Power Rangers Dino Charge: No Matter How You Slice it Review

This Power Rangers Dino Charge review contains spoilers.

Power Rangers Dino Charge Episode 16

I really didn’t care for this week’s episode. Let’s just put that out front. Was it bad? No. It had some fun moments but it was just so boring. I kept checking the time to see how much more I had to watch. This isn’t normally the case with Dino Charge. I do like the season. But this one… Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

The main premise of this episode is that four of the Rangers’ bonds of friendship are cut by the monster of the week. Okay, that’s pretty standard Power Rangers. The problem here is that by cutting the friendships between Tyler, Chase, Shelby, and Ivan all four just give up on being Rangers. They shouldn’t want to give up on fighting just because they aren’t friends any more. If anything, the ensuing fight where they all would refuse to work together would cause more problems. Instead we get all the Rangers just being jerks while Riley, Koda, and Kendall try to repair their friendship.

Back in “Knight After Knights” a similar problem happened to the Rangers where they lost their courage. In that outing, Keeper had to give the Rangers a pep talk and they were solid.  Here, we get Riley trying to fix the friendship with some team exercises but it fails. So Kendall just invents a new Dino Charger out of nowhere and it fixes the problem with little incident. It cheapens the resolution.

In “Knight After Knights” the guys all had to find their courage again and it was a struggle. The whole effort from Riley in this episode is wasted when they just had to blast them to fix everything. Keeper, your inspirational speech worked before. Do it again! Oh wait; Keeper is content just kind of hanging around. Dino Charge needs to hurry up and do something with that guy.

The plot about Riley wanting his Mom to call fell flat. Why isn’t she calling? It’s her son’s birthday! Even if they were all planning to surprise Riley later she still could have talked with him. I’ve never liked that trope where everyone just acts like a characters birthday isn’t happening so they can spring a surprise party. Newsflash, you have a surprise party and not totally ignore your friend. What a concept!

It’s fascinating that, because Koda sees all the Rangers as family, the monster can’t cut his friendship. After all, family is different than friendship. If anything you get the feeling this should have been a Koda focus since this deep connection he has with the Rangers could have been explored more. How do they feel about this deep connection he has? Do they find it a little creepy? Do they not mind? By putting the focus on Riley we lose this interesting plot and focus on wacky physical comedy instead.

Really, Riley doesn’t have much going for him. He’s smart and a good swordsman. He was apparently bullied when he was younger. This episode doesn’t give us that much more abut the guy. If anything, the focus on him creates a gigantic continuity problem.

Remember how when Riley left home in episode 2 he’d just be gone for the summer? At this point, everyone assumed the summer was long past. You know, with that whole Halloween thing happening. But nope, Riley’s Mom specifically mentions she can’t wait to see him at the end of summer. So… have all the events of the past season taken place over two months or so? That doesn’t track. Did they take place over a year? Are we into the NEXT summer? It makes no sense and has made Dino Charge succumb to the PRU’s ever present continuity errors.

The birthday in this episode also raises another issue. Remember back in episode 3 when it was revealed that by bonding the Energems the Rangers would never age? This hasn’t been mentioned since. If there was ever a time to bring it back up, you’d think a birthday would be it. Dino Charge is forming this habit of introducing things that seem important and then dropping them for long stretches of time. I’m all for set up but you feel like a lot of this just isn’t going anywhere. But hey, at least we’ll be getting the Purple Energem next week!

I will give the episode points for the Riley/Koda switch up they played on the monster. That was fun. It also reminds me how the Ranger should be allowed to wear different colors sometimes. But all the points came at the end. Keeper in that party hat. I saw it in the wideshot and chuckled a bit, but when they got to the close up? I spit all over my screen. No one even comments on how silly it works. He’s just wearing a party hat like it’s no big thing. That helped redeem the episode a bit, but not by much.

So far Dino Charge hasn’t had a flat out bad episode. This isn’t Megaforce levels or anything. But this was easily the weakest, even more than the clip show. Come on Dino Charge, you can do better.

Stray Thoughts 

– I love everything about Poisandra and Curio’s friendship. HAPPY HUGS FOR HAPPY FRIENDS.

– When are Sledge and Poisandrea going to get married? It’s been millions of years.

– Ivan is still the best thing to happen to Power Rangers since ever. His little mannerisms are perfect. 

– “I have better things to do.” LIKE SEARCH FOR MY DAD.

– Chase, never have your hat facing forwards.

– THEY SHOOT FRIENDSHIP BLASTS. THAT WAS A BLAST OF FRIENDSHIP.

-Curio is made of pillows!

Shamus Kelley liked “Happy Birthday, Zack” way better. Follow him in twitter!