History of the Power Rangers: Space part 2

When we last left our heroes, the former Turbo Rangers met a Space Ranger named Andro, who agreed to work with them to find Zordon. Andro is also searching for his sister who turns out to be Astronema, servant of Dark Specter, who has formed all of the Power Rangers old enemies together (not that the Machine Empire really do much in this series, and Zedd and Rita are only there to be there). After it is revealed to Astronema that she is in fact Karone, she decided to switch side and get to know the brother she never knew. However, she is recaptured by the forces of evil and reprogrammed with cybernetics to become evil again.

Dark Specter may actually come to regret this. I’ll let Lewis take over from here.

Hey, the usual WordPress embed code worked this time, but Cin Wicked‘s trick to get the player on the screen instead of the above logo still didn’t. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Still, we have full screen, so let’s move on.

• The Psycho Rangers. I don’t think anyone before or since have given the Power Rangers this much hardship. Really, the arc is so massive that it practically deserves it’s own review, as Lewis really couldn’t do it justice as part of the whole series. My favorite part is when the Psychos start stalking the Rangers by homing in on their communicators and then their voices. The former is actually dealt with by using a kids toy that happens to replicate the communicator’s new beeping noise, but otherwise you really got a feel for just how evil the Psychos are and were it not for their obsession with their counterpart might have actually won. It’s my favorite arc of the series, if not the franchise.
• I rather enjoy the episodes where the sidekick character, in this case Alpha 6, gets a chance to take on the bad guy. While in this case Alpha doesn’t succeed in stopping Ecliptor from getting the information he wanted, it proves that he is in fact a part of the Ranger team (although in this season Alpha does quite a lot, since he pretty much has to stand in for Zordon as the mentor character and maintain the ship and gear, thus making him Billy as well) and can hold his own, even if does need DECA’s help. A lot of shows do this. Heck, one episode of She-Ra: Princess of Power did this with the character Loo-kee, who pretty much existed to play hide-and-seek with the audience. (This was the only time he even interacted with the cast or did anything besides give the moral lesson of the episode.) It’s cliché, but I still enjoy them.
• If I could, I would make a clip of the part where Lewis talks about Bulk & Skull’s evolution. I know they were his favorite part of the series and all, but he’s right. It’s like watching R2D2 and C-3PO evolve in the Star Wars franchise (and why I enjoyed the Droids cartoon, regardless of what other people may think). It’s too bad that they devolve slightly in their appearance in the Wild Force episode “Forever Red”, not to the bully level but as I’m betting you’ll see, the way they seem like fanboys around Tommy.
• The final battle. While the end of Turbo set up the “destroy Rangers’ headquarters” theme that most of the Power Rangers finales had, this set up the “ultimate battle” theme. Rangers down, wondering if evil has finally one, then coming back because they are the heroes they are. None of them have done it as well as Power Rangers in Space, although RPM does have it’s one “final episode of the franchise” vibe to it. Then again, they went the Terminator route.
• You’ll have to hunt down the final battle yourself on YouTube (or cheat and go here), because I really want you to watch this show, but you have to see this moment in it’s entirety. The point where not just Bulk and Skull, but all the citizens of Angel Grove finally stood up against a menace instead of letting six teenagers and a handful of robots handle things. Which nobody seems to want to let me embed. So you’ll have to go here and ask yourself why Phenomenous gets to be the Red Ranger? Still, the scene kind of makes my eyes water.
• I’m also going with Lewis’ idea that Astronema being restored as Karone is the delayed result of the Z-Wave.
• My theory in the “who didn’t get destroyed” department is that Rita and Divatox both appeared human (see yesterday’s post) and thus it didn’t feel right to someone in the higher ups that they get destroyed. As for Zedd, how would Rita feel about losing her husband? 🙂 I’ve got nothing on the dancing, though.

I can see how this series brought the franchise back. It was very well done, with great characters, higher stakes, heroes actually getting hurt, and more depth than any series before it, even Zeo. I wish I had more time in my life because the way Lewis sells this series I want to go back and watch my old videotapes of this series. However, I have a huge stack of DVD’s I haven’t seen yet, my DVR box is filling up, and there are a bunch of web series I still haven’t caught up on. Still, if you have the opportunity to catch this series, even if you’ve never seen Power Rangers before, this is probably the best place to start.

Next time Lewis goes galactic with Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy, where Rangers die until they get better. Kind of like in the Marvel and DC universes, but done right. Of course, you can bypass me and watch all the episodes (he just finished his review of Lightspeed Rescue) over at Atop the Fourth Wall.