Power Rangers Dino Super Charge: Recipe For Disaster Review

This Power Rangers Dino Super Charge review contains spoilers.

Power Rangers Dino Super Charge Episode 13

Ah, so there’s the plot. Power Rangers Dino Super Charge has been treading water ever since Tyler found his dad. Oh sure, we got little pieces here and there but by and large it was mostly filler city. Some of the episodes were good, but I was waiting for these plots to finally start paying off.

And they do! We just have to get through the making of a pavlova to do it. Look, I don’t mind the wacky b-story about Chase having to make a famous New Zealand recipe. In fact, I think that would have been a great little stand-alone episode. Just picture it; the Rangers have to keep making this dish over and over, desperately trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. Chase feels if he can’t get this right, he’s losing a part of his heritage. They also have to deal with a snippy Yelp style food critic. It’d be a total MMPR style episode. 

Instead it’s shoved into a plot heavy episode. In fact, picture this b-plot as the Energem and the arrival of Lord Arcanon as the pavlova recipe. If they had just left the recipe alone, it would have been fine but the b-plot/Energem was dropped in and it just messes it all up. That analogy was kind of messy actually, but I’m going to run with it.

The b-plot integration, where Chase realizes they have to form a new combination, really could have come from anywhere else. Hell, Power Rangers has done it before. Their old combinations aren’t working so they need a new one! It’s that simple. We don’t need a wacky b-plot to justify it. 

Not to say the A-plot isn’t messy itself. On the surface this is an amazing idea. Heckyl has a monster zord he can pilot! The new big bad can control the Rangers zords!  This is some Clash of the Megazords style goodness and it repurposes the Sentai footage in a really unique way.

The problem is how it plays out. Heckyl beats Lord Arcanon, Singe, and Doomwing back once. Okay, that’s fine. It shows Heckyl is still a formidable threat. Then he beats the new villains back again. Lord Arcanon and The Boys (new boy band, amirite?) are just kinda like, “Okay welp that didn’t work see ya later BAIIIIII!”

These are supposed to be the new big bads. The guys who come in and total change the status quo. To have them get totally curb stomped their first run out completely undercuts the threat. They only win because the Rangers end up doing all the work for them. So if the Rangers can beat Heckyl while they cant, why should we consider them a major threat? Because they can control the zords?

If that becomes a recurring problem they have to fight against, fair enough. I have the sinking feeling however we’ll get a one-sentence throwaway that Kendall was able to block them doing it again. We’ll see next week.

Another major problem is the info dumping. They couldn’t have spread some of this around the last six or so stand alone episodes? I love the concept of Heckyl being nothing more than a tool for Lord Arcanon. I love that Sledge was working for him and that Lord Arcanon has come to collect the bounties. I mean yes, it again raises the question what he was doing for sixty five million years, but it’s apparent Dino Charge doesn’t care about addressing that time span.

What could have been a cool status quo breaking episode instead plays it safe. Yes, the Rangers are now concerned about the Silver Ranger giving away their technology. But they still have their zords. Nothing big has changed, besides Lord Arcanon becoming the big bad. We’ve only got a handful of episodes left until the finale. Start raising the stakes!

Weirdly, if I had to pick which part of the episode I liked the most it would be the wacky cooking story. I had such a big smile on my face when all the Rangers ducked for cover at the end. While Dino Charge is pretty evenly hit or miss when it comes to it’s plot development, its characters are normally spot on.

Let’s just hope they start getting to do something soon.

Stray Thoughts

– Sentai 6. Ah yes, I’m sure that’s a little reference for hardcore fans. Nice.

 – “Trust your kiwi ingenuity.” And trust we will get all the tax credits for this.

 – If you were watching this episode live, the official Power Rangers twitter account was tweeting images from about five minutes ahead in the episode. Spoilers, people!

– Heckyl wearing his goggles in the zord made me smile so hard.