Where Star Trek has gone before: PRiS 9 - 12
The Craterite Invasion (Judd Lynn/Worth Keeter): Previously on Power Rangers in Space: Andros has a long-lost sister named Karone, they're still looking for Zordon too, and there's a lot of filler, some of which is really bad. And after my rant against Judd Lynn last episode, I'm happy to say that this episode made me eat crow.
Carlos and Cassie are packing up after their junior soccer team, where one of the kids, Patrick, tells tall tales to his friends on the team. He's scolded by his mother, who wipes away his professional-looking scar makeup, and even the police officer walking the beat by his house lectures him about crying wolf. Meanwhile, on the Megaship, TJ and Ashley are running a Craterite training simulation while Andros tries to gather data on a storm...for some reason. I'll let it go, honestly; the rest of the episode succeeds despite this weak explanation. Lightning strikes the Megaship multiple times, creating computer malfunctions that abruptly end the simulation. But the Craterites have come to life. Also, why has no one written any fics about what could have been brought to life by the simudeck being hit by a lightning strike? Or is it too Star Trek a premise? Anyway, the Craterites escape the Rangers and parachute down to Angel Grove, where Professor Phenomenous is all too happy to see an actual alien invasion. Patrick also sees something strange that night: People in his neighborhood are carrying off boxes that look suspiciously like coffins. Holy SHIT. That's dark. Though everything looks normal by morning, the Rangers decide to start out scanning for the Craterites in the middle of town and fan out from there, splitting up into teams.
Everything seems normal for Patrick too, until he goes to his next door neighbor for a ride to school. No one's home, which is weird because she's supposed to take him, but when he looks through the window, he sees Craterites in human clothing inside. The whole neighborhood is full of them...which is odd because isn't the whole point not to be conspicuous? I guess I can just blame this on Megaranger weirdness? Being smart, the kid runs to the police, but the officer's reflection shows another Craterite-they're not just dressing like humans; they're taking on human form too. The real officer is tied up in the back of his patrol car. Patrick is smart enough to back away and keep running. But none of the other kids at school believe him because he's pulled this kind of story on them all the time. And honestly? I love this episode. It's filler, but it's really good. It takes the classic tale of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and updates it in a Power Rangers setting and it works. Why? Because of the tone. I may have a laundry list of issues with Judd Lynn, but one thing I do really like from him is that he's good at suspense-"From Out of Nowhere," "Survival of the Silver," "The Rescue Mission"-all of those episodes used suspense to good effect, despite varying directors (Jonathan Tzachor for "From Out of Nowhere," Worth Keeter here and in "Survival of the Silver," Kamen Rider Dragon Knight's Steve Wang for "The Rescue Mission" in Lost Galaxy). He knows how to write it, knows how to build it up. Yes, we know that everything's going to be okay-it's Power Rangers, after all. But the tension is tangible, and everything is used fantastically. And this episode is no exception. On top of it, Patrick is pretty damn genre savvy and does everything he can to survive the horror movie his life has now turned into, all the while feeling like a real child of five or six. Honestly, I think that's what helps the suspense the most-he's a little kid. He's scared, no one believes him, and it's all his fault. I'm actually disappointed this wasn't a two-parter-there's a lot to work with!
Cassie and Carlos see him crying on a bench and go over to check on him. But he figures that they're not going believe him either, so Cassie gently explains that with all of the stories he's told, it's hard for many people to trust him. They walk him home, but because of their search for the Craterites, they can't stay and watch him until his mother gets home-which makes it even more frightening when you get down to it; he's a latchkey kid surrounded by monsters. Carlos tries to comfort him by insisting that if anything happens, the Power Rangers will be there to help, and while Patrick doesn't completely believe him, the sentiment helps. They leave, but they can't help but be worried about how scared he is.
Ashley, TJ, and Andros are investigating a construction site when Ashley finds a tied-up construction worker, revealing that all of the other workers are Craterites replacing humans. The Rangers unite and work their way through several episodes' worth of Megaranger fight footage they otherwise wouldn't be able to use, and with the huge numbers of Craterites and their ability to mimic humans, Carlos realizes that this must be what spooked Patrick so badly. They race to his apartment complex, which is overrun by Craterites, and split up to evacuate him and lure the Craterites away. Nicely, when Patrick sees the police officer he knows is a Craterite, he's quicker to react than Andros and turns around and bolts. I'm calling it now: He should come back as a Power Ranger down the line. I don't care that it's been 16 years. He'd make a fantastic Ranger. Dino Charge, are you listening? Probably not. His mother arrives, and Cassie and Andros get him in the car just in time-you want to know what it's like living in a city getting attacked by monsters all the time? There you go-the Kuuga approach to storytelling, this episode here. Andros and Cassie find themselves hopelessly outnumbered by the Craterites, whose leader is pyrokinetic, telekinetic, and electrokinetic to boot. The others arrive to save them, and Carlos gives Andros an upgraded Spiral Saber, which D.E.C.A. uploaded with a program based off the data of the simulation. In addition, it's been refitted with a Booster Mode that allows it to connect with the Astro Blaster for a powerful helix-shaped laser. Spiral Saber Booster Mode does some good, but it's not enough, and the Craterites pile on each other to create a giant Craterite monster. And unfortunately, this is the most versatile monster they've ever fought, since there are enough Craterites to replace those the Astro Megazord destroys. They finally manage to hit the leader with the blaster, which breaks the whole thing apart and destroys it.
The Rangers treat Patrick at the Surf Spot, where he apologizes to his neighborhood's officer for lying. But the sweet moment and otherwise spot-on episode is ruined by Bulk and Skull being late to the party and trying to expose the Craterites with a defabricator that backfires and strips them down to their underwear.
And now that the episode's over, let me point this out: We've got a great, suspenseful episode where the Rangers are hopelessly outmatched...and Astronema didn't even show up or do anything. This is the Rangers' own fault. That's kind of awesome, in a way. Kudos to Astronema for not risking ruining things by interfering.
The Wasp with a Heart (Judd Lynn/Koichi Sakamoto): Allow me to open with a quote from Shakespeare.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days
Richard III (1.1.37 - 40)
Believe it or not, this is actually kind of relevant. And yeah, in a way, to the entire series. Waspicable, a rather innocent wasp monster, is picking and sniffing very obviously fake flowers and singing, which doesn't please the Sting King, a stronger wasp monster who works for Astronema. Waspicable is powerful, but Sting King needs to convince him to be evil and destructive. Waspicable finally goes to attack our three stooges, who already pissed off a hive of terrible CG bees, and when the Megaship picks up the disturbance, Cassie decides to check on them "just in case" it's an actual emergency. She does save the trio, now pantless, and tell them to run, and Bulk has to carry the Prof. out above his protests that Waspicable is his alien and he's called dibs. With them gone, she's able to fight, and it's...okay. If you're expecting the usual Koichi Sakamoto insanity, it's not there, to be honest. He's a little restrained during PRiS; I guess he didn't start going super fight-happy until LG and "An Evil Game." Despite getting the upper hand in battle, Waspicable can't finish her off and even breaks down crying. Unfortunately, Andros and TJ didn't get the memo and Double Ranger Kick him (there's also another KR shout out when Waspicable poses like Kamen Rider Stronger; guess Koichi couldn't wait for Kuuga two years later). Cassie stops the others from attacking further, but Waspicable is so confused that he flies off.
Still determined to prove a villain, he goes to attack a civilian, but he loses his nerve when he sees it's a frail old man. The same happens when he sees a child's birthday party, and he doubts if he's cut out to be a monster. Ecliptor, on the other hand, argues that monsters don't have hearts-oh god, am I going to rant comes "Countdown to Destruction"-and orders him to attack Cassie, who's at the girl's party. But Waspicable hates it, especially when a Quantron rubs salt into the birthday girl's wounds by releasing her balloons. Cassie manages to evacuate everyone and fights unmorphed-again, not your typical Koichi wireworks and explosions, but some good hand-to-hand stuff all the same. The point is that she's hopelessly outnumbered and doesn't stand a chance, after all. Ecliptor tells Waspicable to kill her while she's helpless and restrained by two Quantrons, but his heart gets the better of him, and he attacks one of the Quantrons instead, claiming it was an accident. Disgusted, Ecliptor shoves him aside and prepares to strike her down instead, but Astronema and Sting King stop him because Sting King called dibs and the UAE apparently respects that. Waspicable takes the blast instead and charges through fire to throw him down. Cassie fights herself free and runs to his side, and the others arrive before Sting King can finish them off. Glaring at Astronema, she morphs and tells Waspicable to get to safety while they go after Sting King on their Galaxy Gliders.
Sting King has decided to fly into orbit to bombard Angel Grove from above. He also apparently can turn invisible while in space, so he's attacking them by surprise, but Cassie's Satellite Stunner locates him and shoots him. They equip all of their weapons with the Astro Blasters for Booster Mode and proceed to shoot him out of orbit...and that's gotta hurt, honestly. Sting King tries to attack them with bad CG wasps, but Carlos shoots him to end the attack. When Astronema fires the satellasers, there's this great bit where the Astro Megazord kicks him in the face as it descends through the atmosphere-honestly, I think it's one of my favorite Megazords just for that. But after he's destroyed, Astronema calls it quits on all bug monsters and summons all of her forces for a plan the next time they fight the Rangers...a plan I don't think we ever see.
Cassie reunites with Waspicable, who's mostly recovered from the attack. He admits that he really didn't want to be evil as much as he wanted to be good at something. She tries to convince him that having a heart doesn't make him a failure, but he's convinced that since he's not human, it means nothing. Oh GOD, am I going to rant comes "Countdown to Destruction." He's devastated to see the birthday girl return tearfully to the ruins of her party, and he decides to set things right by retrieving her balloons-a gesture that reassures Cassie and the others that, despite being a monster, he can choose good over evil.
The Delta Discovery (Judd Lynn/Koichi Sakamoto): On the jungle planet Hercuron, Divatox and her Pirhanatrons are beginning to move Zordon to the next hiding place-which, honestly? Brilliant villain strategy. They don't keep him in the same place for long, which admittedly slows down the draining process, but still keeps the universal taskforce of Power Rangers from finding him. But an invisible spectator is spying on them, and the movement of the leaves from his escape alerts a Pirhanatron, who's smart enough to tell Divatox. The spy, the Phantom Ranger of Turbo, gets clear and whispers a message into a recording device. Divatox's forces attack him, but in the fight, he's able to launch the device into space, where the Megaship picks up the message. Cassie's distressed to learn it's an emergency transmission from the Phantom Ranger, whom she's had a crush on, but the message is to-the-point: Zordon is being held here, and they have to hurry. We get this great Star Trek-esque bit where they man the controls, prep the ship's weapons, set a course, order the speed, and Carlos and TJ just thrust the controls-it's like the entire cast watched the Enterprises' crews just before filming. This is why we do space shows, guys. Star Trek moments.
Divatox orders her troops to hurry moving Zordon because Phantom obviously called for reinforcements. He's able to evade the Pirhanatrons with a momentary use of invisibility-I'm not an expert on this guy; does he have a time limit on the power, like RPM had with their special powers? But before he can completely catch up to Zordon, Astronema appears with a contingent of Quantrons. By this point, Melody Perkins has finally nailed her performance, ordering calmly and authoritatively for some Quantrons to help move Zordon before casually mocking Phantom for coming alone. She finally sounds like a serious villain who's enjoying herself, and I love it. This is part of why I love this character. With one blast, she throws Phantom into a tree, then orders the mooks to take care of the rest. The combined forces of Quantrons and Pirhanatrons overwhelm him, allowing the Zordon detail to escape to Dark Specter's ship and take off. To make matters worse, Ecliptor arrives and severely injures Phantom, but the Rangers arrive just in time to keep him from killing the guy. But Astronema orders him off the attack.
Despite clutching his side, breathing heavily, and almost collapsing on them, Phantom insists it's just a flesh wound and that the Rangers need to track that ship. Alpha tries to get a lock on the vapor trail, but it vanishes. To complicate matters, Dark Specter has ordered Astronema to attack Earth as a diversion, forcing Andros to call off the mission when they're this close, in order to protect his friends' home. Phantom promises to continue following Zordon and offers help in the form of a disk that controls the mighty Delta Megaship. Right now, the Delta is completely defenseless, so Andros promises to recover it right away. He also promises to call the others if he needs help, but c'mon, this is Andros we're talking about here. With everyone going their separate ways, Phantom reveals his grievous wound: a hole in his suit that reveals what looks suspiciously like alien circuitry. As I've said before, I'm no expert on the history of Power Rangers-you'd need Tommy, Gosei, Noah, and Linkara for that-but I have done some research. Phantom Ranger's whole shtick was that nobody knew who he was, like with the Gold Ranger in Zeo but twice as aggravating-where the Gold Ranger was revealed not to be Billy, Skull, or Tommy's long-lost brother and actually some guy they never met before, Phantom's identity was never revealed; ideas range from Billy again to a spirit of all previous Rangers, not unlike the later Aka Red in Boukenger and Gokaiger, and they all contradict each other and really don't make a lick of sense. But I'm calling it here, this is the official story, based on what we can see in the show: Phantom Ranger is a robot trying to pass as organic, like an alien Pinocchio. This is why he never reveals his face: He has no face, and he doesn't want the Rangers to know.
The team fights a crocodilian monster at Angel Grove Lake. It immediately guns for TJ and chomps down on his arm-I guess it's not really a surprise. A creature rises from the lake like a horror movie? Of course you go for the black guy first. And proving that Black Rangers are fair game too, Carlos almost gets strangled by its tail-like arm. The girls get them free, and Astronema raises the stakes with the satellasers. Carlos takes command of the Astro Megazord, but its finishing attack causes the monster to split into two separate monsters, which are able to kick the Megazord's butt.
Andros finds the Delta orbiting a blue planet that is definitely not Earth because it's beyond an asteroid belt. Phantom guides him through the interior via communicator, but his damage/injuries are so bad that he collapses and the signal breaks up while he's trying to direct which drive Andros needs to put the disk into. Andros is forced to guess, and the result trips an alarm and a countdown that makes him panic, thinking he activated self-destruct. On a note, for years, I thought he said, "Now what, dammit?" but it's just how "Now I've done it!" comes through over that alarm. It turns out that this countdown is just the scanning sequence for the security disk, so I must ask what kind of dumbass programs an operating system to set off an alarm and a countdown when you do it right? But the Delta also activates the Battlizer, a special brace that lets Andros control the ship remotely, as well as providing power boosts in battle that we'll see later. The Delta rushes to Earth and initiates its Megazord transformation sequence, allowing it to arrive just in time to save the Astro Megazord. Andros returns to the Astro and remotely orders the Delta Megazord to shoot the hell out of the monsters with its gatling gun hands, the Gyro Blasters. With two Megazords with blaster capabilities, they easily destroy the monsters with no complications-even their explosion explodes!...which is probably why it's a Koichi episode. Dark Specter consults Astronema on the near-miss of the Rangers getting this close to Zordon, and he warns her that if she fails him again, he'll crush the Dark Fortress while she's asleep. This threat elicits a rare moment of fear from her, which she tries to hide, but it succeeds in humanizing her just a bit.
The Rangers return to Hercuron to search for Phantom, but all Cassie finds is another recorder with a holographic message. Though still injured, Phantom is well enough to pursue Dark Specter, and he encourages them not to give up in the face of this difficult search and keep trying to find Zordon. The Rangers demorph and start to head back, but when Cassie's trailing behind, a special private message activates. Phantom assures her he'll be okay and asks her not to forget him, promising to see her again soon. It's a shame that this guy is basically a badly-handled character and this gets no development; it has the potential for a really cute love story. Encouraged now that she knows her feelings are returned and that Phantom promises to come back to her, she rejoins her friends.
The Great Evilyzer (Judd Lynn/Worth Keeter): Behind multiple chemical and radiation hazard signs that really should prompt somebody to shut down his entire operation, the Prof. experiments with a new device that allows you to change the alignment of anything to good or evil. Okay, one: Why risk having a device that can turn anything evil, especially in frickin' Angel Grove? Two: Doesn't this raise all sorts of ethical concerns about taking the choice out of someone's hands whether they want to be good or evil? But then, I guess you can make the same argument about the Z-wave at the end of the series. This results in the Prof, Bulk, and Skull getting attacked by an evil toy while Ecliptor commits the easiest heist in history and walks up and steals the so-called "Evilyzer." Still pissed about the Delta Megazord being a thing, Astronema agrees that the Evilyzer is a useful weapon in this arms race. While Ecliptor hopes to use it to turn one of the Rangers evil, Astronema has "bigger" plans in mind.
Andros and Ashley are scanning for Zordon on a dense-gravity planet that's totally not a quarry lake somewhere in California. With no leads on Dark Specter, they haul themselves on their Gliders and leave. Once they're in space, Andros starts showing off for her, pulling stunts on his Glider. She starts doing the same, and he compliments her energetically. It's...weird. See, Andros is really terrible at feelings-worse than any character I have ever covered in a review before, and this includes Ren Akiyama of Ryuki, Karone and Kai of Lost Galaxy, and Kevin of Ben 10, although when I get to RPM, we'll see he's still better than Dr. K. Andros is especially bad at dealing with his feelings for Ashley, as we'll see in some episodes to come. But at the same time, he seems much more comfortable as a Ranger than he is as a human, with Christopher Khayman Lee putting in a much more animated performance any time he's doing voiceover than he ever does in front of the camera. It creates a collision between Andros's two personas, with the truly "alive" Red Ranger expressing things than the withdrawn and wounded Andros never would be able to. Sixteen years later, I'm still not sure if I like it or not. But in any case, a Velocifighter moves in to cockblock, firing the Evilyzer before flying away. The ray misses and hits Ashley's Glider, causing it to buck and threatening to throw her into space. Andros manages to catch her and bring her back to the Megaship, where analysis of his own Glider reveals no latent abnormalities. D.E.C.A. theorizes that the ray screwed up the programming on Ashley's Glider-a sobering thought for the Rangers.
Elgar openly mocks Ecliptor for the failure, pissing off Astronema, and Ecliptor, who's standing right behind him. But Astronema's not too broken up about it missing Ashley, even though a battle between her and Andros really would have been a great test for their budding romance and would have helped further Andros's character arc, given later revelations. But alas, limitations of Megaranger footage. She has Ecliptor build her a bigger Evilyzer and tells Elgar to send a monster down to Earth as a decoy for the Rangers. The decoy successfully distracts them from scanning for Zordon, and when they head down to fight it, it creates illusory monsters for them to fight, some based off monsters they've already fought-which is fine, given that in this season, the monsters are all various alien species. The real monster is super-sized, and the illusions go from being easy to defeat to downright impossible. It's a shame Astronema's only using this guy as a meatshield, but I'll blame Elgar for the plan. This is a great monster and you should use him for a real plan, guys. Andros has to send the Delta Megazord to fight the real monster while they deal with the illusions, but Ecliptor fires the Evilyzer at the Delta, which makes it basically tell Andros to fuck off and fly away. The illusions and real monster vanish suddenly, allowing the Delta to open fire on Angel Grove and on Andros, forcing him now to call in the Astro Megazord. And with his betrayed reaction and how much he tries to plead with the Delta to listen, I again get the sense that he's far better at relating to robots than to people. The two Megazords fight, with the Delta refusing to respond to Andros's orders. Alpha has to estimate the frequency of the Evilyzer beam so Andros can reverse the polarity-which sounds a lot like what happened to the TMNT in "Shell Shocked" and would be a good show of continuity, but more likely it's just a coincidence in the wake of a Star Trek/Doctor Who reference. Andros docks the Battlizer to his console and overheats the hell out of the Astro trying to reverse the polarization. But his attempts also overload the Evilyzer, destroying it and allowing the Delta to fly back into space. The Astro takes chase, and Andros decides to test if his plan worked by beginning docking procedures between the two Megazords. While the Delta resists, the two Megazords finally become one, giving birth to the Astro Delta Megazord. Cassie manages to track down the real monster, and they use the Flying Power Punch to destroy it and its illusions. With this failure, Astronema decides to go back on her word about no more insects ("The Wasp With A Heart") and bring in Mama Mite.
Ashley and Andros go out to retrieve her Glider, which is still under the Evilyzer's effects. But the Astro Blaster manages to reverse the polarity, returning it to normal. Too bad no one can do the same for the toy still chasing the three stooges.
Carlos and Cassie are packing up after their junior soccer team, where one of the kids, Patrick, tells tall tales to his friends on the team. He's scolded by his mother, who wipes away his professional-looking scar makeup, and even the police officer walking the beat by his house lectures him about crying wolf. Meanwhile, on the Megaship, TJ and Ashley are running a Craterite training simulation while Andros tries to gather data on a storm...for some reason. I'll let it go, honestly; the rest of the episode succeeds despite this weak explanation. Lightning strikes the Megaship multiple times, creating computer malfunctions that abruptly end the simulation. But the Craterites have come to life. Also, why has no one written any fics about what could have been brought to life by the simudeck being hit by a lightning strike? Or is it too Star Trek a premise? Anyway, the Craterites escape the Rangers and parachute down to Angel Grove, where Professor Phenomenous is all too happy to see an actual alien invasion. Patrick also sees something strange that night: People in his neighborhood are carrying off boxes that look suspiciously like coffins. Holy SHIT. That's dark. Though everything looks normal by morning, the Rangers decide to start out scanning for the Craterites in the middle of town and fan out from there, splitting up into teams.
Everything seems normal for Patrick too, until he goes to his next door neighbor for a ride to school. No one's home, which is weird because she's supposed to take him, but when he looks through the window, he sees Craterites in human clothing inside. The whole neighborhood is full of them...which is odd because isn't the whole point not to be conspicuous? I guess I can just blame this on Megaranger weirdness? Being smart, the kid runs to the police, but the officer's reflection shows another Craterite-they're not just dressing like humans; they're taking on human form too. The real officer is tied up in the back of his patrol car. Patrick is smart enough to back away and keep running. But none of the other kids at school believe him because he's pulled this kind of story on them all the time. And honestly? I love this episode. It's filler, but it's really good. It takes the classic tale of The Boy Who Cried Wolf and updates it in a Power Rangers setting and it works. Why? Because of the tone. I may have a laundry list of issues with Judd Lynn, but one thing I do really like from him is that he's good at suspense-"From Out of Nowhere," "Survival of the Silver," "The Rescue Mission"-all of those episodes used suspense to good effect, despite varying directors (Jonathan Tzachor for "From Out of Nowhere," Worth Keeter here and in "Survival of the Silver," Kamen Rider Dragon Knight's Steve Wang for "The Rescue Mission" in Lost Galaxy). He knows how to write it, knows how to build it up. Yes, we know that everything's going to be okay-it's Power Rangers, after all. But the tension is tangible, and everything is used fantastically. And this episode is no exception. On top of it, Patrick is pretty damn genre savvy and does everything he can to survive the horror movie his life has now turned into, all the while feeling like a real child of five or six. Honestly, I think that's what helps the suspense the most-he's a little kid. He's scared, no one believes him, and it's all his fault. I'm actually disappointed this wasn't a two-parter-there's a lot to work with!
Cassie and Carlos see him crying on a bench and go over to check on him. But he figures that they're not going believe him either, so Cassie gently explains that with all of the stories he's told, it's hard for many people to trust him. They walk him home, but because of their search for the Craterites, they can't stay and watch him until his mother gets home-which makes it even more frightening when you get down to it; he's a latchkey kid surrounded by monsters. Carlos tries to comfort him by insisting that if anything happens, the Power Rangers will be there to help, and while Patrick doesn't completely believe him, the sentiment helps. They leave, but they can't help but be worried about how scared he is.
Ashley, TJ, and Andros are investigating a construction site when Ashley finds a tied-up construction worker, revealing that all of the other workers are Craterites replacing humans. The Rangers unite and work their way through several episodes' worth of Megaranger fight footage they otherwise wouldn't be able to use, and with the huge numbers of Craterites and their ability to mimic humans, Carlos realizes that this must be what spooked Patrick so badly. They race to his apartment complex, which is overrun by Craterites, and split up to evacuate him and lure the Craterites away. Nicely, when Patrick sees the police officer he knows is a Craterite, he's quicker to react than Andros and turns around and bolts. I'm calling it now: He should come back as a Power Ranger down the line. I don't care that it's been 16 years. He'd make a fantastic Ranger. Dino Charge, are you listening? Probably not. His mother arrives, and Cassie and Andros get him in the car just in time-you want to know what it's like living in a city getting attacked by monsters all the time? There you go-the Kuuga approach to storytelling, this episode here. Andros and Cassie find themselves hopelessly outnumbered by the Craterites, whose leader is pyrokinetic, telekinetic, and electrokinetic to boot. The others arrive to save them, and Carlos gives Andros an upgraded Spiral Saber, which D.E.C.A. uploaded with a program based off the data of the simulation. In addition, it's been refitted with a Booster Mode that allows it to connect with the Astro Blaster for a powerful helix-shaped laser. Spiral Saber Booster Mode does some good, but it's not enough, and the Craterites pile on each other to create a giant Craterite monster. And unfortunately, this is the most versatile monster they've ever fought, since there are enough Craterites to replace those the Astro Megazord destroys. They finally manage to hit the leader with the blaster, which breaks the whole thing apart and destroys it.
The Rangers treat Patrick at the Surf Spot, where he apologizes to his neighborhood's officer for lying. But the sweet moment and otherwise spot-on episode is ruined by Bulk and Skull being late to the party and trying to expose the Craterites with a defabricator that backfires and strips them down to their underwear.
And now that the episode's over, let me point this out: We've got a great, suspenseful episode where the Rangers are hopelessly outmatched...and Astronema didn't even show up or do anything. This is the Rangers' own fault. That's kind of awesome, in a way. Kudos to Astronema for not risking ruining things by interfering.
The Wasp with a Heart (Judd Lynn/Koichi Sakamoto): Allow me to open with a quote from Shakespeare.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days
Richard III (1.1.37 - 40)
Believe it or not, this is actually kind of relevant. And yeah, in a way, to the entire series. Waspicable, a rather innocent wasp monster, is picking and sniffing very obviously fake flowers and singing, which doesn't please the Sting King, a stronger wasp monster who works for Astronema. Waspicable is powerful, but Sting King needs to convince him to be evil and destructive. Waspicable finally goes to attack our three stooges, who already pissed off a hive of terrible CG bees, and when the Megaship picks up the disturbance, Cassie decides to check on them "just in case" it's an actual emergency. She does save the trio, now pantless, and tell them to run, and Bulk has to carry the Prof. out above his protests that Waspicable is his alien and he's called dibs. With them gone, she's able to fight, and it's...okay. If you're expecting the usual Koichi Sakamoto insanity, it's not there, to be honest. He's a little restrained during PRiS; I guess he didn't start going super fight-happy until LG and "An Evil Game." Despite getting the upper hand in battle, Waspicable can't finish her off and even breaks down crying. Unfortunately, Andros and TJ didn't get the memo and Double Ranger Kick him (there's also another KR shout out when Waspicable poses like Kamen Rider Stronger; guess Koichi couldn't wait for Kuuga two years later). Cassie stops the others from attacking further, but Waspicable is so confused that he flies off.
Still determined to prove a villain, he goes to attack a civilian, but he loses his nerve when he sees it's a frail old man. The same happens when he sees a child's birthday party, and he doubts if he's cut out to be a monster. Ecliptor, on the other hand, argues that monsters don't have hearts-oh god, am I going to rant comes "Countdown to Destruction"-and orders him to attack Cassie, who's at the girl's party. But Waspicable hates it, especially when a Quantron rubs salt into the birthday girl's wounds by releasing her balloons. Cassie manages to evacuate everyone and fights unmorphed-again, not your typical Koichi wireworks and explosions, but some good hand-to-hand stuff all the same. The point is that she's hopelessly outnumbered and doesn't stand a chance, after all. Ecliptor tells Waspicable to kill her while she's helpless and restrained by two Quantrons, but his heart gets the better of him, and he attacks one of the Quantrons instead, claiming it was an accident. Disgusted, Ecliptor shoves him aside and prepares to strike her down instead, but Astronema and Sting King stop him because Sting King called dibs and the UAE apparently respects that. Waspicable takes the blast instead and charges through fire to throw him down. Cassie fights herself free and runs to his side, and the others arrive before Sting King can finish them off. Glaring at Astronema, she morphs and tells Waspicable to get to safety while they go after Sting King on their Galaxy Gliders.
Sting King has decided to fly into orbit to bombard Angel Grove from above. He also apparently can turn invisible while in space, so he's attacking them by surprise, but Cassie's Satellite Stunner locates him and shoots him. They equip all of their weapons with the Astro Blasters for Booster Mode and proceed to shoot him out of orbit...and that's gotta hurt, honestly. Sting King tries to attack them with bad CG wasps, but Carlos shoots him to end the attack. When Astronema fires the satellasers, there's this great bit where the Astro Megazord kicks him in the face as it descends through the atmosphere-honestly, I think it's one of my favorite Megazords just for that. But after he's destroyed, Astronema calls it quits on all bug monsters and summons all of her forces for a plan the next time they fight the Rangers...a plan I don't think we ever see.
Cassie reunites with Waspicable, who's mostly recovered from the attack. He admits that he really didn't want to be evil as much as he wanted to be good at something. She tries to convince him that having a heart doesn't make him a failure, but he's convinced that since he's not human, it means nothing. Oh GOD, am I going to rant comes "Countdown to Destruction." He's devastated to see the birthday girl return tearfully to the ruins of her party, and he decides to set things right by retrieving her balloons-a gesture that reassures Cassie and the others that, despite being a monster, he can choose good over evil.
The Delta Discovery (Judd Lynn/Koichi Sakamoto): On the jungle planet Hercuron, Divatox and her Pirhanatrons are beginning to move Zordon to the next hiding place-which, honestly? Brilliant villain strategy. They don't keep him in the same place for long, which admittedly slows down the draining process, but still keeps the universal taskforce of Power Rangers from finding him. But an invisible spectator is spying on them, and the movement of the leaves from his escape alerts a Pirhanatron, who's smart enough to tell Divatox. The spy, the Phantom Ranger of Turbo, gets clear and whispers a message into a recording device. Divatox's forces attack him, but in the fight, he's able to launch the device into space, where the Megaship picks up the message. Cassie's distressed to learn it's an emergency transmission from the Phantom Ranger, whom she's had a crush on, but the message is to-the-point: Zordon is being held here, and they have to hurry. We get this great Star Trek-esque bit where they man the controls, prep the ship's weapons, set a course, order the speed, and Carlos and TJ just thrust the controls-it's like the entire cast watched the Enterprises' crews just before filming. This is why we do space shows, guys. Star Trek moments.
Divatox orders her troops to hurry moving Zordon because Phantom obviously called for reinforcements. He's able to evade the Pirhanatrons with a momentary use of invisibility-I'm not an expert on this guy; does he have a time limit on the power, like RPM had with their special powers? But before he can completely catch up to Zordon, Astronema appears with a contingent of Quantrons. By this point, Melody Perkins has finally nailed her performance, ordering calmly and authoritatively for some Quantrons to help move Zordon before casually mocking Phantom for coming alone. She finally sounds like a serious villain who's enjoying herself, and I love it. This is part of why I love this character. With one blast, she throws Phantom into a tree, then orders the mooks to take care of the rest. The combined forces of Quantrons and Pirhanatrons overwhelm him, allowing the Zordon detail to escape to Dark Specter's ship and take off. To make matters worse, Ecliptor arrives and severely injures Phantom, but the Rangers arrive just in time to keep him from killing the guy. But Astronema orders him off the attack.
Despite clutching his side, breathing heavily, and almost collapsing on them, Phantom insists it's just a flesh wound and that the Rangers need to track that ship. Alpha tries to get a lock on the vapor trail, but it vanishes. To complicate matters, Dark Specter has ordered Astronema to attack Earth as a diversion, forcing Andros to call off the mission when they're this close, in order to protect his friends' home. Phantom promises to continue following Zordon and offers help in the form of a disk that controls the mighty Delta Megaship. Right now, the Delta is completely defenseless, so Andros promises to recover it right away. He also promises to call the others if he needs help, but c'mon, this is Andros we're talking about here. With everyone going their separate ways, Phantom reveals his grievous wound: a hole in his suit that reveals what looks suspiciously like alien circuitry. As I've said before, I'm no expert on the history of Power Rangers-you'd need Tommy, Gosei, Noah, and Linkara for that-but I have done some research. Phantom Ranger's whole shtick was that nobody knew who he was, like with the Gold Ranger in Zeo but twice as aggravating-where the Gold Ranger was revealed not to be Billy, Skull, or Tommy's long-lost brother and actually some guy they never met before, Phantom's identity was never revealed; ideas range from Billy again to a spirit of all previous Rangers, not unlike the later Aka Red in Boukenger and Gokaiger, and they all contradict each other and really don't make a lick of sense. But I'm calling it here, this is the official story, based on what we can see in the show: Phantom Ranger is a robot trying to pass as organic, like an alien Pinocchio. This is why he never reveals his face: He has no face, and he doesn't want the Rangers to know.
The team fights a crocodilian monster at Angel Grove Lake. It immediately guns for TJ and chomps down on his arm-I guess it's not really a surprise. A creature rises from the lake like a horror movie? Of course you go for the black guy first. And proving that Black Rangers are fair game too, Carlos almost gets strangled by its tail-like arm. The girls get them free, and Astronema raises the stakes with the satellasers. Carlos takes command of the Astro Megazord, but its finishing attack causes the monster to split into two separate monsters, which are able to kick the Megazord's butt.
Andros finds the Delta orbiting a blue planet that is definitely not Earth because it's beyond an asteroid belt. Phantom guides him through the interior via communicator, but his damage/injuries are so bad that he collapses and the signal breaks up while he's trying to direct which drive Andros needs to put the disk into. Andros is forced to guess, and the result trips an alarm and a countdown that makes him panic, thinking he activated self-destruct. On a note, for years, I thought he said, "Now what, dammit?" but it's just how "Now I've done it!" comes through over that alarm. It turns out that this countdown is just the scanning sequence for the security disk, so I must ask what kind of dumbass programs an operating system to set off an alarm and a countdown when you do it right? But the Delta also activates the Battlizer, a special brace that lets Andros control the ship remotely, as well as providing power boosts in battle that we'll see later. The Delta rushes to Earth and initiates its Megazord transformation sequence, allowing it to arrive just in time to save the Astro Megazord. Andros returns to the Astro and remotely orders the Delta Megazord to shoot the hell out of the monsters with its gatling gun hands, the Gyro Blasters. With two Megazords with blaster capabilities, they easily destroy the monsters with no complications-even their explosion explodes!...which is probably why it's a Koichi episode. Dark Specter consults Astronema on the near-miss of the Rangers getting this close to Zordon, and he warns her that if she fails him again, he'll crush the Dark Fortress while she's asleep. This threat elicits a rare moment of fear from her, which she tries to hide, but it succeeds in humanizing her just a bit.
The Rangers return to Hercuron to search for Phantom, but all Cassie finds is another recorder with a holographic message. Though still injured, Phantom is well enough to pursue Dark Specter, and he encourages them not to give up in the face of this difficult search and keep trying to find Zordon. The Rangers demorph and start to head back, but when Cassie's trailing behind, a special private message activates. Phantom assures her he'll be okay and asks her not to forget him, promising to see her again soon. It's a shame that this guy is basically a badly-handled character and this gets no development; it has the potential for a really cute love story. Encouraged now that she knows her feelings are returned and that Phantom promises to come back to her, she rejoins her friends.
The Great Evilyzer (Judd Lynn/Worth Keeter): Behind multiple chemical and radiation hazard signs that really should prompt somebody to shut down his entire operation, the Prof. experiments with a new device that allows you to change the alignment of anything to good or evil. Okay, one: Why risk having a device that can turn anything evil, especially in frickin' Angel Grove? Two: Doesn't this raise all sorts of ethical concerns about taking the choice out of someone's hands whether they want to be good or evil? But then, I guess you can make the same argument about the Z-wave at the end of the series. This results in the Prof, Bulk, and Skull getting attacked by an evil toy while Ecliptor commits the easiest heist in history and walks up and steals the so-called "Evilyzer." Still pissed about the Delta Megazord being a thing, Astronema agrees that the Evilyzer is a useful weapon in this arms race. While Ecliptor hopes to use it to turn one of the Rangers evil, Astronema has "bigger" plans in mind.
Andros and Ashley are scanning for Zordon on a dense-gravity planet that's totally not a quarry lake somewhere in California. With no leads on Dark Specter, they haul themselves on their Gliders and leave. Once they're in space, Andros starts showing off for her, pulling stunts on his Glider. She starts doing the same, and he compliments her energetically. It's...weird. See, Andros is really terrible at feelings-worse than any character I have ever covered in a review before, and this includes Ren Akiyama of Ryuki, Karone and Kai of Lost Galaxy, and Kevin of Ben 10, although when I get to RPM, we'll see he's still better than Dr. K. Andros is especially bad at dealing with his feelings for Ashley, as we'll see in some episodes to come. But at the same time, he seems much more comfortable as a Ranger than he is as a human, with Christopher Khayman Lee putting in a much more animated performance any time he's doing voiceover than he ever does in front of the camera. It creates a collision between Andros's two personas, with the truly "alive" Red Ranger expressing things than the withdrawn and wounded Andros never would be able to. Sixteen years later, I'm still not sure if I like it or not. But in any case, a Velocifighter moves in to cockblock, firing the Evilyzer before flying away. The ray misses and hits Ashley's Glider, causing it to buck and threatening to throw her into space. Andros manages to catch her and bring her back to the Megaship, where analysis of his own Glider reveals no latent abnormalities. D.E.C.A. theorizes that the ray screwed up the programming on Ashley's Glider-a sobering thought for the Rangers.
Elgar openly mocks Ecliptor for the failure, pissing off Astronema, and Ecliptor, who's standing right behind him. But Astronema's not too broken up about it missing Ashley, even though a battle between her and Andros really would have been a great test for their budding romance and would have helped further Andros's character arc, given later revelations. But alas, limitations of Megaranger footage. She has Ecliptor build her a bigger Evilyzer and tells Elgar to send a monster down to Earth as a decoy for the Rangers. The decoy successfully distracts them from scanning for Zordon, and when they head down to fight it, it creates illusory monsters for them to fight, some based off monsters they've already fought-which is fine, given that in this season, the monsters are all various alien species. The real monster is super-sized, and the illusions go from being easy to defeat to downright impossible. It's a shame Astronema's only using this guy as a meatshield, but I'll blame Elgar for the plan. This is a great monster and you should use him for a real plan, guys. Andros has to send the Delta Megazord to fight the real monster while they deal with the illusions, but Ecliptor fires the Evilyzer at the Delta, which makes it basically tell Andros to fuck off and fly away. The illusions and real monster vanish suddenly, allowing the Delta to open fire on Angel Grove and on Andros, forcing him now to call in the Astro Megazord. And with his betrayed reaction and how much he tries to plead with the Delta to listen, I again get the sense that he's far better at relating to robots than to people. The two Megazords fight, with the Delta refusing to respond to Andros's orders. Alpha has to estimate the frequency of the Evilyzer beam so Andros can reverse the polarity-which sounds a lot like what happened to the TMNT in "Shell Shocked" and would be a good show of continuity, but more likely it's just a coincidence in the wake of a Star Trek/Doctor Who reference. Andros docks the Battlizer to his console and overheats the hell out of the Astro trying to reverse the polarization. But his attempts also overload the Evilyzer, destroying it and allowing the Delta to fly back into space. The Astro takes chase, and Andros decides to test if his plan worked by beginning docking procedures between the two Megazords. While the Delta resists, the two Megazords finally become one, giving birth to the Astro Delta Megazord. Cassie manages to track down the real monster, and they use the Flying Power Punch to destroy it and its illusions. With this failure, Astronema decides to go back on her word about no more insects ("The Wasp With A Heart") and bring in Mama Mite.
Ashley and Andros go out to retrieve her Glider, which is still under the Evilyzer's effects. But the Astro Blaster manages to reverse the polarity, returning it to normal. Too bad no one can do the same for the toy still chasing the three stooges.