And I think that compact stories give you the best chance of not ruining your premise. I love how in Japan, especially with Anime, they have a set number of shows they will do form the start. Doesn't matter if it's 13, 26, 49 or whatever they have a chance to spread things out well with a beginning, middle, and end. In the US they start a show off and hope it's a hit and if it is they try to go as long as they can, which usually means they run out of ideas and it gets crappy. Sometimes we don't even get proper endings here because don't know stuff is getting canceled. It doesn't always work but I think knowing when you are done with the characters really helps to keep things fresh. I think In Space through Time Force really did a job with what they were given. Even though they all have flaws it's clear they learned from the past.

I would mostly agree except for the endings part. Japan does not know how to do proper endings either half of the time. THey will just end a show with answering only 5 out of 20 questions you got from watching the show, if that. SOmetimes, it feels like the ending was made up as they got to the end because they forgot it was going to end soon. Even short series like C Control manage to some how **** it up, which any series that is 13 or less should NOT be doing.

I completely agree. Like I said it doesn't always work because you still have to have talented and creative people. It's just that when you go the other way doing as many episodes as you can get even brilliant writers can easily fall short over time or when asked to do a finale with little notice and no chance to properly set up the ending they wanted.

So I watched episodes 9-11 of S2 today and I think my disc is defective or something as I have audio missing in the Venus Island episode. Like, Zack and Jason will make actions, and people will respond to them, but they never say anything. Does Shout know about this? Or is it just my disc?

3 episodes into Dragon Knight now and I think I'm having the opposite problem to Dr Kain when it comes to audio. The ridiculous swooshing noises dominate the fight scenes and really take me out of the moment.

Also Incisor is a terrible, terrible character.

Yeah Incisor only exists to die and let Len grow as a character. And for Kit to realise that this isn't a game.

Just like Scissors then :lol

So watched a bit more of MMPR and here are some general thoughts.

I know it's a tired criticism of MMPR but taking it a bit seriously, I realise now why Billy was my favourite character as a kid because minus being MacGyver in dungarees....he is the closest one to normal. He isn't a professional martial artist, he hasn't harnessed the power of the swag, he doesn't have some huge world changing plans (other than being a superhero), he is just a nerd.

I think it would have been great, especially as a kid, if MMPR actually followed through what it suggested it wanted to be about and balance the battles of the Rangers, to their daily battles with high school. Because let's be honest, if you were a bit of a nerd in school, probably the kind of kid who enjoyed Power Rangers, high school fucking sucked and it was fucking hard, wasn't it? And the last thing I wanted to see is my heroes that got me through my shit school days to be embodied by the kids who were bullying me.

Our 'dweebs' are made up of a gymnast, a guy so cool I can only hope to be half the man he is, an eco warrior and a dude whose problems consist of bench press challenges. Basically the head bully, his girlfriend, her best friend that the head bully hates but allows to be around and the bullies right hand man, I'm sure anyone who has been bullied knows the types and how well the characters fit into this types.

How cool would it be if the five teenagers saving the world in their giant robot...were actually as insecure, confused and scared as the rest of us? They even still had to deal with bullies (actually bullies not an obese thirty year old man and his heroin addicted sidekick). I could relate to the show then.

Also considering Zordon wanted to keep the Power Rangers hush hush, the communicators sure are dumb huh? Not only do they blurt out to everyone around them what is being said by Zordon (so even a public phone would be more private) but Zordon doesn't even try any subtly or code he's just like 'BY THE WAY ZACK, TRINI, KIMBERLY, BILLY, JASON...THE POWER RANGERS THEY ARE THE POWER RANGERS....' Zordon is a fucking d-sack.

And the final thing is there really is no attempt to gel the sentai and american footage at all is there? They trim down the sentai fight to a tiny condensed couple of sequences, making sure that every story beat is removed so it is about nothing so they can just throw it in anywhere, so they can add whatever corny message they want to the episode and it really pulls me out of the experience because although they have removed all element of the plot to the fight from the sentai they don't shoot any new footage to make the fight about what their episode is about so it's just a random fight devoid of any feeling.

i alwaus thought the episode where mrs applebee took tommys 'pager' was the dumbest thing rver. since when do pagers look like a watch? as much hate as phone morphers get, they are tons more subtle

It was the 90s.

I half agree with you with you there. The ridiculous levels of MacGuyverness to Billy in season one (he makes a goddamn flying car out of a car and what looks like a washing machine) made him just as ridiculous as the rest of the cast. Once they toned him down a bit he was a much better character and easily the most rounded one in the whole show.

Eh, Zordon's a dick but the communicators are Billy's invention. I don't think Zordon can be any more subtle given he's a shouty floating head :lol

Yeah but then Alpha and Zordon tweaked them, so if they can turn them into teleporters they should be able to turn the volume down or just make up a few code phrases.

I guess, but they probably realised just how secretive those really obvious and out in the open juice bar corners are and didn't worry :lol

My favourite 'quiet location' is the school corridor, considering how many quiet moments the Rangers find during school and are assumedly not skipping class, I just have to assume half the students probably died in the recent Megazord battle....

So I must love torture because I decided to watch Clash of the Red Rangers. Does this abomination have canon at all? I mean, Scott sounds nothing like Eka Darville, Antonio, what the hell happened there? The crossover is crap becuase it basically throws out the awesomeness of Shinken vs GoOn, I know its completely different series, but this thing makes no sense, It goes from "Hey a ranger from another dimension." to "Oh crap a whole nother storyline that has no relevance to the RPM ranger being here." I love RPM, and seeing as how I just finished my rewatch today, decided to watch this crossover. I regret it. I think I lost a few IQ points......

I just found a website that has at least most of the episodes of Dino Thunder, i know what i'm doing this week!

I finished the first volume of Season 2 today. I am not at the point where Jason and them became nothing more than background with poorly done imitation voices. Oh yeah, and Zack's cousin and Richie have completely disappeared into thin air.

Watched a bit more of Dragon Knight. I'm REALLY disappointed to see Torque is another generic jock bad guy with shallow reasoning for being evil, but Camo is pretty darn cool. Plus I can't deny some sweet original footage with the Verde suit.

Episode 9 was an awesome Rider overload though. Camo, Strike and Thrust all debuting in one episode!

I actually kinda love Torque, just for how much of a MASSIVE worm he is and the way Len goes 'that is just sad' when he learns his motivations :lol I've just never met a character quite so pathetic on such an epic scale before, it kinda blew me away.

Camo is pretty boring to be fair, but Strike and Thrust are awesome!

thats the one thing i like about dragon knight but got boared while trying to watch it was the fact that they include all 13 riders from ryuki and not make 2 of the movie only exclusives

So does anyone know what the Lion Thunderzord has hind legs when it goes from Mastadon to Lion even though that is the only time it has them?

Anyway, I'm about to start the two parter with the rangers getting turned into kids. THis season is weird though because I never realized as a kid that the rangers never really actually fight the monster, it is always just putties and then the monster grows. I mean, I noticed as a child the swapping of the Megazord footage, but not the non-mecha action. WOW!!

Oh yeah, one other question. I am thinking about watching Samurai after I finish MMPR but I want to know, does Netflix actually have the first two episodes as the first two episodes?

What do you mean?

Well the first episode to air on tv was episode 3 and I don't believe Nick actually aired the first two episodes until way late in the series. Is Netflix in the correct order?

Netflix has "Origins: Part 1" as the first episode, so I'm assuming it's in the correct order.

Thanks for the info.

So I finished MMPR S2 today. Man, I forgot how badly the season went out on a whimper. I mean, we had the paper thin plot of Storybook Rangers, the "let's screw up with whatever continuity we have had" with the Wild West two parter, and then the season ends with another "Hey, Billy is acting strange, but we are too dumb to think anything of it" episode.

Watched episode 9 of Dragon Knight, was a very good one. The realisation Torque was a villain was really well done (although I wish he hadn't taken out Camo, I liked him) and Thrust seems pretty cool. I'm hoping Strike proves to be a bit more than a yes man though.

Got a 4 hour train ride to do later so I plan to plough through a load more.

Glad you're enjoying it more!

I'm not sold on Kit yet (mainly because he's a freaking idiot), but Len has grown on me a lot more. I'd certainly agree that at the very least this is an adaptation done right, they really went to town on original footage which is great because it means I don't sit there constantly drawing parallels to Ryuki.

My only real criticism with the new footage is the Ryuki footage is of considerably worse looking film stock, but considerably more impressive choreography so the jumps between Ryuki and Dragon Knight fight footage hurts at times.

Suffered through the MMPR movie today. Nuff' said.

Tried watching that the other day. I don't think I made it 15 minutes.

It's funny because I Loved that movie as a kid. I thought it was the coolest thing since the Transformers movie. Then I bought the DVD about two years ago, watched it, and was like, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah," why did I like this thing? Although, even as a kid, I was always pissed that I waited all summer to see what was going to happen to Goldar after betraying Zedd, only for it to turn out the movie was not in canon with the series.

Did exactly what I said I would and had a bit of a Dragon Knight burst over the weekend, and am up to episode 18. Torque's venting has to be the highlight for me so far, not just because I despised the character but because I have to give major props to the show for "killing" a major Ryuki character about 15 episodes in.

My only concern is that this show is getting through the Riders far too quickly. Its not even halfway through and the only ones left to appear are Siren, Wrath and Onyx (and Alternative Zero if he's even in this show). I'm hoping the villains get a bit more interesting soon too, because despite how strong he is Strike is by far the dullest character so far.

Watched a few more episodes of MMPR and if I had one word to describe the series, it would be 'frustrating' mainly because I want to like it...way more than I actually do. MMPR does the rare thing of making all the heroes likeable, they may not be your favourite characters of all time but they all have their charms. Plus, if you're in the right frame of mind, MMPR insanity is just insane fun.

The problem is just how much of a sloppy production this is. The quality of the Zyuranger clips is horrendous, they do nothing to even get similar locations or they leave in things like close ups that expose the 'Zyuranger' on the Morphers or whatever, it's just pathetic. It feels like no effort has gone into the 'Power Ranger' part of their POWER RANGER show.

It was the 90's and their first attempt at this stuff so I can understand some of those shortcomings related to details and budget. They were successful so they kept doing what they started doing.

But surely from a film making perspective you'd see the issues here? I'm assuming the Zyuranger footage wasn't that awful looking originally so fuck knows what they did to it, and it seems like common sense to me to try and match your locations as best as possible and do your best to work around moments that are specific to the sentai. But apparently that wasn't common sense to Saban and they never learn....

Okay, on this note, Locke, they had no idea where they wanted to take the show yet. I'm not sure where you are exactly, but you can see things get a lot more comfortable after Doomsday in terms of execution, but then S2 kind of had to start over as they weren't sure how to handle the DaiRanger footage and the leaving of J, Z, and T.

As for the Zyu footage, how bad did it look bad in the 90s? Sure, you could tell what was Jp and what wasn't, but the reason it is much more noticeable is because of HDTVs and stuff.

I'll wait for them to relax into it better then!

And fair shout, but you would think for the DVD releases they'd improve the quality of the Zyuranger footage, even if they don't do a full restore. Although I know nothing about Shout Factory as a company so maybe I'm asking too much of them and just feel sad a better transfer company didn't pick it up.

"We're sorry, this episode is currently unavailable right now. Please try a different episode or try again later."
-Netflix, stopping me from watching Wild Force on 3 different devices (2 Laptops and my PS3)

Fine. I won't watch Wild Force, then. Maybe I'll start up Zeo or In Space...

SoCal doesn't have a lot a warehouse districts that would match up well with the made up Japanese buildings, especially with Japanese all over the buildings. Shooting places that would be a little better costs more and may not have helped much. I don't think the sentai footage took a huge downgrade in quality or anything. I agree wth Dr. Kain that HD TV's bring out the faults in old footage. I doubt the footage has had any real remastering done except maybe cleaning up the audio.