[Androzani84]

And now for the second part of our weekly feature, with…

Time Force 6: A Parting of Ways

I was going to open on a Doctor Who gag, but I haven’t seen that episode in anywhere near long enough to describe it for the purposes of a joke.

But talking of openings, the Rangers are already battling a mutant, namely the one from the first episode (who the credits name Flamecon).



After Wes single handedly takes him down in a choppily edited fight with the speed you’d expect from a Mary Sue character, Flamecon grows giant, and the Rangers summon the Time Fliers to combine into Jet Mode (so we’re just dropping that in here with no buildup? Great) and use their tornado attack against him.



After they defeat Flamecon with the Megazord, we cut to Wes, moping in the clock tower, with no reference at all to what just happened. (Seriously, what the hell was the point of that? Did Lynn and Marchand really want to use that footage, but couldn’t come up with an episode for it? Or was this episode significantly under running?)



Why is he mopey? Because he immediately afterwards heads to meet with his dad, who intends to pay his son’s way into Harvard(!) so he can take over the company (now renamed from Biosynth to Bio-Lab). But the talk gets derailed when a kid throws a ball at the old man’s car while playing baseball.



Mr. Collins decides he’s going to keep the ball to teach the poor kid a lesson (to be honest, this is standard old people behaviour). But he makes the mistake of handing the ball to Wes, who gives it back to the kid.



Meanwhile, in a reversal of roles, it’s Ransik who’s in the middle of a pampering session, as the Cyclobots give him a massage.



And whereas Nadira’s antics slightly irritate the Cyclobots, Ransik full on beheads one (and in a subtle bit of acting and an unusual amount of nuance not usually seen in even the more sympathetic PR villains before and since, Frax goes to help the poor robot put his head back on).



And then Nadira enters, still desperate to get her hands on “cash” (Seriously, why does she consistently use that? It’s just awkward. They’re not trying to match any lip flaps), unleashes a new mutant (not one of Marvel’s The New Mutants) to do so. Only he’s missing a head.



Because this guy’s mutation is that his head is a separate being to his main body (that must be a nightmare to live with on a day to day basis).



After the two halves rejoin, Nadira introduces him as Tentaclaw, who was arrested back in the future for kidnapping the Mayor (the Mayor of where? London? Hamburg? Paris? Rome? Rio? Hong Kong? Tokyo? L.A.? New York? Amsterdam? Monte Carlo? Shard End? Okay, I’ll stop). Her plan is to kidnap someone important and extort a ransom for their safe return.



The target Tentaclaw chooses? Why, a school bus full of children, of course!



His head flies onto the bus and teleports the body inside so he can knock out the driver and seize control.



Circuit takes note of this and the Rangers soon appear to give chase, but Tentaclaw is unfortunately able to drive the bus and fend them off at the same time.



And so, Tentaclaw gets away with his spoils, leaving behind a ransom note made up of letters cut out of magazines (I understand the normal reason this is used is to prevent the police from matching handwriting, but why do they do it here? Nadira’s not going to have any records for another thousand years).



Wes takes the note to his dad, who is in the middle of a business meeting to buy the companies from two failing rivals for $10 million altogether (What a coincidence).



When Wes reveals the ransom demands and insists his dad pay it, the latter is overwhelmed, and in a rather good bit of acting from Edward Albert, regretfully declines, telling Wes to take the note to the police. And instead of doing this, Wes chooses to mope until his family’s resident Jeeves gives him a pep talk about doing the right thing.



Meanwhile, Nadira begins to regret sending Tentaclaw to find a hostage when she has to put up with the children crying, but refuses to let Gluto eat them. Not out of moral standards, but because she hasn’t been paid up. (I am starting to suspect that it wasn’t just shoplifting Gluto was accused of)



Wes proceeds to get the money by lying to one of the business clients to get him to hand over the cheque he was given for his company (I guess this man’s 3 starving children can suck it, Wes).



Wes then trades the cheque for a briefcase full of bills (Did the bank teller not check who the money was made out to? Or did Wes cross out the name of the beneficiary to write his own? Because given how unheroic he’s being so far, I wouldn?t put it past him), which he takes to a rendezvous point. And when he learns that Nadira has no intention of giving the kids back, he fights her to reclaim the money.



And then it turns out that actually paying the ransom turned out to be unnecessary, as Jen and the others have found Tentaclaw’s hideout and the kids.



But it’s not until Wes shows up that the kids are freed from their forcefield (and as it turns out, the kid from earlier is among the kidnapped).



And then after a meaningful echo of what Wes said to the kid earlier, he stops to stare as the Rangers begin to do battle (It’s probably meant to hint that the kid figured out Wes is the Red Ranger, but it’s not entirely clear).



The fight begins in earnest after he leaves (read: they can switch to the stock footage), with Wes identifying and exploiting Tentaclaw’s weakness.



The Rangers then form the Vortex Blaster and successfully(!) shrink Tentaclaw’s head. (That’s the first time in either show this thing has actually worked)



But Tentaclaw’s now headless body proceeds to grow giant, declaring that he doesn’t need a head to destroy them.



The Rangers face him in the Time Force Megazord Mode Blue and instead of freezing him as per normal, they summon the Time Jet and use a charge attack to blow up Tentaclaw’s body (I guess the message of this episode is clear: kidnapping children means you deserve to die)!





Later, Wes’s dad chews him out, having found out that he stole the money, which gets interrupted when reporters enter the room to congratulate Mr. Collins for supposedly being willing to save the children. (How did that bit of gossip leak out?)



And to add insult to injury, Wes forces his Dad to donate every penny of the ransom to childrens’ charities live on air.

Mr. Collins: Anything for the little tykes!

And Wes, having decided he doesn’t want to turn out like his dad, leaves the house behind (with only the butler watching him go), with the episode ending on him moving into the clock tower with the others.



Next time: The villains actually wise up and deprive the Rangers of their Megazord, before sending out a giant monster. By which I mean, they break Circuit after stealing him from under Trip’s nose.

Final thoughts: The episode was supposed to show Wes seeing his dad as a greedy, amoral businessman and leaving that behind, but that just doesn’t come through at all. The only reprehensible thing he actually does is steal the kid’s ball (and the fact he tells Wes to throw it in the trash indicates that he would have let the kid pick it back up anyway). He seems reasonably overwhelmed when told about the ransom, and his suggestion to leave it to the police isn’t a particularly terrible or close-minded one. Meanwhile, Wes steals money that was being used for a legitimate business transaction, one that must’ve taken weeks or months to be agreed upon, despite being told not to, all for the purposes of acquiescing to a demand he has no reason to acquiesce to, and he’s supposed to be the good guy here.

But aside from that, the episode isn’t bad. Tentaclaw has a fairly unique gimmick (and as mentioned above, a very notable demise), they work well with what would otherwise be a rather standard stock plot (only in a series mostly focused on special effects and action scenes does a mundane hostage situation feel fresh), and we actually have a guest child actor who can convincingly act (at least, by Power Rangers? low standards).