Power Rangers Super Megaforce: In The Drivers Seat review

So for all of you, who aren’t in the know, back in 2011, the Power Rangers fandom was hit with a shocker. Power Rangers Samurai would be having an episode where they crossed over with RPM! Fans were enraged. Fears were high that the current production team would totally disregard the fan favorite season and turn RPM Red into a sloppy version of his Sentai counterpart. We feared this would completely collapse the universe of Power Rangers.

What we got was a better then expected team up episode that featured a magic car that needs to be repaired, Scott stealing a bike, and general silliness. Nothing amazing but not the apocalypse we thought it would be. Flash forward to 2014. A season that’s supposed to be one big tribute to the history of the franchise and…

No. I can’t do it. I can’t.  You’ve all heard it before. It could be better. It has everything handed to it on a silver platter and throws it away. It openly uses not only Sentai teams but Sentai terminology and morph scenes. It’s lazy. So let me question all the ways this episode makes no sense all on its own and maybe try and figure them out.

1: Is this the actual RPM dimension (RPM Prime if you will) or is it an alternate world? If it’s RPM Prime why does it look like it came straight out of F-Zero?

2: Why does Corinth look like F-Zero? I guess one could assume it’s only one part of Corinth but why build a random highway? Has it been that long after RPM they had time to build F-Zero land? I mean… I guess Terra Venture built a whole city in a year so it’s not totally impossible.

3: Where the hell are the RPM rangers? We know they’re still alive thanks to Clash, unless Professor Cog killed them all. But then… Gosei says Corinth has been at peace for years. So either Cog has been in hiding for years or he killed everyone in Corinth thus making it “peaceful.” But that can’t be because they’re in the Legendary Battle at the end of the season. WHERE ARE THEY?!

4: On that note, Gosei says Earth will be undefended if the Super Megaforce team leaves. Usually I wouldn’t care about lines like that, but in this season we’ve met past rangers! It’s questionable whether they still have their powers, but I think you’ll be okay for a few hours Gosei.

5: The Super Megaforce team is afraid they won’t be able to get back home after the portal is closed. Take the train Scott used in Clash!

6: Where are all the people in Corinth? All dead? Moved to Millennium City? WHO KNOWS?!?

7: Who sent the distress call to Gosei? We can sort of assume it’s Cog to lead the Rangers into a trap but then… How was he able to contact Gosei?

8: How can the Rangers breath the air in Corinth when it was such a big deal that Scott couldn’t breath Earth’s air?

9: Inset your own here because I’m sure I’ve missed some.

The purpose of that whole list proves how much work you need to do to make the episode make sense. I get leaving some things open to interpretation and not bogging the episode down with a ton of exposition. But this episode actively gives you nothing to work with. This is a mark of bad writing. This isn’t David Lynch or something where he intentionally leaves his films open to interpretation. This is just lazy.

I will give them some props, however. The episode has two really great moments even if one of them brings up another issue. First off, the villain on villain fight scene was great. Seeing Vekar and his troops fight against Cog was a treat and an uncommon case of villain on villain action in the series history. Plus we get more hilarity from Vekar who is quickly shooting to the top of my favorite villains of all time list.

The other is Emma and Orion in the crows next and Emma totally forgetting Orions whole planet died. It’s great to see the writers remembered the best episode of Super Megaforce so far and that Orion has some real emotion. But can we talk just a second about the fact they’re in a goddamn wormhole and treat it like an every day thing. This is one of the major flaws of Megaforce and Super Megaforce. Lack of character development or to put it in simpler terms, these characters don’t act like people. Emma isn’t in awe of being in wormhole where they can breath the air. She treats it like an everyday thing. Which would be fine, if we had EVER seen them act surprised by all of this insanity they experience on a day-to-day basis.

So this episode gets 1/5. I was ready to give it a zero but I just really love Prince Vekar.

Oh, and Gia wants to have sex with the Tubro Falcon zord. Prove me wrong.

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