[Fish Sandwich]

I generally stay pretty silent about Power Rangers on this site, but I'd kick myself if I didn't come in here and pay my respects, because this episode was perfect. I felt a sense of childlike wonderment and glee from this premiere that Power Rangers hasn't given me in about a decade.

You'd have to be pretty cynical to say anything too nasty about this one. Whether or not Beast Morphers turns out to be a true return to form for PR is something that will be determined in the coming year or two, but at the very least, this first episode could go toe to toe with any other pilot in the series' history. Coming after something as mind-numbing as Ninja Steel, though, the difference is night and day. Pretty much all the elements here are put in place and work great, and as someone who didn't expect to see any major change in quality right away just because Hasbro bought the franchise, I was consistently impressed going through the episode at how much I found myself enjoying it.

All the things I felt have been neglected since Samurai were back with a vengeance. It's still pretty close to those shows stylistically, but there was clearly a huge effort to really put the soap opera drama back in PR, with a lot more traditionally "movie" sounding BGM for the most part, a lot less goofy comedy, and an amount of world building I'm shocked anyone working on this show remembers how to do after like 6 years of generic alien armadas attacking an otherwise normal Earth. I'm actually struggling to think of how to organize my thoughts here, but the simple fact that a new episode of Power Rangers gave me this much to gush about is probably the most important takeaway.

I guess I just stick to the things that particularly stood out:

- First of all, even as someone who's cool with PR being a carbon copy of Sentai as long as it doesn't mess it up, I also love it when they take all the cool stuff from its source material and really make it their own. Having people working on the series who go "Hey, what if we added a key gimmick to the Morphers?" or "That evil Red Ranger suit is awesome, let's use that more!" shows that there's an actual creative spark here, and that's extremely reassuring.

- I really, really like Devon. They did a great job establishing his character and endearing him to me in a pretty quick time frame. He has some character flaws that both make him relatable and provide opportunities for future drama, while also showing he's smart, capable, and, most importantly, willing to hop into danger to help people without even thinking about it. They made him feel enough like a real person without losing the role model aspect that's key to Power Rangers, and that's perfect. It's literally all I could ask for. Not a plank of wood, and not a jerk. Also, the exchange he has with Zoey where he casually mentions he's a trespasser was the most genuinely funny gag PR has had in ages, so if nothing else he deserves some props for that.

- The other Rangers seem pretty cool even though we see a lot less of them here. Going back to my first point, I loved how their personalities match up with their Sentai counterparts' basic roles without actually being the same. I especially like the idea of Ravi being the only one who's actually supposed to be in this position. Once again, this presents a great opportunity to add good drama in the future and will give a cool context to him presumably being the calm, reliable member of the team later.

- The fight scene at the end was strangely impressive considering how hard it is to make people throwing down in a tiny room look cool? I can't describe this one very well having only watched the episode once, but I actually felt a sense of tension seeing everyone duck around and try to use quick thinking to defeat foes who are obviously more than a match physically. This is pretty basic stuff I look for in my superhero stories and to be fair, even a series like Ninja Steel shows the Rangers strategizing, but the "on the fly" nature of this one made it way more interesting.

- Finally, all the setup here was great. This is the part that won't become true praise unless the show pays it off well, but I'm actually interested to see how plot points like Blaze and Roxy are going to play out, and considering we've also got potential parental conflicts and other things going on, I'm once again very impressed they did something more than just a disappeared dad for long-term drama.

So yeah, Beast Morphers gets a big ol' thumbs up from me so far. Hopefully things only go up from here.