[Androzani84]

Time for part 2 of this week’s feature with…

Time Force: Force from the Future, Part 2

After an obligatory recap, we open on a modern day cop waking up to see thunder appearing out of nowhere.



He goes outside to see Ransik’s gang have landed the prison ship outside the police station (how no-one sees it, I don’t know). And to complete the Terminator knockoff, Ransik asks for the date.



The guard gives the date as 2001 (that’s a year, not a date), which makes Ransik happy that he’s travelled to an era without Time Force to conquer. Speaking of whom, our titular force from the future have somehow crashed their ship on the beach.



Trip awakens from whatever knocked them out and threw the crew out of their seats, before waking everyone else up and getting them out before their ship inexplicably explodes (seriously. At least in Timeranger, it had been sabotaged). With no way home, Jen hands everyone a Chrono Morpher and they head out to search for Ransik.



And the search consists of? the four striding into the town of Silver Hills, in full futuristic clothes (which no-one but the visible extras in the picture reacts to).



And to add to the ridiculousness, everyone presses a button hidden behind their ears to cause a set of sunglasses to appear over everyone’s eyes via CGI (they?re probably AI generated), so they can search more effectively (apparently).



During the search, Jen bumps into a random biker, whose face is conveniently obscured by the camera angle and the fact she only sees him wearing a helmet.



At a jewellery store, Nadira decides she wants to leave with the whole shop, and summons some Cyclobots (the equivalents to the Zenitts) to cause chaos.



The Rangers quickly arrive and prepare to morph… only for it to fail completely (Aren’t these guys professionals? How are they so bad at this?), forcing them to use their hands and feet.



But when things look bleak, the mystery biker from before returns and single-handedly fends the Cyclobots off, causing Nadira to flee. He then takes off his helmet, introducing himself as Wes (the guy from the opening titles).



As you?’probably guessed, he looks like Alex, though they don’t go as far as to state he’s the latter’s ancestor like Timeranger did. As he goes on his way, Circuit reveals that the Morphers failed because all 5 need to have the correct user to be activated, and they have a DNA lock which limits their options, forcing Jen to find Wes again on the small hood he?s related enough to Alex for it to work. And talking of Wes, it turns out he’s a rich playboy who still lives with his father (played by actual award winner Edward Lawrence Albert, who I’m less surprised to see here than Vernon Wells, since he did a lot of kids shows towards the end of his career).



Mr. Collins, as he’s so credited, expects Wes to attend a board meeting that night, but when Jen appears and Wes passes her off as his date, Mr. Collins lets him go (That’s all it took? He already seems like a better father than Asami).



Jen explains the unlikely situation she and her friends are in, and Wes says that he believes… that she’s nuts. She then has to leave to confront Ransik and his cronies as they engage in an all out attack on the city.



But when all hope seems lost, Wes appears, having had a change of heart, to help the Rangers, with Nadira and Ransik confusing him for Alex.

Nadira: Daddy, didn’t you already get rid of him?

Ransik: I destroyed you once, and I will destroy you again!
Wes: What is he talking about?

But instead of answering, Jen has everyone morph with the command “Time for Time Force!” (Which always sounded like they were saying “Time Force Time Force” in what little I saw of the Time Force crew as a kid, but which I mean Forever Red).



We then get the morph sequence, which… I find less impressive visually and technically than its counterpart. I’m sorry.





The fight commences with the Cyclobots firing on the Rangers, who use bullet time to dodge the shots? except for Wes, who gets hit directly by multiple bullets (this scene was probably in the Sentai version of the fight, but I didn’t take much notice of it).



And so they can fully use the stock footage, Ransik teleports away, despite being more than a match for all the Rangers (and for some reason, his teleport sound effect is him evilly laughing, as if leaving partway through a fight was the funniest thing ever).



The fight then proceeds to play out like the Sentai epusode, beyond weapon names (the Double Vector is the Chrono Saber, the VolVulcan is the V4 and the VolPulsar is the V3, but that’s about it in terms of changes), wih the Rangers winning when Jen performs the Time Strike on Gluto, Frax and Nadira.



After Gluto gets bored of being humiliated, Frax teleports them all away.



After powering down, Jen beats up Wes and takes the Morpher back from him, since his purpose in unlocking it has been fulfilled, ending the episode.



Final thoughts: At the point we’re at, I’m leaning more towards Timeranger in terms of writing and world-building. Not that Time Force isn?t trying, but there isn’t really much to the characters that makes them stand out, and in all honesty, I’m finding Jen a lot less likeable than Yuri at this point.

But one thing I can give this episode is them having Wes change his mind and join the fight of his own accord, rather than having to be forced into it like Tatsuya was, even if the ending does sour that by having him accept being kicked out of the group a lot more easily.