[DreamSword]

R(acing)P(erformance)M(achines)

Pre-Show Preamble

Negatives:

RPM is overrated.

Like, everyone likes to complain about MMPR fans, and oh yeah, I'll give it to you that they can certainly be annoying, but RPM snobs?

Yeah, let's just say that claiming "RPM is the only good season" is no better than those who claim MMPR, In Space, or Time Force are the only seasons worth anything.

The second half is a huge step down from the first, there are a good handful of moments where the show comes across as pretentious, it has one of my most hated characters ever in Colonel Truman, and that theme song is easily the second worst the series has to offer.

I also very much disagree with Eddie Guzelian's' assessment that the series had grown "stagnant, and needed to change" at the time. Because see, here's the thing, no matter which Era of Power Rangers you use as a measuring stick, every Era evolved in its own way, and offered various different ways for people to experience the franchise.

The Saban Era started off as something simplistic and fun for 5 year olds, to later evolve into something aimed at 10 year olds, with each season upping the drama and the stakes, ontop of the franchise being a huge multimedia giant at the time. From video games, to comics, to toys, Power Rangers did its best to be absolutely everywhere.

The Disney Era, due to Disney's' own disinterest in the franchise as a whole, focused almost entirely on the toys and the show itself. But where the Era really shined, and why I feel Guzelian really didn't know the franchise as well as he might've thought, is that, similar to my feelings on Phase 1 Heisei for Kamen Rider, every season of the Disney Era feels really unique! Each entry has a different style, a different tone, and their own unique shake-ups in the formula. Did they still follow a certain set of tropes and ideas? Certainly, but every season offered something new to consider.

And even if you wanna try to say "The Neo-Saban Era just shows Guzelian was ahead of his time!" I still don't agree because here's the thing: Saban is the reason Rangers now has way more avenues than it ever did. It's thanks to them that we got Battle for the Grid, Legacy Wars, the BOOM! Studios comics, the twitch marathon, the ever-expanding board game, and Hyper Force. While the seasons in the Era itself focused more on being light-hearted and fun, Saban still did their best to try and make sure there was something for everyone in terms of the franchise; Something I feel alot of fans don't often give them credit for.

So yeah, while I understand him being upset at his show being unjustly ripped from him, I feel Guzelian was kinda full of it with that statement.

Positives

RPM is overall really good show though. Overrated doesn't mean bad!

Being initially aimed at 15 year olds allowed it to do even more new things that the series couldn't before, resulting in one of, if not the darkest season in PR.

Ontop of that, all of the original footage shot for the season is actually impressive. The type of thing we hadn't really seen since season 3 of MMPR, and wouldn't really see again until Beast Morphers.

Probably the thing that stood out most to me though, especially for the first half of the show, is just how well handled the character development is. While the character balance isn't the best(Kobayashi this ain't), everyone does get offered atleast one chance to shine.

My favorite character in the show is Ziggy, but ironically, I always felt that his character focus episodes were actually the weakest, so we won't be focusing on him today. Instead, we'll be focusing on what I consider to be the out and out best character focus episode that the show has to offer, also ironically belonging to the character who gets the least amount of focus.

Episode 10: Ranger Blue

In almost any other season, Flynn would've been the Red Ranger.

Anyway, the episode immediately starts off strong with probably the one scene literally everyone who has even a passing knowledge of RPM knows about.

Doctor K is asked a ton of questions by the team about various aspects of her Ranger technology, which in turn hangs a ton of lampshades on various elements of the series proper.

My favorite question comes from Ziggy, where he questions why huge fireballs form whenever the Rangers are done Morphing. Ignoring the implication that this always happened every time with every other season(it didn't), it's more the face on Doctor K that sells the exchange for me.

Heck, the whole scene in general is very funny, though for me, now knowing some what went on in the show's' making, I honestly can't tell if Doctor K is being used as a mouthpiece for the writers or not? On the one hand, we have K saying things like "We're dealing with reality. If you want justice read a comic book." On the other, the other members of the team are shown to be totally onboard with Flynn's' new callout idea, and K being dismissive is what sets Flynn's' flashbacks in motion.

And yeah, every flashback Flynn has is totally great in detailing his resolve, his character, and his backstory. We even get to see where his "Justice Unleashed" idea came from! Considering Guzelian outright admitted to taking inspiration from alot of movies he personally loves when it came to creating RPM, I feel like the flashback idea came from Highlander. And hey, I'm all for it!

The meeting is cut short due to an attack on Corinth, and the fight is of course nice, but can I just make a quick side tangent here?

I appreciate how RPM knew how to do black leather jackets properly. Weird thing to call out, I know, but the jackets are themselves simplistic, have enough variation to work as a uniform, and the black leather itself doesn't define a Ranger's' entire fashion sense outside of Dillon. This is something other shows I've seen totally missed, so it's something I've grown to love in terms of RPM's' aesthetics.

I also love the Scottish bagpipes that play in the background whenever the action is focusing on Flynn. Very nice touch.

When something in Flynn's' suit goes awry, he's told to stay out of commission until Doctor K can get it fixed, and it's here we see a really nice and balanced viewpoint to Flynn's' character. Like many a traditional hero, he won't, heck, he outright can't just stand idly by while people are in danger, even if it's something that's sure to backfire on him. And later on, he comes up with an idea that actually manages to floor Doctor K.

Use the Morphing explosion as a weapon! Yeah, Flynn might have chronic hero syndrome, but he's not an idiot. I love the face on K all throughout the rest of the episode here too, which just screams "Oh my god I can't believe he figured something out like this before I did. What."

The final scene, where Flynn returns home to find that his dad has been collecting snippets of all of the Blue Ranger's' exploits is really touching, and is what cemented this episode as my favorite in RPM. They knew exactly what they were doing by making it the credits sequence, and I love it.

Overall, while this is probably the most simplistic and straight-forward episode in terms of plot, every point it does make is well done, stands tall, and makes the entire episode extremely memorable for me. Top notch.

After-Show Bonus

Two-for-one deal today! First off, something alot of people probably already know, is that RPM had a few demo theme songs that were way better than the one we actually ended up getting. My favorite being this one:

Next, while alot of people accuse Judd Lynn of just making stuff up come the second half of RPM, he attests that this is infact not the case. Directly from the Ultimate Visual History book:

Podcast audio can be downloaded HERE.