is dedicated to his cause of trying to curb overpopulation, is willing to make the same sacrifices he demands of everyone else, and who sheds real tears for those who've fallen at his hands? Yeah, in the comics... he's trying to impress a chick, and he cares nothing for what happens along the way or who it happens to.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy this kind of villain every now and then. I really liked Movie Thanos, I did! But it shouldn't be every single villain ever. From a storytelling perspective, it's boring to see the same villain archetypes presented in every single story. It also hinders my enjoyment of a work when I find myself feeling that the bad guy's arguments are making more sense to me than the good guy's are. From a moral perspective, it feels like you're training people - either intentionally or unintentionally - to think that this is what evil looks like, especially when you combine this with...

3. Heroes Save the World (But Don't Fix It)
I mentioned Infinity War already, so I'll keep going from there. I talked about how complex and sympathetic Thanos is in the movie, but the Avengers... well, they're the opposite. They have no counter-argument to anything Thanos says, and no better plan for how to deal with the real, serious problem he's taking on. The closest anyone comes is Gamora, whose entire argument consists of one line and who is instantly silenced afterward. The Avengers themselves have no motivation beyond "we got hurt and now we're pissy."

(And before you say it, yes, I realize that this is exactly what Marvel was going for and I'm sure the next Avengers movie is going to build more on it. Again, I'm not trying to criticize individual movies, but rather to make a point.)

This is something TV Tropes refers to as "Villains Act, Heroes React". It doesn't even just apply to superhero stories, or even just to movies. In Grand Theft Auto 4 Niko Bellic, the murderous criminal, comes across as a veritable saint because all he does is in response to things other, worse people did to him first.

The short version is: it's easy to look wise and heroic when all you ever do is thwart the stuff everyone else tries to do. Everything in the world has flaws. Every grand plan has sacrifices to be made, and every creation has imperfections. Trying to make a real change in the world means losing your purity and risking being seen as the villain. It's much easier, and makes you look so much wiser and braver, to just point out and attack everyone else's flaws. This isn't heroism, it's sophistry.

2. Evil is Mindlessly Destructive
...and hates music and fun, and wants to kill everybody because smiles piss them off. This sort of black-and-white morality is one of the biggest problems with superhero stories.

"But wait!" I hear you screaming. "You just talked about how you hate superhero stories trying to have conflicted and complex villains! You don't know what you want!"

Except the issue above wasn't really about villains being too complex or interesting, it's about superhero stories presenting "trying to fix problems" as being something that evil people do.

Furthermore, this point and the two above it aren't actually mutually exclusive. Quite often they're brought together and it makes all three of them exponentially worse. The villain is doing what they do because they believe it's right, except they're also a ludicrous, black-hat pantomime villain who kills for fun so they're impossible to take seriously, AND the hero has absolutely no counter argument or better plan which makes them look stupid and lazy.

So, again... from a story perspective everyone involved looks like a bunch of morons, and from a moral perspective it feels like you're training people to think this is what evil looks like, and conditioning them to ignore any less overtly destructive forms of evil, like greed.

1. Trying to Justify All the Above
When I reviewed Pokémon Black and White Versions I talked about the villains, and how I always understood that pokéballs were a seriously messed up concept, but that it didn't really irritate me until they brought it up. Well, this is basically the same thing.

Every point that I've complained about here has a reason why it's done that way.

Evil is mindlessly destructive so that we don't get confused about who the bad guys are supposed to be, and because we want to see a struggle with lots at stake.

Heroes save the world but don't fix it because making huge changes to the status quo of your world makes it more difficult to make a serialized story.

Villains have sympathetic motives because it makes them more compelling.

Heroes don't cheat because writers don't want to encourage kids that read comic books to think "if Superman cheated to beat Lex Luthor, then I can cheat to pass my test!"

Heroes don't kill because you don't want to lose your villains.

Heroes have secret identities because... okay, this one never entirely made sense.

The point I'm making here is that, while I'd like to see more stories that are willing to push the boundaries and challenge the status quo, I totally get why they do these things so much. I can accept that this is just how stories are written... until the writers themselves bring it up, only to have all of their arguments be logical fallacies, poorly argued, or both. If you have nothing to say, just don't bring it up.

Television Review: Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue

Super Sentai Equivalent: Kyuukyuu Sentai GoGoFive (Rescue Team Go Go Five)

When foolish treasure hunters accidentally release ancient demons from their 3,000 year old prison, the only people who can stop them are the secret government agency known as Lightspeed. To help with this endeavour, Lightspeed recruits five promising young adults to be their own team of Power Rangers.

Lightspeed Rescue actually took some chances with the material. For the first time the Power Rangers are said to be the invention of modern technology instead of ancient magic, the Rangers don't have secret identities, and this season marks the first use of an entirely original character - the Titanium Ranger was not actually in the original Sentai series at all and was made up entirely for the Western release. They even made their own uniform for him and assigned him his own Zord (the Solarzord, which in the original material was remote-controlled.)

Then again, in a way their breaking the formula really only served to enforce the formula. To this point every series of Power Rangers had included a "sixth ranger" who wasn't a part of the original team but joined later and had stronger powers than the first five - the Green/White Ranger from the original series, Gold Ranger from Zeo, etc. This would have been the first Power Rangers series (assuming you've managed to drink enough to forget Alien Rangers) without a sixth ranger storyline, had the Titanium Ranger not been added.

Still, creating a completely original Ranger for the first time was a ballsy move in its own way. They moved outside of their comfort zone and I give them credit for that.

The Rangers and their interactions were also pretty good. They started to fall back into the idealized frame of the first series, but this time around that's actually justified. In contrast to the original, where Zordon's request was "overbearing and overemotional humans" (famously shortened to "teenagers with attitude" in the opening sequence) here the rangers are actually hand-picked for their skills, not their attitudes. Lightspeed wanted ideal Rangers and that's what they got. In all the Rangers and their allies are pretty fun to watch and fairly well written.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the villains. They're boring and one-note, rarely legitimately threatening, and with not a single one of them actually coming across as sympathetic or interesting. They're not the worst in the franchise... but they're also not even remotely at the level we've come to expect coming off of In Space and Lost Galaxy.

Actually, I take that back. Vypra, played by Jennifer L. Yen, WAS one of the worst in the franchise. She was smoking hot, sure, and I suspect that was her primary reason for being there. Unfortunately, her acting talent was somewhere on par with an anesthetized Will Shatner, with a bad habit of misemphasizing words and inserting weird pauses into her dialog.

So what do I think of this series? I know it's gotten a lot of flak, mostly due to it being the first series of the franchise to have nothing to do with the "Zordon Era." I can understand that, but personally it doesn't bother me. Lightspeed Rescue is damn good. It's just a shame about the villains.

KR Rating: [4] GOOD

PROS:	CONS:
+ The rangers are really well written.	- Villains are not the best.
+ Willing to take risks with the source material.	- Vypra is in fact one of the worst.

Television Review: Power Rangers Lost Galaxy

Super Sentai Equivalent: Seijuu Sentai Gingaman (Star Beast Squad Ginga Man, named for the Ginga Forest where the characters live)

Following Zordon's sacrifice at the end of In Space all monsters have finally been wiped out from the galaxy. At last, humanity no longer needs to fear destruction at the hands of space demons and so turns their attention fully to space exploration with the first colony ship, Terra Venture. Meanwhile in a distant galaxy where monsters still live, the evil Scorpius and his minion Furio invade planet Mirinoi hoping to gain the ultimate power of the magical Quasar Sabers. Shenanigans ensue and a squad of young soldiers from Terra Venture's defense force find themselves transported to Mirinoi where they draw out the Quasar Sabers and become a new generation of Power Rangers!

Lost Galaxy was the first series of Power Rangers to not directly continue the story from a previous season, though there are still a lot of carryover elements from In Space. The Astro Megaship returns along with Deca and Alpha 6, and there are memorable reappearances from the evil Psycho Rangers and a now-good Astronema.

Lost Galaxy also did manage to keep up some of the things that made In Space so good. Notably, it kept the idea of having complex villains each with their own unique motivations and agendas. It also gave us some of the best villains up to its point. There's Trakeena, the spoiled daddy's girl who tries to fill her villainous father's shoes after his destruction, noble demon Villamax whose only goal was to serve the person he saw as the universe's rightful ruler, all the way to the other end of the moral spectrum with sleazy traitor Deviot who played every side for his own ends.

The Rangers themselves are fairly competently written too, though not quite as well as the villains. Quite often one of them (usually Maya, the Yellow Ranger and an alien girl from Mirinoi where apparently manners don't exist) would do something stupid for no reason except to allow the audience to learn a moral lesson. This lesson was usually some variation of "don't be a stupid jerk like this stupid jerk."

It's also worth mentioning that Lost Galaxy was the most expensive Power Rangers series ever made and it definitely shows. The space battles between the various factions in the show are fairly well made as far as late 90's CGI goes. Honestly, this show wanted to be Star Trek so bad it hurts. I swear the theme that plays over shots of the Terra Venture colony ship is only a few notes off from a lawsuit.

Also, for a series called Lost Galaxy, they only actually spent 7 episodes out of 45 in the titular lost galaxy, and then the total fallout from that event ends up being... nothing. Okay, it did finally convince Trakeena that Deviot wasn't on her side, but that's about it and she was already suspecting anyway. Honestly, the entire lost galaxy... "thing" is a perfect example of the indecisive writing this show sometimes suffered from, and why it can't get that full five out of five.

KR Rating: [4] GOOD

PROS:	CONS:
+ Some of the best villains in the franchise.	- The rangers aren't as well written as the villains.
+ Solid action, pretty good quality effects.	- Sometimes major plot points just go nowhere.

Television Review: Power Rangers In Space (Spoiler Warning)

Super Sentai Equivalent: Denji Sentai Megaranger (Electromagnetic Squad Mega Ranger)

In Space follows directly after Turbo's downer ending. (Oh yeah, spoiler alert.) Divatox has finally succeeded in destroying the Command Center. Worse, the Rangers discover that Zordon has been captured following a devastating invasion of his home planet by the evil Dark Specter and his daughter Astronema. The Rangers, drained of their powers, make a desperate trip into space to search for Zordon... along the way they encounter the Astro Megaship and its pilot, Andros, the last surviving Space Ranger. Andros reluctantly agrees to take the team on as his new Space Rangers and joins them in the search for their lost mentor and to defeat Dark Specter and Astronema and save the universe.

Let's get this out of the way right now - In Space is good. In fact, I can say with confidence that In Space is the first truly good series of Power Rangers, which I must admit really surprised me. Mostly it was the title that threw me - usually adding "in space" to the title is what a studio does when they've just completely run out of ideas. But it was good, even by regular "not Power Rangers" TV show standards.

The villains weren't just mindlessly evil space demons, but actually had real motivations and characterizations. Ecliptor and Astronema both managed to be truly compelling and honestly sympathetic.

The heroes were pretty well written too, with actual flaws and a lot of really good interactions with each other. Alpha 6 also got a new, less obnoxious voice, and Dimitria went away forever. Win-win!

The one real flaw I find with this series, which is sort of a minor flaw in the grand scheme of it all, is that because of the increased focus on the Rangers' interactions with one another the actual monster battles sometimes seem to come completely out of nowhere. There was more than one time I found myself suddenly asking, "wait, why is there a giant monster all of a sudden?"

Well, I suppose there is one other issue... the show does seem to run out of steam a bit toward the end, finishing off with a massive deus ex machina ending as - SPOILER ALERT FOR A TWENTY YEAR OLD KIDS' SHOW - Zordon sacrifices himself to create a wave of magic that washes over the galaxy, either disintegrating or purifying all of the show's many villains and finally winning the war against evil (at least until the next series).

Still, all in all...

KR Rating: [5] GREAT

Television Review: Power Rangers Turbo

Super Sentai Equivalent: Gekisou Sentai Carranger (Radical Racing Team Car Ranger)

You know when a TV show gets popular, so they make a movie based on it, but it's not actually canon so it's like all of the characters magically forget about what they went through the second it's over? Okay, now imagine if, instead of that, they declared it to be TOTALLY canon and made the plot of the entire next season all about the characters facing the fallout from that movie's events.

That's Power Rangers Turbo, in a nutshell. It's actually fairly impressive that they took the events of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie as canon, when even non-kids' shows don't usually do stuff like that. Of course, there's a reason WHY they don't usually do it... without watching the movie you'll be fairly lost. Here's all you need to know - the new Blue Ranger is a little kid named Justin, there's a space wizard that talks like ET, space pirate Divatox hates the Rangers for screwing up her wedding to Off-Brand Satan, and the Zords are monster trucks.

Oh, you also need to know that this season is trash. That too. It's not quite as bad as Alien Rangers, and the second half of it is a lot better than the first half, but it's still pretty garbage.

The actors clearly didn't want to be there anymore after four and a half seasons. As a result they kept giving focus episodes to the newest ranger, Justin, a little kid who had the power to grow about two feet taller whenever he morphed. Justin wasn't actually bad as kid-appeal characters go, but he did get way too much screen time at the expense of everyone else, even fan favorite Tommy Oliver, who basically had nothing to do except have occasional shots of him driving race cars.

The villain was boring and stupid, even by the standards of already stupid villains from other seasons... every single member of Divatox' crew was trying to play comic relief at the same time, and their plans were always the same - send a monster to distract the Rangers while the villains plant a "detonator" (which the writers seemed to think was just a fancy way of saying "bomb") somewhere in the city.

Zordon and Alpha 5 also left to return to Zordon's home planet of Eltar. Their replacements were Dimitria and Alpha 6, two obnoxious characters with even more obnoxious gimmicks - Dimitria spoke only in questions and Alpha 6 spoke only in jive, and the two seemed to be in a constant competition to see which of them could be more irritating.

Oh yeah, and Bulk and Skull become chimpanzees for several episodes. There's that too.

To be fair to Turbo, it does get much better in the second half. The original set of Rangers (except Justin) all got replaced and as sad as it was to see them go, at least the new actors cared about the show. With that, the writers seemed to get a second wind too. Divatox and her crew actually got some new plans, even if those plans weren't all that much more effective than her stupid "detonator" plans.

My biggest feeling personally about Turbo is that I felt they wasted the potential of an automobile-themed Power Rangers. When I found out that the Zords were cars now, I imagined a show that was sort of a high-stakes game of demolition derby, like Power Rangers meets Wacky Races. Unfortunately, that... doesn't really happen. There are a few car battles but it's mostly just regular Power Rangers. I know this isn't their fault, it's just what Super Sentai footage they had to work with... still sad, though.

KR Rating: [2] BAD

Power Rangers Zeo

Super Sentai Equivalent: Choriki Sentai Ohranger (Powerful Team O Ranger)

Having finally found the scattered fragments of the Zeo Crystal, the Power Rangers are restored to their proper ages, granted new powers, and can begin to repair their destroyed Command Center. However they also face a new threat... the evil Machine Empire has come and driven away Lord Zedd and Rita from the moon in order to take over the Earth themselves!

Zeo was a sort of return to form for Power Rangers... which is mostly just to say that it didn't suck like Alien Rangers. Power Rangers was never exactly high art and neither was Zeo.

Granted, there were a few interesting ideas, but most of them were squandered. One notable example is when Machine King Mondo falls in battle, allowing the generic Monster of the Week - an evil robot called Louie Kaboom - to usurp his throne. Seeing the disposable henchman actually get something for himself was a neat concept and could have shown a deeper side to the usually one-note monsters. Unfortunately Louie WAS just a boring, one-note monster and was quickly killed off anyway.

Still, it's not like the original series was ever above that. The major flaw this has over the original is the villains. The Machine Empire just aren't that interesting. The don't have any of the sense of humor that made Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd fun. In fact that only have one actual joke - Machine King Mondo dotes on his incompetent son Prince Sprocket and blames his actually competent underlings Klank and Orbus whenever Sprocket's schemes inevitably blow up in his face. Yawn.

On the other hand, they also don't have any of the seriousness or threatening intensity of later villains. Despite being built up as terrifying enemies who could make Rita and Zedd flee the moon in fear for their lives, the Machine Empire still fail instantly at everything they try to do and never come across as legitimately frightening.

In all, they're just sort of there. They're written just well enough to get the job done but not well enough to actually stand out... sort of like this season as a whole, really.

KR Rating: [3] MEDIOCRE

Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers

Following the end of the original series, the Power Rangers are all transformed into children by Rita's dad and their power coins are destroyed, leaving them all that way seemingly permanently. Obviously, this wasn't going to stick. Eventually they went and found the Zeo Crystal, a magic rock with the ability to restore their proper ages and their powers, and that led into Power Rangers Zeo.

In the meantime, though, we got Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers. Realizing that Earth is vulnerable without Rangers to protect it, Zordon calls on his friends from the planet Aquitar to defend the Earth while the kid rangers search for the pieces of the Zeo Crystal.

This is where the whole thing falls apart. The idea of other planets each having their own sets of Rangers was pretty cool, but... the Aquitian Rangers themselves just aren't good characters. They're twitchy and overly formal. Their struggles to survive in their new environment were really more tedious than interesting. Worst of all, only two of them even have any real characterization at all. Delphine the White Alien Ranger gets a lot of screen time as their leader, and Cestro the Blue Alien Ranger spends a lot of time working on tech with Billy. The rest of the Alien Rangers just sort of... well, they have to be there to pilot the zords, I guess.

Also, the actual Power Rangers, aside from Billy, are all still kids so everything they do is done with the child actors, who... do I even need to say anymore? I can count on one hand the number of shows I know of where child actors did a really good job - mostly because the list consists of Avatar: The Last Airbender and nothing else.

Fortunately this season didn't last very long. There's only 10 episodes before the Aquitian Rangers go back home and we move on to Power Rangers Zeo.

Unfortunately, that's about 10 episodes too many for what is quite possibly the WORST that Power Rangers has to offer.

KR Rating: [1] HORRIBLE

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (The Show)

It was the early 90's, the era of totally radical attitudes and bright colors. Also apparently another moon landing. Yes, astronauts on the moon find and open up a "space dumpster," unwittingly releasing the long-imprisoned supervillain Rita Repulsa (later joined by Lord Zedd), who decides her first act upon release will be to conquer the nearby planet Earth. The only hope of stopping her is good space wizard Zordon, who summons five teenagers with attitude to don the brightly colored uniforms and vaguely dinosaur-themed weapons of the Power Rangers!

I probably don't need to say a whole lot about this show. (I will anyway, of course, because my first language has always been and will always be filibuster.) If you're the kind of person who cares about Power Rangers, then you already know about it. Hell, you probably know at least a little even if you don't care at all.

What you might not know is that Power Rangers is the "fortified wine" of television. That is, they took an existing product, mixed it with some stuff of their own, and presented it as a new thing. In this case the base was Japanese action series Kyroryu Sentai Zyuranger (Dinosaur Team Beast Ranger), part of the long-running Super Sentai franchise. Saban Entertainment used battle footage from Zyuranger, and later on Gosei Sentai Dairanger (Five Stars Team Great Ranger) and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (Ninja Team Hidden Ranger), added new story scenes featuring American actors, and released it to western audiences. The result was a hit show despite its flaws, and the beginning of one of the longest running franchises on television, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

I'll be going over all of the Rangers series to date here. No, not all at once as that would get boring for both of us, but I will keep up with it over time. So, on to our review.

So, the question on everyone's mind... is the nostalgia here deserved? Well, I would argue that nostalgia is never deserved or undeserved it simply exists on its own... but that aside, is the show good? I would say yes and no.

On the one hand, the show gave us some classic episodes and storylines. The most notable example of this is, of course, the story of Green Ranger Tommy Oliver, who started out as the most threatening and successful villain on the show, turned to the side of good, and eventually became a permanent part of the team as the heroic White Ranger. You might have heard of him as the most popular Power Rangers character ever and probably the longest running, not only following the other old school rangers into Zeo and Turbo, but also reappearing as a recurring character in Dino Thunder.

On the other hand, episodes and storylines like that were the minority. Most of them are really just "okay" at best. The show definitely tended towards the BAD side of campy in most cases. Evil tubes of lipstick and rapping pumpkins were common enemies. The "teenagers with attitude" were actually overly idealized with basically no flaws or attitude at all. (They also weren't played by teenagers, but you probably could have guessed that.)

It also suffers pretty serious decay later on, with eventually the two most threatening villain lackeys - Rito Revolto and Goldar - becoming absolute jokes who were regularly defeated by unarmed 10 year olds. And no, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to watch Rito and Goldar chop up a busload of little kids any more than the show's producers want to show that. Obviously. I just also don't want to watch the villains who I'm supposed to find intimidating get humiliated by tweens with water balloons. Yes, that happened. So... I don't know, maybe just don't write yourself into that corner to begin with? It's not hard, you just have to care about what you're doing.

And yes, I get that the show was aimed at kids and was meant to be funny, but that's no excuse. There's a difference between making your show accessible to everyone and just insulting the audience's intelligence. There's also a difference between telling jokes and BEING a joke.

So overall, it's kind of hard to give this show a single rating. Power Rangers was a roller coaster of quality. The good episodes were really good and would warrant an easy 4, while the bad episodes oscillate between a soft 2, a hard 0, and a middle finger before being tossed in the trash. Overall, I'd give it...


MEDIOCRE

While the show was mostly mediocre on screen, when it was off the screen... it was a hot @#%$ing mess. It was run by greedy dick Haim Saban, whose basic plan was just to make the cheapest show possible with a scheme that only beats out Vince Perri's Action 52 scheme by virtue of the fact that Saban's Get Rich Quick Plan actually worked.

Aside from the cheapness of just re-using scenes someone else shot, the actors were treated like slaves. Amy Jo Johnson (Kimberly, the Pink Ranger) has called it the lowest point of her entire career. Austin St. John (Jason, the Red Ranger) stated in interviews that he would have made more money working fast food. David Yost (Billy, the Blue Ranger) was so mistreated by his co-workers that he nearly walked off the show multiple times because the constant anti-gay bullying he suffered made him want to kill himself.

It's ironic that, in spite of how troubled the production was, this is also the most lighthearted and idealistic series of the entire franchise. The heroes have zero flaws, society is perfect (or at least has problems that are easily solvable), the only true evil out there comes from obviously bad space demons... I guess the ultimate lesson we can learn from this is that, just like the rich philanthropist who runs a secret sweatshop (ie. Haim Saban himself) anyone who puts that much effort into being so obsessively nice is DEFINITELY hiding something.