Even Linkara, a man who praised this series like he'd been paid off, admitted that Dino Thunder's greatest flaw is setting up great stuff and then never following through with it.

Well...Awesome. Dino Thunder is starting off great, but it's just gonna go downhill?
At least Zeo and Wild Force did me the favor of starting off terribly so I wouldn't get my hopes up :lol

I told you man, the first half is fantastic, the second half is balls.

Aww...Well, better than an entirely terrible series...

Rangers: *Losing to the White Ranger*
Tommy: "The Rangers need help! STEGOZORD!"
What the fuck is the Stegozord gonna do?

HM03?

Kind of hard to do without water...

So, Trent is back on the side of good, Conner is the Triassic Ranger, and Tommy is still stuck in his morphed form.
Despite so much happening, it oddly feels like not much actually happened. The problem is that so many of these revelations occur at the very end of an episode. For example, Conner getting the Triassic power is, for the most part, a Trent focused episode.

Not to mention that the Triassic Ranger is quickly replaced by the Battlizer and so we never really get a proper explanation for the powers as Connor drains his friends power and leaps through dimensions.

Oh yes. I forgot Conner also gets a Battlizer, too...

His Battlizer would have been cooler if it wasn't so cheap looking. And the Triassic Ranger would have been cooler if I had any idea of what the fuck was going on.

I'm not a fan of how floppy the armor is.
As for the Triassic Powers, yeah. I don't have a damn clue what's going on :lol

It's the same reason I hate a lot of the Megazord suits. I understand they are only human and can't lug around proper armour while doing massive flips, but if they know they have to make the suit lightly, why add bits that draw attention to just how cheap it is? Nothing ruins these segments like extremely flimsy bits of cardboard flapping around like any second it's gonna fall off. They certainly improved this in later seasons with CGI and or what looks like lego...but they still have a long way to go.

I hated the Triassic Battlizer. I'm not a huge fan of the concept of Battllizers in general because they leave out the rest of the team, but the Triassic Ranger was already doing that so that at least was forgivable, but those Mr. Fantastic powers were just random and silly. I actually liked the idea of the shoulder cannons, I just wish it didn't go along with those ridiculous stretchy limbs.

EDIT: Looking up pictures, I remembered the armour to be a lot less bizarre looking...

Design wise, I think the Triassic Ranger looks a lot better, since I'm a fan of the red and gold combination.

Anyway, I'm watching Tommy's Brachio zord, and I was thinking, how weird would it have been if the Brachio zord was Titanus? :lol

Started watching Beetleborgs Metallix. I don't remember this show as well as the original season, so this should be interesting.

Even a couple of episodes in, I can tell that this series is a step above the original. I still vastly prefer the original B-Fighter suits to the Kabuto ones, but Metallix has much better direction and Nukus is an excellent villain.

I'd forgotten a Jawa moves into Hillhurst though. Utinni!

Okay...this might hurt or work out REALLY well.

I am currently watching Dino Thunder, the Power Rangers season I grew up with and currently adore still to this day. Let's see if it still holds up, now that I have some of the Sentai to compare it to and a more "adult" mindset than what I had as a kid...

Based on my rewatching of it that I finished just last week, Dino Thunder started out really strong. It had an excellent set of stories to along with decent (If somewhat cliche) characters to follow. I particularly enjoyed how it set up Trent's story arc.

But as Locke and others have said before, it really drops the ball when it comes to resolving them. The stories just...End. It sets up something great, but it doesn't know how to actually resolve it.

Well...here it is...I've finally watched episodes 1 and 2 of Dino Thunder for the first time in almost ten years. And...it has flaws, but I still LOVE this season to death. I would dare say that it's better than MMPR, but I'm going to wait until I get past season 2/up to the Alien Ranger mini series and the end of Dino Thunder to make my judgement.

It does have flaws, yes...Connor is much harder to like at the beginning of the show, coming off as kind of an ass at times. And the robo T-rex in episode one could have been made to look much more convincing. Though, it's fun to imagine Tommy have some serious deja vu from his says as Rita's Green Ranger. I'm also annoyed that Zeltrax has that cliched evil laugh TWICE towards the end of episode two, much like how it annoyed me that Koragg had one too many cliche evil laughs that Wolzard never had to utter...Wolzard is more intimidating and overall better than Koragg, but that's another story for another day.

What it did get right was pulled off very well for my tastes and so far, it still holds up. The acting and effort is SO much better than the likes of Samurai and Megaforce now. I especially like the original troops designs much better than the Abaranger goons and the slight resemblance in the opening to Abaranger. The team's mentor and future black ranger running away from the season's bad guys, leading in to later events and the debut of the new rangers.

As much fun as people make of Tommy having perhaps one too many roles in other Power Rangers seasons, here, it just feels right to have him on as the mentor and a team ranger later on.

One more thing that suffers in this premiere is the rushed treatment of the taming of the Zords. It took much longer in Abaranger and felt more dramatic and concerning in Abaranger, though there was little development for the characters at first. The issue seems reversed here with more emphasis on character introductions and little time to actually tame the Zords and make a true sense of dread and worry.

The music is also one place where Power Rangers beats Super Sentai, in my opinion. The theme song is much better suited for action scenes, especially the instrumental for Megazord finishers than the music used in Abaranger. It's just more exciting and catchy, if you ask me.

Overall, it has it's flaws, but I still love Dino Thunder for what it is and regard it as one of the better seasons of Power Rangers, as well as a MUCH superior tribute to MMPR than Megaforce is. I look forward to talking more about it as I go through the other 36 episodes of the season.

Oh god, Zeltrax. If there's one plot that was utter crap from the get go, it was him. Not even Tommy knows why the hell he has such a problem with him. He briefly gets some level of growth, but that's soon dropped...

On that, I can agree. Zeltrax's storyline seemed to go nowhere.

It was apparently another similarity to the sentai, but it just didn't work here...

He has a beef with Tommy, Tommy has no idea why while Zeltrax pretends their history is important, and then it's just dropped.
Then he gets a crush on Elsa that he looses in the span of two episodes.
Then he has a rivalry with the White Ranger until it just...Ends.
The he turns on Mesogog, but that goes nowhere until the literal finale.

Dino Thunder is constantly setting up plot after plot for Zeltrax, and they completely forget about them an episode later.

Wasn't Zeltrax's counterpart kind of a bigger deal in Abaranger? I ask because there are only...maybe 13 episodes with english subtitles on youtube and I can't seem to find one that doesn't require some sort of download from a shady website.

Zeltrax's voice is cool enough...I guess. That's pretty much all I got along with his design as far as redeeming factors go. Koragg had much more than that. I would judge the SPD villains, but I have yet to see the entire show...it's been almost nine years, so it's easy for me to forget what little I saw.

Yeah, anyway. Zeltrax is a weaker villain and certainly flawed in this show, but I think Mesagog saves the show and still remains as one of the best Power Ranger main villains, in my humble opinion. More serious and intimidating than the likes of Lothor and Rita, but a bit hammy still...

I wouldn't know, since I've seen nothing of Abaranger.

Anyway, I personally consider Zeltrax as a whole to be one of Dino Thunder's flaws.
Mesogog was cool. I didn't have any problems with him like others seemed to have had, and he's a much better villain that Lothor or Grumm, hands down. I'd probably rank him third, after Ransik and Zedd.

I need to find more english subbed episodes before I could tell you.

And yes, Mesogog didn't take crap when it came to the excuses of his troops. If you didn't answer "it's a waste of your time to make excuses when I can use it to try to destroy the Power Rangers", he'd do...whatever telephatic torture he seems to do to Elsa and Zeltrax in the first episode's ending. I still need to see Time Force, so I can't agree with you about Ransik yet, but I do agree that he's top three worthy, but below Zedd.

It's so nice to see posts from you that I one hundred percent agree with, Zeltrax kind of embodies all of Dino Thunder's problems. He died in a lab experiment or something, so then Mesogog rebuilt him...and that gave him undying loyalty...until he betrayed Mesogog anyway for no reason? Amazing. To be honest this was so shitty I completely forgot about what his connection to Tommy even was. Not that it mattered, he basically lost every single fight with Tommy and their 'rivalry' but because he was 'important' he had to survive at the end, so basically Zeltrax spent thirty episodes getting his ass kicked and running away with his tail between his legs. What a fantastic and threatening villain.

And oh yeah, he had a son that one episode because...why the fuck not.

Zeltrax didn't betray Mesogogg for no reason. He betrayed Mesogogg because of White Rangers manipulations and him taking his place as Meso's right hand. And the rivalry between Zel and Tommy lasted more than a few episodes and was just dropped, it lasted through the entire series. Right up until Conner used the Battilizer and tore his ass a new hole. Dino Thunder had some problems. But it's still one of the most solid seasons of Disney's Era, only behind Mystic Force in my opinion.

I've never understood the love for Dino Thunder, Disney did a lot of amazing seasons, but Dino Thunder was not one of them, the whole second half was a anti-climactic mess.

Because Dino Thunder was a good season with good characters and, despite it's flaws, good story. Seeing Tommy again was a treat, the core cast was great, and Trent was an excellent Evil Ranger. [spoiler]While that lasted.[spoiler] Some of it could've been done better, but that's every season of Power Rangers (Yes ZeoV, even Zeo :P). But it wasn't near the atrocity of Ninja Storm or Operation Overdrive.

I'm well aware Zeo has flaws thank you :p

:lol Just making sure. Though honestly, it's been so long since I've seen Zeo that I can't actually remember any of them lol

Good characters, whose character arcs were dropped half way through? What story? And the clone White Ranger was a much better evil Ranger than Trent ever was, Trent may have been one of the most poorly used and poorly implemented sixth Rangers, ever.

I actually liked Ninja Storm and Operation Overdrive a thousand times more than I liked this season.

I disagree concerning the White Ranger clone. He was so negligible that for entire stretches of episodes he'd just chill out in the base, acting like a complete bitch towards Mesogog and Elsa. He had no motivations, no goals, and no story until his death. Trent's story (At least, the beginning) was one of the best things about Dino Thunder. It had a Jekyll and Hyde approach of Trent wanting to be good and normal, but the White Ranger being heartless and evil. Adding his tension with his father and his resentment of Mesogog, if they didn't drop the ball on the ending Trent's story arc could've been amazing.

Have you finished Operation Overdrive? havent seen any episode reviews from you lately so i wasnt sure if you gave up on it or.not.

Ignoring the Hillhurst monsters, I think my biggest problem with both seasons of Beetleborgs is how anticlimatic the fights are. So far every episode has mainly consisted of the Beetleborgs walking around with their weapons looking cool, but actually doing very little fighting. Then all of a sudden they'll just one-shot the monster with their guns and its done.

yeah i kinda remember the beetleborg fights being rather bland and anticlimactic

Not yet, I haven't given up either, you see because I work, I don't have a lot of time to watch toku and as we're on a forum for ALL toku, I'm basically coming across a new show daily and when you've been watching the same show for weeks on end, the allure of something shiny and new is something just too much and consumes you, well it does me. I think the only reason I was able to get so close to finishing GARO is its only 25 episodes, not fifty. I was in the final stretch of Overdrive though and although no masterpiece, the action was well done enough that it was at least entertaining.

And it comes from a modern point in Power Rangers chronology so there is actually character and story focus, unlike the sentai I am currently slogging through and battling not to just give up on.

I dunno man, the White Ranger Clones death was one of my favourite parts of the whole season, and pretty much the only part of the second half I enjoyed without reservation.

I feel like the White Ranger of Dino Thunder was a huge missed opportunity. I haven't seen any of Abaranger, but from my understanding Abarekiller was evil for the majority of the show, which is why White Ranger did so little and the White Ranger Clone had to be introduced to occupy footage of AbareKiller and it sort of showed.
It would've been interesting to see a ranger that actually stayed evil the majority of the show. SPD afterwards showed us that sometimes rangers can be evil and I loved that, but they were only in 2 episodes, it'd been awesome to see an evil ranger that stuck around.

Evil Rangers, in general, are such an underutilised and awesome concept. The Psycho Rangers may have kinda sucked, in reality, but their concept was just so fucking cool.

I think the psychos were the only evil ranger ever who got a fair shake.

way off topic but did the powers that be just give up on the top 20 power ranger countdown? havent seen any updates?