Power Rangers Dino Super Charge: Trick or Trial Review

This Power Rangers Dino Super Charge review contains spoilers.

Power Rangers Dino Super Charge Episode 15

Man, this episode didn’t have a chance of making an impression. I’m sure when Chip Lynn and company just thought this episode would be a full little corporate mandated clip show. A great time to dress everyone up and have fun with the restrictions of the clip show format.

They had no idea the Power Rangers movie trailer would drop hours before. It’s not fair, is it? Not a single soul I follow who usually live tweets Power Rangers was watching this. They were too wrapped up in feelings about the movie. It’s understandable. The reason this review is coming later then it normally does it because I was so busy with our in-depth trailer analysis. The movie totally overshadowed the show.

Which is a sign of things to come. Dino Charge got through it fine. It had a nice debut and got to be the ‘good season’ after four years of a dumpster fire. Dino Super Charge has faired worse in terms of fan opinion, but it’s still more or less liked. Ninja Steel? Oh boy. Ninja Steel will have to step up its game if it’s going to compete with the hype of the movie. I mean jeez, the show will be debuting only a few weeks before the movie comes out. It’s going to get totally eclipsed. If the movie is as good as the trailer makes it seem? The show itself will seem a little antiquated. Sure it’ll be fine for the kids, but the longtime fans? Who knows if the show will be able to keep their attention anymore.

I know this sounds like a tangent, but it actually leads into a huge point about this episode. Chip Lynn and company have done an amazing job at making clip shows not suck. I mean come on, nearly every TV clip show ever is going to suck no matter what. They know this and just have fun it. The idea of a Halloween Intergalactic Court is so beautifully over the top it could only exist in the world of Power Rangers. What the episode does with the concept is fine. It has some funny jokes, especially Scumlaw’s lawyer commercial. But much like Power Rangers of… well the last ten years, I find myself wanting more. 

I think about how much this could have taken a clip show and really turned into a deep exploration of how the Power Rangers are viewed throughout the universe. I mean sure, the monsters are evil, I doubt we’d get something as morally complicated as the classic In Space episode Wasp With A Heart. But what if we got to see that maybe other aliens around the galaxy don’t look so kindly on the Power Rangers. They see them as bullies who impose their own beliefs and values onto these sometimes-desperate prisoner monsters.

That’s the thing of it. Just because these monsters were held in prison doesn’t make them necessarily evil. We saw with Halfbake that all he really wanted was to cook and be liked by the other monsters. Maybe some of the other monsters were arrested under false pretenses. Maybe after sixty five million years they’re driven mad and want to escape by any means necessary.

I imagine the court room clip show not being played so much for laughs but the Rangers realizing that maybe they were a little quick to engage sometimes. Maybe they need to try and reason with the monsters. I mean sure, it probably wouldn’t work, but you never know. Wild Force is not my favorite season, but I love when Cole tried to connect with the Org in episode two. It was one of the rare times the Rangers sought to find humanity in these monsters of the week. When one of the monsters in today’s episode accuses the Rangers of taking the law into their own hands? It’s a legit question and could have formed the backbone of this episode.

But instead, it’s all jokes. That’s fine, some of them land.  Scumlaw’s lackeys were hilarious and had a really great design to. 

“Let’s have a donut.”“But you don’t have a mouth.”

Or Scumlaw when he’s revealed to have stacked the jury.

“I can explain everything… I lied, I can’t explain anything.” Legit hilarious! 

This whole review isn’t me talking about Power Rangers being bad. For what it is? It’s fine. But it could be so much more. I hope that if the Power Rangers movie is good and if it does well? It will help the show try to do something more to perhaps bring in people who become fans of the movie. It certainly happened to the Transformers franchise with Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime. Those shows took Transformers in new and interesting directions, Prime especially. I’d love to see Power Rangers step up its game. Will it? 

Only time will tell. (Probably not.)

Stray Thoughts

– How is an ad running for sixty five million years?

– “Where’s your strike for malpractice?!” Oh Riley.

– Ivan was great friends with Shakespeare. Did they make out? I can see Shakespeare making out with Ivan.

– Fury making a pumpkin of himself. Genius.

– So uh… James and Philip calling the team Rangers in front of everyone in the Dino Bite was really careless of them.

 Shamus Kelley is sorry this episode review had to be thrown on the fire so he could about the current state of Power Rangers. Follow him on Twitter!