[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

For those seeing that nonstop stream any new thoughts on the series after all these years?

Oh I have a ton! I've been wanting to rant about it, so this seems like a good excuse. Forgive me if I go on for a while here.

Uh, let's see, where to start? So first, off, I've mostly been poking in and getting a small sampling of each series, although I missed the boat a bit and started with the Alien Rangers episodes. Having not seen most of this stuff in over a decade it's been absolutely fascinating seeing the evolution of the show from season to season like this.

Like, confession time, even though I've always liked PR, I sort of have this secret Sentai purist streak to me of thinking of it as inherently "lesser" or something. I've kind of had my senses slapped back into me by this marathon. Pretty much all of these shows are better than I remember them, in a total reversal of how nostalgia is supposed to work. It's put into perspective just how crappy the newer shows really are.

Because, like, we went from MMPR's goofy cheese fest (which I will always love for what it is!) to Zeo, essentially everything MMPR was but better and more refined. Then after that came Turbo, which really does feel like a step down, but finds its voice after the cast change, despite the transition itself being kinda rushed in spots. But then suddenly, *BAM*, here comes In Space to just totally rock everybody's socks off with how awesome it is. I totally forgot how amazing Countdown to Destruction is.

It's a super worthy finale, and yet they just kept going and we got Lost Galaxy, which really impressed me on several different levels. I've never been huge into it before but, first off, just from a meta perspective it's incredible how much work went into retooling Gingaman into a fully-fledged space opera, and even more incredible how the show managed to spin all of its production issues into something not just coherent, but actually pretty dang good. Second, Lost Galaxy is actually pretty dang good! I ended up watching more of it than any other series so far, seeing the first five episodes, five from toward the end (around the In Space teamup), and then the last five, and I was impressed by how much I got into it. It felt like a show that wasn't afraid to not patronize the kids watching it, and give them something actually dramatically engaging and even pretty dark when the situation called for it.

And then there's Lightspeed Rescue. Still good! One of my personal favorites even, but it's unfortunately sandwiched between two way better series. Which brings me to...

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPLIT LIP

Yeah, Time Force was made by people with experince, talent, and a passion for their careers.

Like anti-Megaforce.

This is SOOOOO true. So, so, so true. Time Force is a freakin' anomaly. Everything about it is shockingly good. The aforementioned camera-work. The synth music that had really come a long way in a couple years. The plotting. Actors who, in a complete betrayal of the franchise, seemed convinced they were in a real show half the time.

Time Force just oozes excellence. It comes dangerously close at points to just being a straight up good drama series, let alone being a good PR season. Time Force is actually the only PR show I've ever rewatched in full, which I did on a whim a year or two ago, and I was f***ing floored by how good it actually is. Seeing a random episode in the stream today, it's still great.

I long for the day when we get another Power Rangers show that has aspirations and passion behind it the way Time Force had, because, and this is the point I've been trying to get around to for the last 700 paragraphs, Power Rangers stopped evolving. Everything built up to Time Force, basically. The show was just getting better and better, always trying new things, and usually making it work. I think that's the real secret of why the Nick seasons have felt so darn underwhelming.

They haven't grown. We're over six years into this and a random episode of Samurai isn't really that much worse than a random episode of Ninja Steel. That's what sucks. Not just that the shows aren't very good, but that it distinctly feels like no one on the production end has any desire to spice things up or take the show someplace interesting. Just a constant, frustrating monotony of acceptably mediocre action shows. And that's lame.

*deep breath*

Well, that's probably enough ranting for now. I'll probably post somewhere around here again about the stream after the Disney seasons are through.