Top 10 Blue Rangers

Ah yes, my favorite ranger color, the boys(and girls) in Blue, the second most ubiquitous color in Super Sentai/Power Rangers. Blue Rangers are most often the fan favorites outside of the Red Rangers. They’re personalities generally follow a theme of being the backbone of the team, the calm, and overall being the reliable ones, usually either the brains or the most disciplined of the team. There have been some variations, but overall the best Blue Rangers have been the ones that fill in this role the best. Blue’s also tend to work very well as foils for the Red Ranger, though this has only rarely happened before. Going back the foil thing, they are also the most likely to be second in command, able to lead the team if Red is absent. If I had to be a ranger color irl, Blue would definitely be it. Let’s start off with the honorable mentions

13. Lucas Kendall- Ah yes, Lucas, the least popular member of the Time Force team, and also the one that changed the absolute least. Well, I mainly put him up on 13 since Time Force is my favorite, and I did kind of like his focus episodes in Time Force, especially Bodyguard in Blue and Nadira’s Dream Date, where his cool exterior gets challenged and he has to put down his barriers. Lucas’ role on the team is, is, well, he can drive. Better than the rest of the team. He’s a womanizer, he’s obsessed with his appearance, and he kind acts like a big bro to Trip. Ok, there is one trait of Lucas that I like that puts him above the other Blues that I didn’t list. Lucas is the most blunt member of the team, which is shown in how he can be a bit of a jerk to Trip when his powers don’t work right, or in his best moment, when he’s the first one to confront and yell at Alex when he’s acting like a douchenozzle. It shows a strong, passionate side to him that I really wish was expanded on, since 95% of what we get with Lucas is him and his driving, womanizing, and grooming. Yeah he’s not Ayase, his japanese counterpart who is 10x more interesting than he is. Still worth the honorable mention though.

12. Madison Rocca- I feel bad for Madison really. She’s supposed to be the heart of the team, but she hardly ever gets the spotlight. Her actress is really cute and makes her likeable, but she’s barely allowed to be a presence in the season. She gets like 1 focus episode among the first 20 episodes, and her only other episode is when she’s wondering if she’s contributing to the team less than anyone else. She was sisters with the Pink Ranger, Vida, but since Vida got like no character development(or even characterization for that matter outside of Stranger Within), we really didn’t get to see the two do much as siblings, since outside of Madison’s only real episode, Rock Solid, the show barely ties back to them being siblings. It’s a shame too, Madison was the most like her Sentai Counterpart, Urara, who was my favorite member of the Magiranger team, and while I love Magiranger, Mystic Force is easily one of my least favorite seasons of PR, since it purposely went out of its way to toss aside every ranger that wasn’t Nick(and maybe Xander). Speaking of which, that sort-of not really romance between her and Nick either should have been dropped or explored more. I feel like in another season Madison become a top 10 blue, but sadly since she got almost nothing to work with, I have to leave her in honorable mentions.

11. Chad Lee- The resident martial artist and zen dude of the group, Chad is probably the most chilled ranger of all time, and sadly that leaves him the least developed of the five Lightspeed Rangers, which is honestly a shame. PR would later pull off a better version of this character with RJ, but I still think Chad has some merit. His friendship with Kelsey harkened back to Trini and Billy, and he was the only member of the Lightspeed team that was adept at hand to hand combat, since Carter and Joel almost always went in guns blazing. He had a romance with a mermaid, that didn’t really go anywhere and kind of just popped up out of nowhere, episodes 28 and 34 respectively. I still like you Chad. Onto the top 10

10. Rocky De Santos- Poor Rocky, after being the guy who had to follow up Jason, to him not even being leader due to Tommy, Rocky had no real opportunity to show his stuff in MMPR. Adam got a lot of characterization within his early episodes, and Aisha was Kims best friend, and Rocky was, well, Rocky. It wasn’t until Zeo where, when he doesn’t have the baggage of being Red, he’s allowed to branch off and show what he can do. He had girl troubles, he liked working on movies, and he was willing to try and trust a monster that wanted to reform and be good, only for it to be a trap and Rocky had egg on his face, though at least he got to use the Defender Wheel. He realistically had issues when Jason came back because here was the guy that Rocky replaced coming back and getting the spotlight, how is someone not going to feel jealous and need to prove himself? Rocky throughout his appearances always came off as the kind of guy who didn’t want to be a goody good and had more attitude to him than his other rangers. How often back in the pre In Space days did we get inter character conflict that wasn’t based on a spell or monster ability? He also served as the most adventurous member of the team, as he was always up to do fun stuff. I wish we would have gotten more of this Rocky in MMPR.

9. Theo Martin- As Jungle Fury Blue, Theo was the brains of the team, or at the very least the disciplined member of the team. Theo had major ego and control issues, which RJ and Master Swoop taught him a way out of, since while he was obsessed with his accomplishments, it wasn’t those that were his problems, it was his inability to accept failure as option that always clouded his judgement, and he was shown to have a fear of looking like a fool to others. Theo clearly cared a lot about his image, and wanted to be an overachiever because his twin brother Luen, was extremely adventurous and got people’s attention very easily, so Theo pushed himself to be the best at everything he did. This in turn made him an egotistical jerk, especially to Casey, which Lily often called him out on. He had to learn patience, since Casey was a beginner, but overall made him a better man. His romance with Lily was also pretty decent, they didn’t kiss or anything but their interactions and Theo finally mustering the courage to ask Lily out on a date in the last episode was a hallmark moment of Jungle Fury.

8. Koda- Ah yes, the best character from Dino Charge bar none, Koda is one of the most likeable rangers of all time, its almost a shame that Yoshi Sudarso had to be on a crappy season like Dino Super Charge. Koda could have easily been a very annoying comic relief character like Dax with his caveman gimmick, and while they dont always give him the best material, Koda is actually pretty funny. Koda is the innocent member of the team, as he always strives to do the right thing, even for people that don’t treat him well like Prince Phillip, who looked down on Koda, but then Koda saved to try and convince the Prince that they’re heroes and maybe get him on their side. Koda’s bond with the others is heartfelt as well, since he’s completely displaced in time, the rangers are the closest thing he has to a family. In Caveman times he was thrown off a Cliff trying to save his younger brother, where he received the Dino Gems energy before being frozen in Ice. This informs a lot about how he treats the world around him. He doesn’t change that much, like all the characters in Dino Charge, but his base personality is very noble and innocent to begin with, and make him easily the most likeable member of the team, aside from Shelby.

7. Kai Chen- My favorite of five LG rangers, second only to the original Magna Defender, Kai Chen is easily the most fleshed out and interesting ranger of the bunch. He’s shown to be a stickler for protocol and a bit of a stubborn jerk, but certainly smart enough to realize just when following the rules can be harmful. We see this mentality get tested throughout the season, as more often than not Kai had to take charge of situations, especially on Terra Ventures bridge, when things were going amiss. It was very refreshing also to have a Blue Ranger who was at odds with the Red Ranger, it gave a cool lancer/leader dynamic that added something to what was otherwise a pretty run of the mill red ranger. Kai kind of reminds me of Sky, except not quite as fleshed out as him but still a really good character in his own right.

6. Flynn McAllister- Ah yes, the badass Scotsman, Flynn is one of my favorite Blue Rangers of all time, with his dedication to heroism, and in general just being a real badass. Also, the first power rangers character to utter the word crap on TV. First episode of RPM if you want to find it. But seriously, Flynn is the kind of guy that believes that doing the right thing is always top priority over anything else, and Dr. K said that Justice is untangible and unrealistic, and as shown in his backstory, his good intentions almost always got him into trouble(Give the guy credit though, he did try to arm a bunch of natives being pushed off their land Braveheart style, that takes big balls). Its when he got a chance to save a bunch of people outside the wall with his bus that both Flynn and his father found the way to heroism that Flynn had always wanted to prove he can be. His father finally respected him and realized his son wasn’t just trying to live a fantasy, he was a true hero. Flynn also learned mechanics from his father and eventually developed a weapon for the rangers in the form of the Wheel zord, with the help of Gemma, who knew he had a lot of talent, and had to tone down her excitement to be at his level, as Flynn gets very serious when he’s in his element. I wish he wasn’t the most underdeveloped character in RPM(him and Summer were kind of pushed to the side a lot unfortunately), he still left one hell of an impression as the 6th best Blue Ranger

5. Ethan James- Ethan, the closest the show got to capturing the spirit of Billy. Don’t get it twisted though, even though Ethan was undoubtedly a nerd, and proud of it, he wasn’t a mousey, shy nerd like Billy. While introverted, our first impression of him is of someone whose not afraid to mouth off others, like when Connor was mocking him for being a nerd, Ethan didn’t take his crap and barked back. How often do nerd characters ever have the backbone to stand up to jerks, especially at the start of the story? Likewise, Ethan’s initial characterization can be seen as Smart, Cocky and obsessive, and he made friends quickly with fellow outsiders Kira and Trent. Connor and him eventually became friends, but not without lots of banter between the two. During the stock bully episode, Ethan gets right in the guys face from the start and seems like he’s ready to fight him, its Connor that has to push them both away from each other(Btw, the bully in this episode would later go on to play Tyzonn in Overdrive). While the whole episode seems lined up to have them fight, Ethan instead finds a peaceful solution, since the assholes Kick is what damaged Ethans laptop, Ethan uses his computer to show the guy what he could do to improve his game. It’s a pretty clever idea for a solution, and it isn’t the standard “fight violence with love” bs that the show would otherwise portray. He also ended up on a date with the vapid and equally obsessive reporter Cassidy, and the date was a total disaster, both realizing that they aren’t really for each other, and this is part of the arc where Cassidy and her assistant Devin start becoming closer with the rangers. While Ethan was supposed to be the callback to Billy, it was obvious through his actions that he was much more of the team Smartass than the teams nerd, which made him awesome. He wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty, his jokes were usually hilarious, especially the ones about falling out from the sky, and he helped liven up the otherwise very serious season of Dino Thunder.

5. Tori Hanson- Ah yes, Tori, one of the cutest rangers of all time, Tori was the brains that kept Ninja Storm together alongside Cam. She often chides her teammates Shane and Dustin for being stupid, and Tori is often called by them the reliable one. It fits her. Throughout the series, Tori proved herself to maintain her cool under pressure, and almost never let her feelings get in the way of the goal, but the one time she did, it almost cost the team dearly. In the Thunder Strangers 3 parter, in Part 2, after she developed a crush on Mellow Thunder Ranger Blake, Blake used it to his advantage, getting injured in a battle with one of Lothors monsters, especially saving Tori, and she took him to Ninja Ops to get Cam to heal him. As the rangers dealt with the monster, the Thunder Rangers showed up and saved their hides, and then, knowing the location of Ninja Ops, capture Cam and Sensei. Tori is mortified that Blake would use her like that, and threatens him if he hurts Cam, “If you hurt him, I will hunt you down.” They let Cam go but take Sensei, and part 3 is about getting him back. Sally Martin’s performance really sold the scene, it felt like she was about to cry, her and Dustin fell for their lies and deception. Tori afterwards puts aside trusting Hunter and Blake, especially after Lothor once again brainwashes them. Its only when Hunter is driven insane and starts attacking Blake that Blake and the Wind Rangers have to start working together. After Blake gets through to Hunter the pair join the team. Tori and Blake, well, it’s not that much of a romance, especially since it only really gets talked about in one more episode, but I can definitely see the appeal(even if I’m a bit more in the Cam and Tori camp, since I find their exchanges to be way more interesting than Tori/Blake, especially since the Thunders kind of become flat characters after their introduction arc, Hunter more so than Blake). So yeah, I wish there was more to her, but for what we got, Tori was an exceptional character, and my second favorite ranger from Ninja Storm, behind Cam.

3. TJ- Not gonna spell his whole name again, if you saw my previous list. TJ made one hell of a Red Ranger, easily the most underrated of the bunch, but what if I told you he went from being the third best Red to the third best Blue? Yeah, it seems like no matter what color he dons, TJ will always be an awesome ranger, because he’s such a strong, likeable character. TJ, throughout In Space, showed himself to be the most intelligent and capable second in command of PR, sometimes you wondered if Andros was really a leader. TJ was a skilled tactician, his plans usually leading to the defeat of the enemy, especially during his crowning moment of badass, Five of a Kind, where he at first comes up with a fairly clever plan of fighting a different color for each Psycho, a good idea on Paper, especially given what they knew about the Psychos, but couldn’t factor in that the Psychos would be able to outmuscle them enough to get back to their colors, and the resulting battle gets TJ injured, Astronema machinations saving the rangers once again from being killed. TJ, getting up from passing out, is just as ready to come up with a new plan, much to the other rangers, especially Cassies chagrin. With Cassies help, they watched footage from the fight, and when TJ saw the color go out, he realized an amazing plan- get the suits to all be Blue and force the Psychos to fight with each other to find out which ranger is which. It goes off without a hitch, as Red and Black try to get into the fray and TJ, from a distance, blasts them all back. The next phase of the plan, Psycho Silver, drives Blue so insane that he attacks Black and Red, isolating him, as Psycho Silver reveals his allegiance and TJ is able to land a strong shot at Blue’s face, destroying his energy shield. Him and Psycho Silver(Zane in disguise) make short work of Psycho Blue. Then, in the megazord battle, when the Voyager gets frozen, TJ suggests raising the temp of the Megazord, and then instead of turning the heat down, channeling all the excess heat into the lazers, and then they destroy Psycho Blue with the Winged Mega Voyager. That was such an awesome episode, and an amazing plan by TJ. If Sentai/PR had made the Psycho Ranger arc today, the arc would be solved by Deus Ex Machina and a new megazord configuration, but in this arc, it forced the rangers to use their heads and work with what they had, they weren’t just going to be handed things every other episode like a certain other PR show.

2. Billy Cranston- The OG Blue Ranger, my favorite of the original five and easily the most well developed Ranger character for a long time, Billy made one hell of an impression on PR. Out of the original five, his personality was easily the most distinguishable- a socially awkward, almost completely socially paralyzed, nerd with a lot of technical know-how. I often compare him to Izzy from Digimon, especially in the fact that, as MMPR went on, Billy’s devices would often be the difference between victory and defeat for the rangers, at least until S3 where Rita and Lord Zedd finally found ways to counter Billy’s tech. Early on though, Billy was very reliant on Trini to translate for him, and its implied(especially in the comics) that Trini was the main way that Billy got to know Jason and Zach, and the four became good friends before Kim came along. The Boom Comics are fucking amazing. Anyway, Billy had a lot of self confidence issues to overcome, and he got through it by joining martial arts. As the only ranger on the team with no real fighting prowess, local bullies Bulk and Skull bullied him more than anyone, and it motivated him to join Jason’s Karate Class. He doesn’t show a lot of prowess early on, but its clear throughout the season, in small doses, we see Billy be able to fight off the putty squadrons he had trouble fighting one of back when he first started. He didn’t need Trini as much to protect him, and he eventually started coming out of his shell. Him and Trini were also the main brains of the team, Trini obviously being more balanced, but as the Boom Comics show, her respect and admiration for Billy’s intellect often causes her doubt when he’s not around. By the later part of Season 2, Billy stopped wearing as baggy and heavy clothes, and he started looking like a male model with his bod. Seriously, David Yost was ripped. While he gained strength, he never lost his intellect, and it can be implied that, as he got stronger, his increase in confidence made him think more clearly and he also got more girls of the week than any other character. While he wasn’t the leader or the second in command, every ranger on the team greatly respected Billy, and even when in Zeo he chose not to be a ranger, he was still a clear member of the team and one of their closest friends. Many criticize Zeo for Billy not taking the Zeo powers, but Billy worked really well in the technical field, and he did build the teams entire arsenal(except the Super Zeo Zords and Pyramidas). The only weakness of his performance in Zeo was David Yost not being available for the characters final two episodes, A Ranger of Two Worlds. It wasn’t the worst sendoff(Passing the Torch and Aisha’s in Hogday Afternoon were far worse), the way that Billy just randomly fell in love with one of the Aquitians and didn’t want to come back because of that, well, it’s kind of anti climactic(kind of like the end of Zeo as a whole, thanks a lot Turbo movie), though the ending clipshow of the episode showing off Billy’s moments throughout the show was really nice. Billy is a very successful character in PR, with only Tommy and Adam having a longer tenure than him in terms of being a ranger. He was a mainstay for four straight seasons, from MMPR Episode 1, and I’m sure the impression he made on lots of kids growing up(as someone who mainly watched MMPR-In Space in reruns, I still found myself endeared to Billy) has lead Billy to being one of PR’s most enduring characters. David Yost did a hell of a job bringing Billy to life, from his awkwardness, to his improvement of fighting prowess, to being a great side character, we’ll always remember Billy Cranston.

1- Sky Tate- You knew this was coming, I had a whole blogpost about why Sky was the best Blue Ranger, and I won’t reiterate much here. He went through arguably the best character arc of any blue ranger, managed to pull off the jerkass lancer character really well while being nuanced, and was very well acted by Chris Violette. His crowning moment of awesome in Reflections really solidified his position at number one, as well as the final piece of his character arc, where he proudly tells Cruger that he would follow anyone into battle he thought worthy of wearing the color red. Thats a whole character arc of having to keep his ego in check and learn to respect other people’s point of view coming to fruition, and his reward is finally getting to be Red Ranger, but not just Red, but the kind of Red his own father, a Red Ranger who died in battle, would be proud of. SPD had many shortfalls, but Sky’s character growth throughout the season was definitely its highlight. As the best lancer in PR history, I have to give Sky the #1 spot for best Blue Ranger.

That was my list of the best in blue, I think that it’s hard to be a bad Blue, while it’s easy to be a bad Red, even some of the worst Blues, I feel bad for more than anything, since they have likeable elements that just don’t get expanded upon, or they get pushed way into the background by the Red Ranger focus(though Dax is still an awful Blue Ranger). Blue Rangers are almost always the guys you can rely on in a pinch, and they tend to bring a certain skill set that they excel in, whether its intel, technical know-how, or leadership capabilities for when Red is indisposed. They’re more often than not the smart or genius character. Next time, I will be covering the best Green/Black Rangers(since the colors are often interchangeable and signify the third ranked male member of the team, even if the characterization tends to be different across the colors themselves). Who’s your favorite Blue Ranger? Anyway, see you guys next time, and remember, stay awesome.

Top 10 Red Rangers

Perhaps the most iconic color of rangers, most people can immediately recognize the Red Ranger of any season as the clear leader of the team(even if this not always the case). Hell, Red Rangers are so popular that one of the most beloved episodes of the franchise is just a one shot episode where the Red Rangers from the first 10 years come together to fight the remnants of the machine empire. Why is that? Well, Red Rangers have always managed to find someway to stand out, whether it was Jason being the only to believe what Zordon said in Day of the Dumpster, to Andros trying to find his kidnapped sister, to Carter being the series biggest badass, etc, it’s hard for a Red Rangers to be an ignored or underdeveloped character. Most kids will say that their favorite ranger is Red, and Red Rangers usually get the Battlizers. However, as can often be the case of many pieces of fiction, a bad Red Ranger tends to be one that either steals the spotlight of the others(to the point where you wonder why there are 4+ other members of the team) or they have no personality and are pretty bland(as is the case with most Neo Saban Reds). As part of my goal for the month of August, I’m going to be going through each of the colors of the Ranger Rainbow to try and find the top 10 best of each category. Without further ado, lets begin with some honorable mentions-

13- Mack Hartford- His story near the end of his season was pretty cool and he was one of the only Overdrive rangers I wasn’t bored or annoyed by.
12- Tommy Oliver- Yeah, his stint as Red Ranger has always been kind of a low point for me personally, he was an OK leader, but he kind of took focus away from the others(He had 7 straight episodes dedicated to him, all of which ranged from OK to blah), that and like Jason before, he kind of fades into the background as leader, his character is pretty static and boring.
11- Leo Corbett- His arc with learning to believe in himself was alright, I just wish that Leo was less like Andros since we already had an arc the previous season of the Red Ranger searching for their sibling. He’s a pretty standard Red Ranger as well, cue the shirt tear.
Now it’s time to go onto the top 10, starting with-
10. Jason Lee Scott- Shock and hatred I hear coming from the fanbase. IK what your all saying- JASONS THE OG, HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!? Well, I could have been an asshole and put Rocky over him(imagine that shit show), but even I wouldn’t sink that low. Jason is honestly just decent to me, don’t have a bad word to say, he filled in the leader role fine, he was a very strong fighter, he was a team player, he’s pretty much the standard that all Red Rangers are judged by, but that’s also his weakness. Aside from the guilt of not being able to save Tommy’s powers Jason doesn’t really get much to do. Zach has his fun subplot with Angela, Tommy and Kim have their relationship, Billy has his confidence growing and being the guy who saves the day with his inventions, and Tommy had the whole evil Green Ranger thing. Jason and Trini were honestly the most underdeveloped of the MMPR rangers, but you wouldn’t notice that since Jason was leader and the one that spoke the most. I think Jason’s problem is that he really didn’t have many flaws, which is a major issue of many of Neo Saban reds. I mainly put Jason over Leo because of his stint as Zeo Gold, and the fact that the Boom comics made him a lot more interesting than his TV Show counterpart. As Zeo Gold, it was interesting to see him not being the leader, he respected Tommy’s position, and he also showed that he still had the great leadership skills from when he was Red, as the first episode he gets, he helps stop a conflict between some Bikers and Ernies Beach shop. It also shows how he’s changed since the peace conference. Its also cause the Gold Zeo Ranger is easily in my top 3 favorite ranger designs of all time, its just so regal and cool. While I am cheating just a bit, I still think Jason at least deserved a spot on the list, at number 10.

9. Andros- Let me be the first to say that Andros was the first Red Ranger to get a ton of character development within his season, and the first to have the main season story arc revolve around his issues. He’s easily one of the franchise’s most popular red rangers, due to his lone wolf persona, connection with main villain Astronema, and his relationship with Yellow Turbo and Space Ranger Ashley Hammond. Andros starts off the series extremely defensive and quiet, barely speaking to the rangers and even attacking them when they get pulled into his ship. This establishes very early on that Andros is a secretive and quiet, perhaps even shy person. It;s only when he learns about their quest to find Zordon and try to save him, in spite of their lack of powers, that he decides to demorph and gradually starts to trust them. They do some fish out of water stuff with him at first, it’s endearing, especially his scenes with Ashley, and he comes across as someone far more naive and awkward than he would like to admit, as one episode features him assisting thieves in a robbery, not knowing it was a robbery. As a leader, Andros was alright, though his tendency to put his own personal goals ahead of the teams tended to get everyone into trouble more often than not, and in terms of leadership, he’s easily on the middle to weaker end of Reds. He isn’t really a rallying kind of guy, he just has the most experience in space and the rangers are on his ship. His story with Astronema though is where he shines, as while he sometimes puts his love of her over the team, since they are siblings, he does everything he can to save her and trusts her immediately after she defects from Dark Specter, with the others questioning his decision. Often times however, it felt like TJ was much more of a leader, since he could keep his cool better than Andros, and was the team tactician, whose plans often lead the Rangers to key victories, especially against Darkliptor and Psycho Blue. Nevertheless, while TJ could have easily been leader, he never stepped on Andros’ toes, and often trusted his judgment, and Andros the same. I kind of wish they had more episodes exploring this relationship. Andros is also the one who is most likely to go undercover to get information, which makes him one of the more clever and deceptive rangers, as he can easily blend in and seems to have a good understanding of the politics of the Evil Empires and planets like Onyx. While not a conventional leader, Andros did find his way into our hearts as the number 9 red ranger.

8. Jack Landers- The rebellious thief with a heart of gold, Jack has always been an extremely selfless and generous person, even if the world hasn’t been kind to him his whole life. I feel like this is easily Jack’s most endearing quality, and this selflessness is probably what Cruger saw when he made Jack Red Ranger over Sky, as Sky’s own pride and arrogance would hold everyone back alongside the constant bickering and belittling he gives his teammates. Jack could be a bit of a hotshot, but not nearly to the same extent of Ban from Dekaranger(who I find pretty annoying) and he’s certainly not the brains of the group, but he often has good judgment, such as when in Idol he knew Drew’s arrival was fishy and tried having him interrogated. Jack may be fairly lax as a leader, but he’s the kind of guy that isn’t going to take whining or people complaining about him, mainly Sky, whose entitlement to being Red Ranger makes their initial relationship strained, but Sky’s humbling during both Idol and Walls showed how bad Sky’s behavior was and he starts to respect Jack more and more, especially after Idol. While his friendship with Z was clear, it’s sadly underutilized(like Z in general) and most of his development is focused on him and Sky’s relationship, which, once Reflections is done, gives neither character much to work with until the final 3 episodes, where Jack expresses desire to leave SPD once Grumm is defeated since he wanted to go back to helping people on the streets and realizing how much he didn’t want to join SPD. I like this decision, as it shows Jack willing to see his job through to the end, while having enough agency to want to follow the life he wants, and not the one he was sort of drafted into. At least he becomes more of a clothes distributor than a Robin Hood type thief. For being a very likeable character and his relationship with Sky, Jack earns his number 8 spot.

7. Casey Rhodes- Ah man, this guy gets way too much flack from the fanbase. I’m not kidding, Casey gets railroaded as one of the worst Red’s ever, and I really don’t get why. People often say that his first lines in the series, “I don’t want any trouble” makes him out to be some kind of coward or somehow lesser than a character, and this baffling complaint that he’s “whiney”(which he never acts throughout the show, one could argue maybe in Earn Your Stripes, but its a huge stretch). Anyway, I like Casey as a character, and he gives a characterization I wish more Reds got, that of the Rookie, the guy who isn’t as strong as his teammates but gradually grows and develops over time, which naturally leads to more character development. He starts off as a Cub, but after roaring at Jarrod, pushing him back after Jarrod was bullying another Cub, Master Mao saw potential in Casey, and a much better man than Jarrod was. Throughout the season, especially early on, due to his inexperience, Theo would often deride Casey for not being ready, being rather blunt about it, and while Casey would learn very fast under Theo, he wasn’t exactly up to their level yet. Under Theo, RJ and later Master Finn, Casey became a very formidable fighter for the Jungle Fury team, his earnestness and his selflessness making him a clear choice for leader of the team. When RJ becomes a ranger, Casey thinks that the leadership position he has earned is under threat, but RJ dissuades these thoughts by reminding Casey why he was a good leader to begin with. RJ in general is the series best mentor, and you see it most throughout his relationship with Casey. While Casey and Dai Shi had a rivalry throughout the season, Casey secretly felt guilty about perhaps being the reason Jarrod went mad and unleashed Dai Shi, and his arc in the latter half of the show is to try and redeem himself, or at least expunge his guilt, as Master Mao’s spirit yells at Casey, asking him if he’s trying to save Jarrod for Jarrod’s sake, or for his own sake, and Casey doesn’t answer. Using the prowess he’s built up all season, he confronts Dai Shi directly(convenient as Dai Shi and Jarrod were having a dispute over Jarrod’s love for Camille) and Casey manages to finally beat him, but doesn’t make the killing blow, pulling a Luke from Return of the Jedi and asking if Jarrod is willing to destroy Casey instead, which causes the separation. That is the end of Casey’s arc, his guilt is absolved, Jarrod and Camille join the rangers in the final battle, even sacrificing themselves in the final battle(but not dying) and Casey ends up becoming a teacher of the Pai Xhua academy, with Camille and Jarrod as his students. Jungle Fury as the season of growth and training, shown through both the heroes and villains, continually shows itself as the most underrated of the Disney Seasons and its Red Ranger, Casey, easily lands himself at the number 7 spot.

6. Scott Truman- One of the more underrated Reds alongside Casey, Scott was someone with a lot to prove, especially to his father Colonel Truman, who always seemed to favor his older brother Marcus, who died in the defense of Corinth, while Scott himself barely survived. You can almost feel the kind of animosity Truman had, like how some parents wish that the other child had survived an accident over the other. Its really awful, but its a sad truth of the world. Scott was a damn good leader, always able to keep the team on point, and especially being able to eventually keep Dillon under control. This kind of commanding nature makes sense, coming from a long line of military men, and having to look up to both his dad and his brother Marcus. Scott was the by the books Red Ranger, though when he felt underappreciated or when he felt the situation got dire, he wasted no time in recklessly going into the Venjix Controlled Wasteland, either to retrieve something important, or the in the worst case, just blow off steam, as shown in the episode Heroes Among Us, where Gold Ranger Gem gets a metal after a fierce battle with a monster, and Scott, feeling ignored and disrespected by his father, goes out into the Wasteland recklessly. Gem follows him, feeling guilty about talking about his metal, and tossing it, Scott telling him that Gem shouldn’t feel bad about his accomplishments, going to retrieve that metal, as they stumble upon a Venjix Factory and save its workers. Scott gets offered a medal but refuses it, since he never intended to find the factory, and was only out in the wasteland to blow off steam. He wants to earn respect, not just be given it. These nice little nuances help him stand above many of the serious, sometimes boring reds, we get nowadays. Scott still has capacity to be funny, especially when it comes to how he interacts with Dillon, especially their rivalry over their cars, their “babies”. While Scott has a lot of issues trusting people, Dillion, Ziggy, Gem and Gemma being the biggest culprits of his initial mistrust of people, as he had little patience for their antics or reckless behavior he eventually is able to lead his band of misfits to victory against the most successful PR villain in history, Venjix. He’s also well acted by Eka Darville, who brings both a commanding presence and is able to communicate very well when he’s frustrated and can still be very likeable and funny when the situation calls for it. Scott certainly earned his 6th place medal on this list.

5. Shane Clarke- Continuing the Disney Train of interesting Red Rangers, Shane is easily a highlight of Ninja Storm, as he proves to be a very competent leader, being able to be both very serious and very laid back due to his dual nature of being a ranger and being a skateboarder. It’s very easy to see why Shane is the leader- Shane, unlike Dustin, is usually very serious when it comes to what he has to do, and unlike Tori, he isn’t self conscious or easily manipulated. Shane may be a friendly guy, but unlike someone like Dustin or Tori, isn’t quick to trust people he just met, and his ability to stay on guard has made him the only ranger in the series to not be duped in one way or another. He is headstrong however, especially early on as he tries to defeat evil on his own, but he learns that there is strength in numbers. The highlight of Shanes character though comes in two episodes- Shane’s Karma and Eye of the Storm, which both show off his backstory. In Shane’s Karma, as a kid, he saved a young alien girl from Vexacus, a bounty hunter and former rival of Lothor, and showed how heroic and selfless he was at a young age. It’s easily the best battlizer episode, and it’s also the best looking Battlizer by a mile. Eye of the Storm features Shane's’ brother, played by Pua Magasiva’s actual brother Robbie Magasiva, a businessman, showing up per his parents request to try and get Shane to focus more on his future and less on what his parents believe is stupid stuff, like his skateboarding, or spending all day with his friends. Shane obviously has a very strict home and we can easily see how he can go from fun to serious in an instant, and he hates this, since he already has enough trouble keeping up his school and social life, but also has to be a ranger without telling anyone else, and he has a strained relationship with his brother, who his parents most likely always put on a pedestal to pressure Shane into using his time better. It’s so good for characterization, yet is so subtle that the show doesn’t beat you over the head with it, it’s just a really good character episode, and the way that Porter learns his brothers identity and immediately tries to help him out by keeping it a secret and probably telling his parents to keep it easy on Shane gives us a very good brotherly dynamic for what is sadly just a one episode guest star, and makes me wish Porter had returned for at least one more episode. Ninja Storm may be lighthearted and its episodes and villains being pretty silly, but one thing people always seem to miss is just how layered and interesting the Ninja Storm Rangers actually are, and how well their actors mesh well together honestly being the seasons strength, as its very rare for a PR cast to meld as well as they did, outside of Time Force, RPM, and even Dino Thunder. So yeah Shane is number 5 on the list, speaking of Dino Thunder....
4. Connor McKnight- Connor is a jerk, that is the first real thing we learn about him, and he somehow ends up becoming one of the best Red Rangers in the franchise. Where does Connor succeed where an asshole Red like Nick fails? I think its quite simple. Connor is a jerk, and so is Nick. Connor however, isn’t as tolerated of being a jerk. Connor is also a jock, and as such he rubs nerd of the team Ethan the wrong way, and unlike a usual dynamic where the Jock bullies the nerd, Ethan shows that he isn’t going to take Connors crap, and neither does Keira, the resident musician, and the three start off really on each others nerves. No other team has started off with so much friction. So what makes Connor endearing as a character? His whole arc with White Ranger and resident evil ranger Trent. White and Red start a sort of mini rivalry from the start(more a result of sentai footage than anything) and when Trent tells Kira whats going on, Connor tells Kira immediately that they can’t pull punches and have to do what they can to stop Trent, at any cost, even with Kira and Tommy objecting. We do see a great scene where Trent is recovering from a White Ranger morph on a bench, and Connor leaves the Soccer game(you know, his passion, the thing he cares about so much he wanted to quit early on to focus on his dream, to the point where realizing that saving people meant more than his dreams) to try and comfort him. This was before he learned about Trents identity. He kept giving Trent plenty of chances, even when it was clear that the White Dino Gem was controlling Trent even unmorphed, doing his best to spare Kira’s feelings by not outright giving up on Trent, and that was his test as leader, his ability to forgive. When the White Ranger coding on the gem was destroyed, Trent joined the rangers, and Connor obviously had some trust issues, but allowed him on the team anyway. While people will argue whether or not Tommy or Connor was leader, Tommy was sidelined for a good part of the season(to its benefit because it ensured Tommy wouldn’t have taken over the show) and even when Tommy was in the battle, Connor usually took point in command and formation, and this was further shown by the Triassic Powers, where the rangers have to lend him in the power necessary to fight really strong opponents. For all of the upgrades Connor got throughout the show, he never really dominated the season like a red in his position would in later seasons. His Battlizer episode, Passion of Connor, shows his insecurities when it comes to talking to girls, that he thinks that by changing who he is to please them that it will endear girls to him, but he constantly gets rejected by this girl who can see through his doucheyness, and then when she gets in trouble via Zeltrax, he goes into his VERY goofy looking Battlizer and saves the day. When it’s later revealed that Trent was keeping Mesogog’s identity a secret, his mistrust comes back and him along with the rest of the team question whether or not Trent can be trusted. He ends the season going out with that girl of the week from that Battlizer episode, and in the future he has famous soccer clubs for kids all around the world. He was a deeply flawed character who, unlike Nick, never stole the spotlight from his teammates, had his conflicts with the team but knew when he was in the wrong, and learned how to be a good leader by his conflicting relationship with Trent and learning how to forgive people, a lesson that Tommy probably wanted to instill more than anything into his rangers. Dino Thunder really is the best version of MMPR ever, with each character feeling like an improved version of their old counterpart- Connor the more interesting Jason, Ethan the more confident and prankster version of Billy, Kira the sixth ranger love interest who didn’t just get taken advantage of, and was very independant, Tommy was a very good mentor since the show knew he was the mentor and was wise to keep his presence in the season to a respectable level, it wasn’t his story anymore, it was the story of these new kids, and Trent is easily a top 3 sixth ranger, with his whole evil ranger arc being a more interesting and vastly improved version of Tommy’s arc in MMPR. See Operation Overdrive, Super Megaforce and Super Ninja Steel, this is how you show respect to the past. Onto number 3

3. Theodore Jay “TJ” Jarvis Johnson- This one will be short- TJ is a very smart and clever Red Ranger, he wasn’t a Tommy or Jason clone, he lead the team really well, he wasn’t stiff like Jason, Troy and Jayden, and was a nice mix of Jock and Nerd, as his love of Baseball was almost as valuable an asset to the Turbo Rangers as his intellect. While his better moments are as In Space Blue, he still was amazing in the second half of Turbo, and I wish more Red Rangers would be this smart, since they often get characterized as hotheaded or loners. IK its short, but TJ is such a simple yet effective Red Ranger. Especially compared to those who came before and after him.

2. Wesley Collins- Perhaps my favorite arc out of any Red Ranger, Wes is a fish out of water on his own team. He’s the one that gets his team acclimated to the 21st century. They had a rocky start, as Jen doubted his commitment to being a ranger due to his richness and being spoiled, and his penchant for just throwing himself into danger like it was a game. Wes didn’t get why Jen treated him this way until Trip told him what happened, which gets Wes to completely think about and change his perspective, and goes off to ask for one more chance, saying that he finally has something to fight for. After the first megazord fight, Wes helps the rangers get a home in his dad’s old clocktower. Throughout the series he grows from being a spoiled rich kid to a noble ranger that serves as the heart of the team as well as its eventual leader, as the rangers, after Alex came back to be a bit of a dick, agreed to follow Wes over Alex. Wes also has one of the strongest relationships in PR history, having won over the heart of his great whatever number grandsons fiance, Jen, and the two develop a really believable and well acted romance. The only part of the relationship that dropped the ball was at the end of the season, where when Jen had to leave, they hugged, but didn’t get to kiss at all. It sucked. Another important relationship to Wes was that with his former colleague and rival in Eric Meyers. Eric’s standoffish, rude behavior made him a foil for the Time Force team, as he was the first Sixth Ranger to never really join the team officially, occassionally providing assistance if needed, gradually helping them more and more, but due to Eric disliking Wes’ whole view on life, the team and Eric were always at arms length from each other. Eric, growing up poor, despised not only Wes’ spoiled attitude, but also Wes’ inability to use his advantages to the fullest, which motivates Eric to do everything he can to rise above his station in life, to completely change his destiny for the better, which is ironically what Wes’ whole deal with his father was- Wes never wanted to be a business tycoon like his dad, and so eventually split off from his dad to live with the rangers and forge his own path, with his dad at first being disappointed in what he believed his son had become, only to try and recruit Wes when he learns Wes is a Time Force Ranger. Wes also disliked the Silver Guardians, a private defense contract force that work for Mr. Collins. Eric, wanting to prove what he can do, managed to obtain the Quantum Morpher, and later the Quantasaurus Rex, to eventually become the leader of the Silver Guardians. Their conflicting viewpoints come to a boiling point in the finale, when Eric tries to denounce him and Wes having nothing in common, but Wes, being the changed man that he is, shows Eric how they both managed to change their destinies through their own actions, that the future is not written in stone. Wes is probably the most well developed Red Ranger in the franchise’s history, but how does that not land him at a solid #1? Well, for number one, what other Red Ranger could it be.......

1. Carter Grayson- Yup, you knew he was coming sooner or later. Lightspeed Rescue was the first PR show I could recall watching as a child, and so I have a good amount of attachment to the series, but I still think it holds up relatively well. Carter made one hell of a first impression as Red Ranger, and overall feels like an extreme version of what Jason could have been. Like Jason, Carter is the first one to accept the call to duty, and in the first battle, his plan to defeat the monster to try and run it over with the Teams Humvee. Badass. Whats even more badass? Carter, unlike the other Reds bar Andros sometimes, is very quick to use his guns, not needing martial arts training to be a real badass. He then has an amazing focus episode in Trial by Fire, where he learns the hard way that sometimes the obvious choice is the wrong choice, when he tries to evacuate the parking garage but Captain Mitchell demands that he put out the fire caused by Vypra. In the process of the fire and the structural damage, a young boy gets injured. Carter obviously feels guilty about this, and confronts Mitchell. When Mitchell says that he did the right thing, Carter goes back to the site and investigates, finding two hidden cans of Gasoline, which Vypra saw whens he cause the fire to escape. If the fire had reached the gas, well you know. That’s when Mitchell shows up, and he tells Carter about the kinds of hard decisions he will have to make as leader, every single day. We also learn that the reason Carter became a fireman was because a fireman saved him when he was a child, and in a later episode, we learn that that fireman was Captain Mitchell himself, who before Lightspeed was an accomplished Firefighter. Hell there’s an episode where he becomes a firefighter again in a desperate situation. Captain Mitchell is fucking awesome. Yeah I like Carter, a lot. He was the first Red Ranger that I remember giving me the image of a cool guy. He wasn’t a domineering or controlling leader, he was just the guy everyone could count on and set an example for his team. He wasn’t above his teammates, and never acted like it. He was also the bravest of the team, being the only one to Volunteer for the Titanium Ranger powers when they were being developed, shooting a monster at point blank ranger with the rangers finishing weapon and the V-Lancer, punching Queen Bansheera to near death in the stomach, and when the Megazords are wiped out by a powered up Diabolico and Olympius, he charges at the two with just his handguns just to try and distract them. Despite Carter not being the most demanding leader, his actor Sean CJ Johnson, infused the character with that special kind of charisma, he sounded and acted like a Superhero, the kind of guy you would probably want to gladly die for as he would for you 100 times over. Its cool to see more people coming around to Carter nowadays, since from what I’ve read, he used to be one of the least popular reds. At least now he gets his fair share, especially since we haven’t had a good red since Scott.

That’s my opinion on the heroes in Red, everyone has their own criteria on what makes a good Red Ranger. I would love to see your own top 10s with reasons why. Within the next week I hope to do a similar list for Blue and then Green/Black(or third rangers as I call it, since both colors are interchangeable really). I was just going to rank all of the Red Rangers, but I’m sure nobody wanted to see me write paragraphs on why Nick, Troy, Cole and Jayden are awful Reds. By the end of the month I hope to do top 10s for each ranger color including Sixth rangers. Hope you all have a nice day and remember, I have an obsession with lists(it can’t be helped, you’ll be seeing more of it).

Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Why I love and hate it

Once again, another title that has big balls in the fandom. If you were to tell the me of 8 or so years ago(when I started getting involved in the power rangers fandom) that Lost Galaxy was the most overrated season of the show, I’d laugh you out of the building and call you a filthy troll, you obviously have shit taste(Apparently I still do) but here we are. There’s lots of seasons that get love, like Lost Galaxy, In Space, Time Force, Dino Thunder, RPM, recently Lightspeed Rescue, Ninja Storm and SPD(which wasn’t much of a thing back then, trust me on that), lots of seasons that get hate, like Turbo, Wild Force, Operation Overdrive, Mystic Force(I’ll get to this one someday, maybe next time), Samurai and Megaforce. Lost Galaxy is a bit of anomaly, and one that is bound to get me hanged by the Power Rangers fandom, but I’ve laid my cross to bear here, I think Lost Galaxy is one of the most confusing and wasted potential seasons in all of Power Rangers, and thankfully many of its faults come from behind the scenes aspects to it. 

It kind of reminds me of SPD in that regard, but while SPD had great acting and likeable main characters, Lost Galaxy’s main characters are only decently acted with them being meh in terms of likeability- Leo is way more angsty than Andros(which is an impressive feat), Kai is probably the most complete character on the team and is my fave of the LG team, Damon is funny but not much else, Kendrix is smart and nice, and her sacrifice is cool and all, but it’s not like she was beloved(especially by me), she kind of hung in the background and didn’t do a whole lot. There were plans for her and Leo to be an item but they never materialized due to Valerie Vernon getting Leukemia. Maya has no character development, she’s literally just there to talk to the Galactabeasts, and aside from getting ghost visions from Kendrix offers little to the plot outside of a connection to Mirinoi. I wish we would have gotten more from her in terms of her empathy and ability to communicate with the wild but it doesn’t add much to the series. It’s not like the Wild Zords in Wild Force where the Galactabeasts add to the story, they’re pretty much only sentient because of Sentai Footage, they never actually do much with that sentience. Mike is ok at best but he’s kind of a flat character and really doesn’t have much personality, and he’s pretty much forgotten about in the second half of LG(especially after they get the Centaurus and Stratoforce Megazord, the Torozord only makes about 3-4 appearances afterwards, and as such Mike is hardly a factor until the penultimate episode, which was pretty good). 

The strongest character was probably Magna Defender himself, before he gave the power to Mike. Within 7 episodes, he was able to tell an effective story and tragedy and revenge, with his inevitable redemption, the true hardest death in LG, Redemption Day, and helped elevate one of Power Rangers’ worst storylines to ok/above average. Let’s talk about that storyline. 

The Lights of Orion arc should have either been skipped outright or just done on a single planet, not on a giant transplanted space colony. It makes no sense why the lights of orion are randomly on Terra Venture(or why it goes back to Terra Venture after leaving). They could have at least heavily downplayed it. Its really hard to call it an arc, as even in Gingaman, it has a ton of filler. Outside of the first episode, the bits of Magna Defender, and the last episode, all of the episodes have a very predictable formula that got old right before Magna Defender came on. Episode 6 is a deception plan that involved Scorpius’ general Furio, and his daughter Trakeena creating a fake Mike to lure Leo to taking them to the Lights of Orion, Furio’s way of redeeming himself in Scorpius’ eyes. Leo predictably gets to a box in a cave where fake Mike betrays him, stealing the box and revealing his monster form, only to find out that the lights aren’t in the box. 

2 filler episodes later of the exact same plot(though Blue Crush is a pretty decent Kai episode), we get Episode 9, The Magna Defender. After Scorpius gives Furio 2 more one more chances(a huge writing problem with these episodes considering Scorpius said he had one more chance back in the end of episode 6), Furio goes back to the cave where fake Mike followed Leo, and him and Leo(who’s searching for Mike), have one final duel, and Furio, losing, realizes that if he can’t beat Leo, he’ll blow himself up to kill him for all the trouble he’s caused him. Leo barely survives the blast but a tall knightly figure in black armor and bull horns takes him to the rangers, not uttering a word. We get standard Lights of Orion faire until Defender shows up and tries taking the rock Leo found in the cave from Kendrix, and after Leo asks him who he is, he punches him, almost causing a fight as the monster flees with the rock. Cue boring fight scenes until Magna Defender shows up. After destroying an army of Stingwingers with his cool ass weapons, he cuts the rock that everyone was trying to break open, only for there to be no lights, as the monster gets destroyed single handedly by MD. We also get backstory between Treacheron and Magna Defender, which sadly never comes up again in the series(since as a Gingaman translated plotline otherwise, Budoh had little to no interest in Bullblack, and actually beat Bullblack in their only confrontation in Gingaman), and Treacheron was the one that caused Magna Defender to be caught in the crevice on Mirinoi. He keeps the rangers at a distance, as he’s so focused on his goal to destroy Scorpius that he’ll often be in conflict with the Rangers protecting the Colony(such as in Sunflower Search, where his hatred for Fishface gets him to almost hurt civilians, and in Orion Rising, where he almost blew up the city dome trying to destroy the force field that Destruxo was putting up to suffocate the city and keep the lights from leaving, forcing a fight between the Galactibeasts and Defender Torozord). In Silent Sleep, in order to save the colony from a sleeping spell, Leo starts going after the Lights himself, and he gets confronted by MD, which starts a fight, but the lights turned out to not be there(did the writers of LG/Gingaman realize just how stupid and monotonous it was getting?) and he destroys the monster with his Torozord. Torozord is kind of cool but I can get why people hate it, its a bit on the bricky side. Throughout the arc, MD reveals his backstory about how he used to have a son named Zika, and when Scorpius invaded his planet, Scorpius and Fishface captured and later killed his son, in front of him. He was formerly a warrior for good who lost his way in his hatred, and for pretty good reason, and this causes genuine conflict for the rangers, especially Leo, as he can easily see the kind of pain that comes with losing a loved one. As the arc progresses, MD becomes more desperate in his tactics, such as the Forcefield incident, where despite out matching the Galactabeasts, traces of Mike inside of him begin to hurt him and he flees, gradually weakening over the course of several episodes. 

In Orion Returns, the other good episode of the arc, it’s a gigantic chase episode for the Lights, starting with a Skirmish between the Rangers Jet Jammers and the Stingwingers, before going to the forest dome(Still don’t know why the lights fled only to come right back to- oh yeah, Sentai footage, it’s just that the writers/director was too lazy to care about the stupidity of a power based entity coming back to the place it was running from). Detsruxo, MD and the Rangers spend most of the episode in pure Sentai Footage, MD getting ambushed by a fake Treacheron(Impostra, a monster sent by Trakeena to get revenge on Treacheron for underestimating her) and to retrieve the lights from Destruxo, who is loyal to a fault to Treacheron and easily to fool. We get a bit of Destruxo with the lights power, he annihilates the rangers and huge swathes of the forest, and the last 5 minutes of the Episode are honestly some of the most hyped moments of the season, probably even the whole series. Mind you the Lights of Orion arc has been pretty lackluster in terms of the actual lights of orion plot, the Magna Defender stuff has been interesting enough to not have it be Mystic Force or Operation Overdrive levels of bad plotting. Impostra backstabs Destruxo with the necklace she gave him just as he was about to destroy the rangers, and then gets blindsided by MD, who doesn’t want to hear their talking and then starts outfighting Detsruxo, which releases the lights, MD blasting at the rangers to get the lights, only for the lights to join with the rangers due to their willingness to try and destroy them to keep them from being used for evil. The music really helps this scene out immensely, as the triumphant beats and the use of the Theme Song add a ton of gravitas, as well as the actual design of the Lights of Orion probably being the best team wide power up in the franchise. They destroy Destruxo as MD realizes the lights are gone forever, with Treacheron thrown into the prison due to his perceived betrayal by Scorpius. He dies in the next episode where we see how the Galaxy Megazord gets a boost from the lights, and that more of Mike is filtering into MD as he stops him from just killing Trakeena (Scorpius took his only son, why not take his only daughter?), which leads to Trakeena beginning her arc of going from a spoiled princess into a Warrior Bug Queen, easily the best villain of LG and for going through said arc. Rangers kill Treacheron, yada yada, next episode, Redemption Day. 

The Scorpion Stinger runs out of fuel so it comes to Terra Venture to siphon fuel so they don’t freeze to death. When MD overhears the rangers discussing the power drain, he takes Torozord to try and attack Scorpius, willing to destroy the entire colony to have his revenge, since its so close to its grasp. I will make mention to Gingaman here though since there is a part to this scene that I liked in the Sentai more than the original- we see Torozord state that he just wants to go back to the good old days of fighting for good, and it gets Bullblack to think about it before going through with the plan. The rangers try to stop him, but its Torozord that kicks him out, since he refuses to sacrifice thousands of lives just to kill one. A monster stabs MD in the back and he gets severely weakened, Leo running off from the others to protect him. The two have a heart to heart about Mike and how his goodness is tearing MD apart from the inside, and he says that if Leo wants to see his brother again, he’ll have to destroy the MD. MD even tries attacking him to make it easy, but it’s clear MD can’t really fight and Leo refuses to kill him, as neither would Mike. Leo returns to the rangers, Lights of Orion, quick battle, dead, Scorpion Stinger pulls out just as the monsters spear gets thrown in the pit. This triggers explosions around the surrounding area as the rangers do their best to reach the core, but it keeps blasting them back. MD watches as the rangers agonize in pain and feels extremely guilty, but that he is too far gone for redemption, only to see Zika’s ghost as he convinces MD that he is still a warrior for good deep down, and that the best way to honor Zika’s memory is to save others at the cost of himself. MD offscreen releases Mike, then goes to the rangers and surrounds them in a forcefield as he goes up the mountain, being pushed to the brink of death, but not before one last scene of him and Zika, MD realizing how much goodness he still has, and thanks his son. When he reaches the top, steaming and his suit badly charred, he becomes a ball of light(we actually saw his body fall in the pit in Gingaman but whatever), causing the core to stabilize as it rains light, Leo picking up MD’s sword, wondering where Mike as Mike himself stumbles out of the nearby rocks and they have a very heartfelt embrace. Redemption Day is easily one of my five favorite episodes of Power Rangers, it still hits just as hard in 2018 as it did back in 1999 when I first watched it as a kid, the way MD’s arc managed to shine amongst a really crappy and plot hole laden storyline and how sympathetic he was. Unlike many characters of his ilk, he does realize the error of his ways, and even kills himself to undo the damage he caused, finally reuniting with his dead son and dying a hero. This is how you write a good character arc, and I kind of wish the Defender powers were for this arc alone since Mike as MD never reached the kind of depth or interest that MD himself had. Destined for Greatness is a pretty good Mike and Leo episode, but afterwards Mike was so thoroughly ignored(much moreso than Zhane) and the Gingaman footage so limited that its really hard to understand why they kept him as MD in Lost Galaxy. 

Stolen Beauty is a crappy episode with a decent ending about Trakeena needing to enter a cocoon to become more like an insect in order to get powerful, it features a Bulk and Phenomenous cameo, but it still makes me wonder all the more why the two were even brought back to begin with, they make 4 appearances out of 45 episodes. At least in Samurai Bulk got screen time most episodes.  The idea of a monster stealing Beauty yet it somehow being a Kendrix episode makes no sense, nothing gets explored about her. Rescue Mission however is amazing, it advances the story while also being a great all original footage episode that’s a huge homage to Alien. The Lost Galactabeasts 2 parter is pretty ok, it introduces Stratoforce and Centaurus, reveals more of the Galaxy Book that was discovered in the rescue mission, and it introduces Deviot, one of the most slimey bastards in PR history. Heir to the Throne shows not only Scorpius attacking the rangers due to Deviots deception, leading to his death after a fierce battle, but also Trakeena on her own on the Wild West planet of Onyx, where a young swordsman named Villamax offers to train her to become a powerful warrior, and it’s really entertaining. When she returns to her father dying, it’s actually a very sad moment, as Scorpius passes down his body to her in the form of the staff she wields, and he apologizes for keeping her sheltered. Honestly for some reason the best parts of LG aren’t even the rangers themselves, which is really a shame. An Evil Game, the following episode, shows Trakeena’s newfound strength first hand as she captures and later duels Duels Leo, believing he’s the one that killed her father. Deviot meanwhile, desperate to get that Cocoon, hires two assassins to kill Trakeena, to which she actually manages to defeat both with little difficulty, Deviot killing the last one before he could spill about who tried to kill her. This episode features the shirt rip that Leo obviously learned from Kirk. Anyway, Memories of Mirinoi is another meh episode after a string of fantastic episodes, it’s just Maya getting tricked by a monster about a friend she had on Mirinoi, not much else to it. Green Courage is an interesting idea for an episode, Damon forced to fix the Scorpion Stinger in exchange for their leading officer as a hostage bargain, but they didn’t do much with the premise, and the episode ends with a tacked on monster and zord battle. Blue to the Test is a great episode however, since it features Kai trusting his instincts more and more as he notices Stanton is acting off, as he’s being manipulated by an Ice monster, and Kai has to take command to try and keep Terra Venture from destroying itself. It’s just a great Kai episode, as he’s easily the most well developed of the Galaxy Rangers, kind of a Proto Sky. Mean Mantis on Wheels is a lousy one though, it’s just a racing episode where the girls get turned to trophies(HAHA!) and Leo is forced to race Mantis to get them back to normal, where we get introduced to the Capsular Cycle. Loyax’ Last Battle is a pretty good one, its the seasons requisite monster isn’t bad and has backstory but is still kind of bad. Notacon more or less but by choice he became evil. The ending shot is nice and the episode is just good, not great, but there have definitely been worse stinkers this season. Red Romance is an episode that was apparently supposed to lead to a romantic subplot for Leo(once Kendrix’ actress was taken into chemotherapy) but it goes nowhere, and otherwise the episode is pretty bleh, nothing to write home about really. Chameliac Warrior is great on action and has the return of some badass In Space music to highlight whats to come. 

To the Tenth Power and The Power of Pink are highlights of the season, yes, but I think they aren’t the be all end all team-up everyone makes them out to be. Bringing the Psychos back was cool, and stuff like the fights were amazing, but compared to other team-ups like Thunderstorm and Reinforcements from the Future. I wish the In Space cast got more screen time and that we had more than just Andros for most of Part 1, since Part 2 is primarily focused on the pinks. Still great for what it is, and it set the bar, at least its way better than Trakeena’s Revenge in LR. I’m just gonna say it though, people blow Kendrix’ sacrifice way out of proportion, especially since, on this rewatched, I noticed how ignored and irrelevant she became by this point. The reason why it happened behind the scenes is pretty sad, though at least Valerie Vernon has since then recovered and is now Leukemia free. Protect the Quasar Saber, which follows the Teamup, is a goose chase between the LG team, Trakeena’s forces, and Karone to get the Pink Quasar Saber, which ultimately goes to Karone, who wants to redeem herself from her past as Astronema. Thankfully this retrieval arc doesn’t go on for 7 episodes or get repetitive(I’m still fucking pissed about that arc), and we get Karone in pink by the end of the episode, complete with the cuteness of her not knowing how to call her Galactabeast. Facing the Past, the battlizer episode, features Karone having to take Leo to a special cave to get a weapon capable of defeating a monster that fries their morphers. It turns out the warrior holding the keys to the weapon is frozen in place, caused by Astronema in her past. When she arrives, the warrior yells at her, before having her fight Astronema. Despite her best efforts, she can’t beat her old half in a fight(should have kept the staff) and surrenders when Astronema threatens to kill an injured Leo, which deems her and Leo worthy of the Key, which saves the day in easily the worst looking of the Battlizer suits, I mean look at the damn thing. One of the better origins for the battlizer, and its nice to see Karone finally putting her demons to rest. I hope you liked this little bit of her character because she’s going to become irrelevant again starting next episode, one of the biggest slaps in the face for one of PR’s most well developed characters I say. 

Turn Up the Volume is not a good transition from one story arc to the other, as its just a stupid episode where Damon has to be nice and save a guy who stole his engineering plans for a potential promotion. I’m not gonna feel bad for the guy he’s saving, he honestly deserves all that he gets, Damon was way too nice in this episode. Enter the Lost Galaxy is the beginning of the next arc, and boy is it slow. Kai starts recanting from the Galaxy Book, which has them enter into the Lost Galaxy(the series namesake) alongside an old warrior who guarded the book. So what is this treacherous new terrain that will challenge our heroes in ways that the previous Galaxy didn’t? Just more pirates and more sentai footage really. Deviot takes the book and gains flesh with its magic, growing and fighting all but the Torozord(why of course) in the fight. We meet Captain Mutiny in the next episode and his crew, including the Swabbies, and even Deviot joins their ranks(for no reason other than Sentai footage, it makes 0 sense for his character since he’s trying to get in Trakeena’s good grace- I’m gonna stop now before this takes an eternity. But yeah Mutiny offers to help Terra Venture(the guy who rides on a giant dinosaur with a castle on its back), but it’s a trap as they plan to enslave the colony. Rangers find out, monster fight, Deviot comes back as a robot, bigger monster comes in, rangers need all the zords to take it down, you pretty much have Beware the Mutiny and Grunchor on the Loose pretty much summarized, it’s that simple and boring. This arc is literally like 50% sentai footage and it doesn’t fit at all, we get no Trakeena until the last episode of the arc. Episodes 38-40 are standalones(the little Hexuba “arc” isn’t anything to write home about, nothing really interesting about them at all) and Episode 41, Raise the Titanosaur, features the best Mech fights of the season, so I have nothing to complain about. Escape the Lost Galaxy, the final episode before the finale, was a pretty decent one. We see Mike go into the slave camp to try and start a revolt to free the slaves, and later on as the only portal to the regular Galaxy is opened, Mike sacrifices himself and the Torozord to hold the portal long enough for Terra Venture to get through. Leo goes to get Mike, whose morpher is destroyed, as he’s unconscious in space. MD says that Mike was a great Magna Defender as they fade away. The final 3 episodes, Journeys End, is easily the darkest finale in all of power rangers, as it features a Deviot fused Trakeena using her own army as suicide bombers against the Colony, as she starts attacking Terra Ventures engines(which have slowly been getting damaged as they spent time in the Lost Galaxy), which turns even Villamax off, but his indecision gets him killed. Eventually the rangers are forced to sacrifice the Megaship to blow up the Scorpion Stinger, which hits quite hard since its the same Megaship from In Space. Trakeena, in the wreckage of her ship, enters the cocoon to get her full metamorphosis. The final episode is a huge battle as the remnants of Terra Venture arrive on Mirinoi and the City Dome is set to collide with the Colonists on Mirinoi by Trakeena. It’s a fierce fight between her and the rangers, especially between her and Leo, as Leo is forced to blow up his own battlizer in order to fully defeat her(too bad he couldn’t completely finish the job) and the Galaxy Megazord stops the City Dome in time for it to throw it to the side, sparing the Colonists as they begin to build a new home on Mirinoi. The rangers return the Quasar Sabers as Kendrix comes back, somehow(this is never explained, at least you could sort of say Karone was just healed by the Z Wave, this makes 0 sense but hey its nice to see a recovering Val from chemo). The ending is a bit too happy for my taste, and it brings down an otherwise solid 3 part finale, I just wish they had kept Kendrix dead, maybe it would make her death more impactful on the rewatch. 

Lost Galaxy as I hope I’ve shown in my critique is a good series with great antagonists and decent to okay good guys, which I think is LG’s crippling flaw, the other one being just how diametrically opposed to space Gingaman’s entire show and premise was, it was a really bad idea to set the series on a Space Colony, especially when it came to the Lights of Orion arc, which at least kind of makes sense in Gingaman since it happens on Earth. It took a very good Anti Heroic character like Magna Defender to keep the arc from being Overdrive or Megaforce levels of bad. The showrunners, feeling beholden to the footage(can’t blame them, it would have been harder to adapt around the whole arc), still somehow managed to have the show behind schedule, despite these episodes being more or less very faithful to the Gingaman episodes, and even having an episode delay because the episode itself wasn’t even finished filming by the time it set to air(I believe the episode was either Sunflower Search or Orion Rising, it’s probably the latter). The Lost Galaxy arc, a boring slog through 7 episodes worth of raw sentai footage and plots that had no business being in the season(it’s essentially 7 filler episodes trying to save money for the finale) and the villains introduced were pretty boring and onenote, despite being pirates. These were apparently the biggest threat the epic Lost Galaxy in the title could muster, it just feels so disappointing. One interview did give me a lot of context for this critique though, and I highly recommend every PR fan check out this interview. LG was a total shit show behind the scenes, and this interview puts everything into perspective, specifically Judd Lynn and his time working on PR’s golden years. https://deriksmith.livejournal.com/4099.html

Don’t think for a second that I hate Lost Galaxy. I love Lost Galaxy, I have since I was a kid, it was probably one of the most ambitious seasons of PR from the start, it kind of reminds me of SPD in that regard. Both series had a very large budget that their shows used well, for the most part(looking at you Sam). While SPD’s story went nowhere once the middle part happened, it was generally more consistent than LG. LG is a series of great highs and some disgusting lows, and whether it was the stupidity, repetitiveness, and overall pointlessness of all the Lights of Orion episodes, or the utter bore of most of the Lost Galaxy episodes, especially given the lofty goals Judd Lynn had set out for the Lost Galaxy, LG has one of the most compelling villain stories in PR, third only to Astronema and Ransik, a young, spoiled Princess named Trakeena who was able to basically destroy a Space Colony and get over her vanity to become a nigh invincible insect queen, the girl who trained to get stronger and did what she could to get revenge on the murder of her father, and finally descending into madness due to being unwillingly fused with Deviot. Villamax wasn’t bad either, though he kind of came off as Ecliptor lite a lot of the time(still way better than guys like Koragg though *shudders*, one day I’ll come back to Mystic Force), he was still likeable. Deviot was just as crafty as Darkonda was, and he looks pretty cool on top of everything else. At least for the LG rangers I didn’t really hate anyone, its just that I was indifferent to Mike, Kendrix, Maya, Sadly Karone(due to how she essentially became a suit filler once her two parter was done) and Leo to an extent. I still think SPD has better main characters. Both series suffered when they tried to be faithful to their source material(especially LG) and overall they are both series I love, but have major flaws. I really enjoy these seasons, and I hope you do too, I just wish I didn’t have these nagging thoughts in my head as I rewatch these seasons. It’s the price to pay as an internet reviewer I guess. Enjoy your day guys. 

Why Sky Tate is the best Blue Ranger

Ok, with a title like that, you know I have some big balls. Sky Tate from SPD is probably the most underrated complex character that PR has ever made, and its sad how most people I know of dismiss him. To me, he was the best thing about SPD(aside from Bridge) and was the only character who truly went through an arc over the course of the season, which is kind of a shame. SPD might just be my most divisive season alongside Dino Charge for several reasons. SPD probably has parts and parcel the best cast that isn’t RPM or Time Force, the way they can carry episodes and mesh well together really helps me overlook the shows pitfalls, of which there are unfortunately several- the overall plotline of the show drags more than it should with its episodic nature, the villains themselves are boring and lack depth(there was potential for Mara but was wasted), the rangers themselves, again, aside from Sky, have no development(there is an argument for Jack and Syd but overall they aren’t that different other than Jack not wanting to steal anymore to help  the poor and Syd likes the robot dog more). Bridge, despite his great humor and quirky nature remains pretty much the same the whole way out, which I can’t complain too much about since his initial character is really good, and Z, well, Z got nothing after Sam, so she just joins the list of cool idea but undercooked yellow rangers that’s a pretty long and sad list really- (Summer, Lily, Kira, Katie, Aisha, Emily, Gia, and Trini), where she honestly ranks low because, while her actress does her best with the material, there just isn’t much to Z and her relationship to Jack goes on the backburner for Sky and Jacks rivalry.

The side characters were great though- Kat was a good technical support for the team, Boom was fun(Kelson Henderson is usually good in his roles) and Doggie is probably among my favorite mentors. Unfortunately, SPD has the worst Sixth Ranger of all time, Omega Ranger, the future version of Sam, a child with special powers like the other SPD rangers and formed a bond with Z due to their similar background(who the show BRUTALLY underused, especially since nothing was ever done with Omega Ranger since he was relegated to a big ball of light, and we never see kid Sam around the HQ, and the only appearance we have of adult Sam is when we see him going back to his time with Nova Ranger. You had this great idea of a Sixth Ranger, and he pretty much only exists to show Dekaranger footage that they couldn’t just cut out). The shows effects were top notch, save for the really obnoxious Kalish Explosions. The Battlizer, aside from the initial form, which is just a codpiece and a sword, is pretty cool, but it gets neglected entirely once the team gets Swat Powers in the very next episode (way to blow a great design guys). In general, the season nose dives after Shadow, picks back up for Reflections, then stumbles its way to the finale, which is pretty decent. I could probably do a whole blog post of all of SPD’s shortcomings, but only because its probably the season I like most in spite of having a lot of flaws that I normally would hate a season for. Again, it comes down to the cast, and the strongest member of that cast was easily Sky Tate. Sorry if it sounded like I was rambling, lets get on with the topic.

Schuyler “Sky” Tate is the Blue SPD ranger. When he was younger, his father was the SPD red ranger, and he wanted more than anything to be just like his dad, his hero. His father died on duty when he was younger, which inspired Sky to push harder than anyone to be the Red Ranger. When we first meet him in SPD he was the leader of the B Squad, the second string of cadets just below the A-Squad, and he doesn’t have the highest opinion of his teammates. He follows code to a fault, he wastes no time in elevating himself over his teammates, and he is quick to bicker with his two teammates Syd and Bridge. As we’ll learn, Bridge is weird but brilliant and Syd can be a bit of a spoiled airhead. However, when their Commander, Cruger, wants to send them out on a mission to capture thieves in the shopping district, he takes Sky back for a minute to talk. “Cadet, if I was to assign Bridge as Red Ranger, would you follow him into battle?” “Sir, no offense to Bridge, but....” “What if I was to promote Syd as Red Ranger?” “Sir, she’s a girl.” So yeah, aside from being a sexist dick, Sky shows elitism and believes that simply having the dream of being Red Ranger and making it known to everyone will just get him what he wants most. Since this series specifies that Red is the leader arbitrarily, we can see why Sky wasn’t gonna be chosen off the bat. When given their morphers and a chance of fighting the thieves again, Jack and Z, they do much better with their special abilities, Sky being force fields. When one of Grumms Blueheads attacks the B Squad, Jack and Z decide to help them, Z hesitant. When Sky morphs into the Blue Ranger, he gets confused as why he isn’t the Red Ranger, he assumed from his talk with Cruger that he was guaranteed the spot. After fighting the enemies off, Jack and Z get put in prison instead of a containment card. Cruger offers both a chance at becoming a part of something bigger rather than staying in Prison, which Z agrees to while Jack doesn’t. When Z is given a spot on B Squad, Sky objects. When Cruger tells him that she was a worthy opponent, he shuts up. Heck, when shes out with them on patrol, she brings up a street contact that could help them with the alien device, even showing off her knowledge of the ranger handbook. When the rangers fail to beat the Bluehead(and Jack shows off more of his heroic side by saving Boom over leaving the Delta Base when he was given the opportunity) he agrees to become Red to save Z. The fact that Jack is Red angers Sky to no end, here’s the criminal that initially refused to even join SPD, and now he gets designated as leader eats up the guy whose been working his whole life to get there. But thats what holds Sky back- his entitlement issues and his ego- he always has to be right and as such pushes his teammates away. This is clearly seen in Episode 4, Walls, where after he gets fed up with Jack being a glory hog, his ego gets bruised to the point where he gets put on guard duty for some special diamonds that Grumm is after. After Sid calls him out on his douchey behavior, Sky decides to try and one up Jack by saving the team and leaving the diamonds unguarded, which gets Grumm a huge amount of resources for his master plan. Sky gets chewed out by Cruger for his very selfish behavior and Sky finally starts playing lightball with the others.

Sky’s arc of opening up to others and being less prideful is given an interesting turn in Episode 9, Idol, where one of Sky’s old buddies from the Academy gets found in an Alien spacecraft that crashes on Earth. We learn that Sky used to be fun loving but ever since Dru left the academy Sky became more cold and probably decided not to make friends so that he wouldn’t feel that kind of abandonment. I mean hell, Sky and Dru had bracelets from Dru’s home planet as symbols of their friendship. Sky wholeheartedly trusts Dru while Jack has command of SPD(due to Cruger going to higher command) and Jack doesn’t trust Dru at all, and tries to enact protocol to make sure he’s legit, which Sky intentionally disobeys to try and protect his friend, whom he’s convinced is innocent, but his trust gets shattered when Dru attacks Cruger upon his return. Sky confronts him, and Dru reveals that Broodwing gave him a very good deal for assassinating Cruger, and he tells Sky that money and power are what are really important, and as he beats down Sky, he breaks their friendship bracelet. With Cruger in the infirmary, Sky takes it upon himself to hunt down Dru since he such a naive fool. He cared about Dru that much that he went against regulation to save him just to be played for a fool. Sky ends up taking him in as he gets punished for his actions by having to clean the entrance with a toothbrush, Jack wanting to help but Sky laughing, saying he’s using Jack’s toothbrush. It’s a good bookend, with Sky having to learn to trust Jack’s judgment beyond face value, and its good to show that the usually stoic and loner Sky once had a deep bond with somebody who went bad. It teaches Sky that nothing is as it seems on two fronts- Jack and Dru. It may not seem like nothing more than an above average fillerish episode, but its secretly a brilliant Sky episode.

Sky kind of remains the same for a while until we get to Reflections, the best episodes of SPD and the peak of Sky’s arc as a character. It’s also the introduction of the Battlizer, but that parts not nearly as important(to me anyway, until it pertains to Sky). So Kat develops a new Battlizer but Sky is pissed when he hears only Red can wear it(trust me Sky, you don’t want to be seen in Cyber mode, it looks like garbage) and he then explains his past to Jack when Jack tries to talk to him, and while Sky is pissed, Jack begins to understand Sky’s way of thinking more, and why he acts the way he does. The first part of the 2 parter is pretty weak, only an excuse to show off the flashy battlizer, though it’s the ending that really brings it in. Sky is sent to interview a criminal named Mirloc who can escape through any reflective surface. While at first Sky is able to maintain his cool as a cop, once Mirloc learns of who he is, he uses the fact that he murdered Sky’s father, the former Red Ranger, to get Sky to cry, which gives him a reflective surface to escape from. This destroys Sky, as he once again let his feelings jeopardize the mission, and he considers quitting the team, which Jack immediately objects to.

When Mirloc shows up again, he has the other four rangers trapped, but Jack, understanding that Sky needs closure, gives him the SPD Red Ranger morpher to bring him in with the Battlizer. This is more than enough to contain Mirloc. It’s here that Sky learns that, as Jack points out, heroes come in all colors. Sky’s arc really plateaus here, as he’s seen being the less prideful and arrogant but still stoic and serious member of the team, the clear second in command that respects Jack, enough to where, in a future episode, in order to try and destroy a meteor, Jack orders Sky to leave as Jack goes in to blow it up, almost seeming to destroy himself. Jack comes in at the last second to help all three other megazords finish off the powerful monster. Other than that, Sky remains the same until the ending scene of SPD, where Cruger announces that since Jack is leaving SPD(to go give clothes to the homeless with his girlfriend Allie), that he will need a new Red Ranger to lead. “Sky, if I was to promote Syd as Red Ranger, would you follow her into battle?” “Sir, I would follow anyone into battle that you thought capable of leading.” “Congratulations Cadet, you’ve been promoted to Red Ranger.” Leans in to whisper to Sky “Your father would be proud.” The season ends with the rangers visiting Jack at his work as they chat a bit, until a crime is committed as the rangers head into action, credits roll.

As I’ve stated before, no character in SPD grows like Sky does, not even close, and it’s a shame since if every character in SPD had the same level of depth that Sky does, SPD would easily be the best season, with the highest production values of the Disney era, probably the best actors aside from RPM from the Disney Era, and huge well of neat ideas that unfortunately the show wasted. Reflections Part 2 was amazing because it was a fantastic almost purely American episode amidst an entire sea of Sentai Ripoff episodes that occurred with Shadow onwards. While not horrendous or unwatchable, there was a clear shift towards the show relying more and more on stock footage and sentai plots since Grumm kind of falls into the background between Dismissed and Rival, and they have Broodwing for almost no reason start turning on Grumm(it makes no sense, has a contrived reason like Grumm stopped paying him or something, which is stupid of Grumm, and he just leads the plots for those 16 episodes and the first half of the finale). According to Kalish, he said that he was paid to translate, not tell original stories, which contradicts the work he did in the first 10 episodes of the season, and his switching to a more translation based adaptation caused the seasons plot to lag in the middle, the worst Sixth Ranger in the franchise and some of the weakest team ups notwithstanding.

I really like SPD for the really good things it did, but it got really lazy and started wasting many of its excellent ideas, and the characterization suffered as only Sky and Jack had any sort of meat to them as characters, everyone else hugely suffered, even Bridge who pretty much remained the same throughout the show, a huge shame since I liked all the actors for this season. Greg Aronowitz(the guy who created the costumes for SPD, like Cruger and his Wife Isinia, who was made during his downtime as the season progressed) definitely deserved a better showrunner than Kalish. In conclusion, as the first 10 episodes and Reflections, and even Endings showed, when it wanted to be different from Dekaranger SPD could be amazing, but when it did copy Dekaranger, the season suffered. You can do a good job directly adapting Sentai Seasons/Arcs- Psycho Ranger arc and Time Force come to mind, but PR usually works better when it does its own thing, like Dino Thunder, RPM, Ninja Storm, and In Space. Its why aside from Dino Charge(S1) I think Neo Saban is the worst era. I’m sorry if this is coming off like I hate SPD, I like it a lot, I just wanted it to be more than what it was, and what it very easily could have been. So yeah, Sky rocks, and so does Billy and TJ in terms of blue, imo.