[DreamSword]

Operation Overdrive

Pre-Show Preamble

God that theme song is whack.

Anyway! Operation Overdrive is another season that people look down upon, and when I first saw it growing up, yeeaaahhhh let's just say it was the first season of Power Rangers that I found myself not actually liking. That's not to say I found it all bad though, there were infact some aspects that I always appreciated, and I even found some new ones upon rewatching it with my friend.

For one thing, the show actually had rather good pacing throughout all of it, I liked how there were multiple villain factions all fighting over the same thing, the style and flair was(with a few exceptions) always fun like with every Ranger season, and, most importantly, there were a select few characters who really, really stood out. And I feel that one of those characters shines the absolute brightest in today's' episode; One that will probably surprise literally no one who's seen PROO before.

Episode 25: Things Not Said

I'll be totally honest about this: The set-up for this episode is rather weak.

But the payoff? Oh MAN the payoff. Okay, so the set-up is that the Star of Isis is located, only for the team to be interrupted by an attack from Kamdor.

Out of all the villains, I always liked Kamdor the most. He not only typically came up with the best plans, but his fight scenes were consistently good, I found his partnership with Miratrix interesting, and, oh yeah, he's a frikken SPACE NINJA!

But, in the interest of fairness, before we can properly get to the great parts of this episode, we gotta start with that lame set-up I mentioned earlier. We start off with Mack showing off an old photo of him and his dad camping to his friends, only for Dax to immediately point out that the photo looks doctored.

Let me repeat that, Dax is the one who points this out. The dude who, atleast most of the time, is characterized as the loon of the group. Like, I get Rose not being in the scene because she's revealed to be making new Zord tech, but it would've made way more sense for it to be literally anyone else. I guess it helps make Mack blowing the claim off alot more believable?

Continuing on, when the Rangers deploy to stop whatever Kamdor is up to, Kamdor responds by calling forth a new monster, Datun, who's designed after an old style camera. And I wanna use this entire sequence to highlight something that became a running gag between my friend and I.

Tyzonn is the worst Sixth Ranger ever.

Like, this episode aside, dude gets smacked around alot, to the point that alot of times it seems like he's barely contributing to the fights at all. Even here, when Datun goes giant, what does Tyzonn do?

"Yeah, you go Rangers! I'll be down here... I guess!"

It's so pathetic that it just became funny. And jumping ahead for just a tad, does he fair any better in the fight at the end of the episode? No. Of course he doesn't. Tyzonn sucks at everything always. Like, legit I almost feel bad for the guy. But unfortunately it also makes him the great butt of many jokes, so.

MOVING ON. It turns out that Datun was actually a living trap. Upon his defeat, he sent out a computer virus that... okay it's not super clear how it was transmitted, or maybe I'm just dumb. The best I could gather is that he infected the Zords via interacting with them, which then spread out and infected the home base once the Zords returned. How exactly Hartford knew it was a computer virus solely from the lights flickering is beyond me, but that's not what's really important.

The important part is that the virus infects Mack as well. And this is where the episode comes to a head.

Like, holy crap! Talk about a striking image to have in a show like this! And what follows is no slouch either! I chose that first screencap for a reason, because the directing in all the talking scenes after this is top Frikken NOTCH, dude! The following scene, where it's revealed that Mack was an android built by Hartford only two years ago? MAN that hits hard every time. The director and the actors really pulled out all the stops for the majority of this episode.

Mack, now feeling alienated, opts to stay behind when Kamdor is discovered in the Florida Everglades. The team does their best(which isn't much when Tyzonn is involved), but find themselves quickly outnumbered despite their best efforts. The biggest highlight here being the fight between Kamdor and Will, whose fights are always great in this show. They lend a big part into why I like both characters, despite the flaws they have.

In the midst of this we get another absolutely fantastic scene where Spencer does his best to snap Mack out of his funk enough so he can help his friends. Mack of course expresses the sort of dread you'd expect, but Spencer assures him that despite how he might feel, everyone he's known and created a bond with? Those bonds are real, and they aren't going to change simply because Mack is an android. Once again, the acting is absolutely on point here, and having the typically sarcastic Spencer be the one to reach out only makes it all the better. Mack takes the words to heart and races off, Rose's' newly developed weapon in hand...

This episode also serves as the debut of Overdrive's' Battlizer. The Battlizers in Rangers are always, Always awesome, and this one is no exception. The design itself is cool for starters, and I like how it ties in with PROO's' Anniversary aspect, as I always felt it was a harkening back to the Dragon Shield; the Sentinel Battlizer being a suit of Gold Armor donned thanks to power transfer from another character.

The beatdown that ensues is great too. I especially love the series of slashes Mack does that creates the show's' logo. And at the end of it all, the civilian powers get to be of great use too, with Ronny stealing the Star of Isis from Kamdor at the last second thanks to it.

And I gotta say, this episode knew exactly how and where to end things too, because we close off with yet another great scene centered around Mack. He breaks the news of what he's learned to the rest of the team, and they all, in their own way, do their best to assure him that everything will work out. And, in a nice touch of realism, everything isn't exactly all better with Mack right then and there. He still has doubts, he still has a ton of questions to ask himself, and he doesn't just immediately forgive his father for lying to him for the entirety of his life. Yet again, top notch writing and acting here.

Overall, while I don't think it saves alot of the season's' shortcomings(no thanks in part to the higher ups at Disney), this episode came together in all of the most important ways, and I love it. If you can get past the immediately weak setup, the payoff is fantastic, and made Mack one of my favorite characters from this season. It has great acting, good action, an awesome twist, and lead to some wonderful character development in the following episodes. I really couldn't've asked for more.

After-Show Bonus

People who went to the first PMC reported that there was a demo song for PROO that sounded alot better than the one we got, but the only one I could find was... well, let's just say I'm doing you all a favor by not linking it. Yes, the theme song we ended up getting was, infact, the "good" one.