The later part of the episode didn't bother me as much (aside from the bit where everyone knew how to use the morphers in spite of never having seen one before, but that's not a unique problem to Zyuohger). The part that felt really off to me was the first five minutes, which rushed through introducing the Red, having him get transported, and seeing him adapt to and interact with the Zyumans before the credits even rolled.

There's also the fact that I get a huge Sid and Marty Kroft vibe from the whole animal people world part. In particular, I just kept comparing the start of the episode to the fantastically terrible intro to Lidsville:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btpd8zg5VWA

But who cares about heroes when Bandai has plastic garbage it needs to shill! :lol

Goseiger was the last series to not feature any mechs in the first episode, and that was officially seven years ago. Of the last 11 series, only 2 (Gekiranger and Goseiger) have held off the reveal of the mechs until episode two.

I sincerely wonder if we'll ever have another pilot that doesn't rush us into the mechs in episode one.

Well, I mean, if it weren't for the need to introduce the mechs at the end of episode one, there wouldn't have been a need to rush the first five minutes. We would have been a lot more time available to set up Zyuland in the beginning.

Modern sentai has so much toy crap to show off in episode one that it's basically impossible to tell an engaging story populated with well-realized characters in the first installment. That Zyuohger comes close to having both is pretty much a miracle, IMO. :lol

Goseiger was 2010, six years ago. Seven years ago was Shinkenger.

So that weird old man Yamato runs up to in the deer costume is named Mario....Yeah okay subtle.

:rolleyes

Including Zyuohger, there have been seven first episodes.

I'm all for accuracy, but like... did you really not get what I meant?

Well I thought you had a typo, I didn't really think of it being the 7th first episode.

My favorite beginning set-up is still Zyuranger. Episode one introduced the team, episode two introduced the first mech. Episodes three and four have the team journey to get their weapons. Episodes 5 and 6 introduce the combined mech, DaiZyuJin. It didn't play all of its cards right away, but still had interesting things going on. In fact, I wish more Sentai had episodes where they journey to find their weapons.

I really with Zyuohger could have spread the first episode's plot across two episodes - there was more than enough content.

It certainly did have enough content that it wouldn't be spread thin (Man, I wanted WAY more of the Zyu world. We certainly did not get enough time there).
But I'm most afraid of it playing all it's cards in one episode will lead to a very bland set of episodes until the plot kicks in.
Sentai's tendency for over the top character interaction might end up killing things quickly for me, since, if the past few series are any indicator, their humor really sucks...
Really, I can only hope the 6th ranger plot starts up quickly, since they certainly didn't shoehorn that little plot thread in subtly.

Right now, the main reason why I want to come back is to see how Tusk's declaration of not being in debt to anyone will pay off.
No Zyu world anymore, they immediately get their human disguises so my intrigue in how the world reacts around them is gone, and yeah.

They did too much way too quickly.

Yeah, the fact that the zyurangers had to earn their weapons definietly makes it feel more special.

It's strange, I really didn't care for the animal suits in the previews, but after seeing the first episode I want to see them more. However, the previews showed them bowling and doing other activities in animal form, so I'm confident we'll see them again. As for Zyuland, I could see them going back towards the end to save that world as well as the human world, but it's more likely that they'll finally return in the last episode after finally defeating the enemy.