[ljacone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Really? I still remember their 'greatest threat' Devastation sounding like a stoned surfer. Or the time two villains who successfully built and stole SWAT tech and kicked the heroes around the curb were both portrayed as incompetent and stupid. Those are recent examples and I could give you more if I went back over them again like Bugglesworth. It's shit like that that gives me the MMPR vibe.

It's also when characters go through entire arcs, learn a lot and really change for the better only for the next episode to have them at the start again. I can't actually count the sheer number of times Jack and Sky have butted heads before realising that they are better off as a team and forming a friendship but they've done that whole song and dance a damn few number of times, along with the rest of the team.

Every time it feels like something is about to progress the shitty side of the writing drags it back to the beginning again. It's like the good writers are literally battling against the shit writers to make the show go somewhere good and the shit writers keep pushing them back.

I'm not seeing how having stupid or incompetent monsters makes it like MMPR. Generally, the MOTW on MMPR were at least competant enough to handle Rita/Zedd/Vile's plan for the episode before the heroes overcame whatever the roadblock was.

As the series continued, we got sillier and sillier baddies, but it was more confined to the regulars and not the MOTWs. Rito, for example, was pure comic relief, and by the time Rito had showed up, so was Goldar.

I don't know, I've always read MMPR as earnest in the face of high camp, while SPD is sort of just "embrace the crazy and don't ask too many questions."

As far as characters, they don't really go on character arcs in MMPR. They're all fairly standard characters and don't evolve much over the course of the three years, save Tommy who goes from outsider to confidant, to aww shucks guys to super leader dude.

[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljacone

I'm not seeing how having stupid or incompetent monsters makes it like MMPR. Generally, the MOTW on MMPR were at least competant enough to handle Rita/Zedd/Vile's plan for the episode before the heroes overcame whatever the roadblock was.

As the series continued, we got sillier and sillier baddies, but it was more confined to the regulars and not the MOTWs. Rito, for example, was pure comic relief, and by the time Rito had showed up, so was Goldar.

I don't know, I've always read MMPR as earnest in the face of high camp, while SPD is sort of just "embrace the crazy and don't ask too many questions."

As far as characters, they don't really go on character arcs in MMPR. They're all fairly standard characters and don't evolve much over the course of the three years, save Tommy who goes from outsider to confidant, to aww shucks guys to super leader dude.

I coulda said 'stupid villains like Ninja Storm' but it looks like not a lot of people have seen Ninja Storm and MMPR is the most stupid after it. This series is the other way round, the Generals were clearly all written by the good writers along with key monsters like Sky's friend and the guy who killed his Dad but most seem to be written by the shit writers.

And that is kind of what I meant, the MMPR characters don't grow and the SPD ones wouldn't either if the shit writers have anything to say on the matter.

[ljacone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

I coulda said 'stupid villains like Ninja Storm' but it looks like not a lot of people have seen Ninja Storm and MMPR is the most stupid after it. This series is the other way round, the Generals were clearly all written by the good writers along with key monsters like Sky's friend and the guy who killed his Dad but most seem to be written by the shit writers.

And that is kind of what I meant, the MMPR characters don't grow and the SPD ones wouldn't either if the shit writers have anything to say on the matter.

Ahhhh, alright, I see what you are getting at now. I was not grasping how you were making the connections but I'm following you now. Ninja Storm was more like MMPR in that the main baddies were silly but the monters fairly straight, but yeah, I'd call SPD the opposite of that.

Personally speaking, I find the illusion of progress to be more frustrating than no progress. I like that the characters on MMPR (and Zeo, and Turbo, and In Space) don't particularly grow or change. The shows are formulaic in the same way that a police procedural or courtroom procedural are formulaic, and I like that I could catch whatever episode was airing and follow along without worrying about "Oh geez is this before or after X happened?" Like Dragnet or Perry Mason but with bright colored costumes, monsters, and giant robots. (Raymond Burr would fit in perfectly!)

I always chalked the Sky and Jack thing up to the two of them just not liking each other a fundamental level. Eeven though they can work together, end of the day there's no way they'd get along. A No Prize, for sure, but better to No Prize something away sometimes!

[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljacone

Personally speaking, I find the illusion of progress to be more frustrating than no progress. I like that the characters on MMPR (and Zeo, and Turbo, and In Space) don't particularly grow or change. The shows are formulaic in the same way that a police procedural or courtroom procedural are formulaic, and I like that I could catch whatever episode was airing and follow along without worrying about "Oh geez is this before or after X happened?" Like Dragnet or Perry Mason but with bright colored costumes, monsters, and giant robots. (Raymond Burr would fit in perfectly!)

I always chalked the Sky and Jack thing up to the two of them just not liking each other a fundamental level. Eeven though they can work together, end of the day there's no way they'd get along. A No Prize, for sure, but better to No Prize something away sometimes!

It isn't so much an illusion here but more glimpses of two very different shows mashed together. When the good writers get a few episodes in a row they do a lot with those characters in that time. When the shit writers take over though they almost seem to pretend that nothing the other writers just did happened and we're back to square one again.

I like serialised shows, I don't think a show should pander to audiences who jump in half way through, I've been here since the beginning and if you want me to the end, the show and its characters have to progress and grow or there is no reason to watch this.

[ljacone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

I like serialised shows, I don't think a show should pander to audiences who jump in half way through, I've been here since the beginning and if you want me to the end, the show and its characters have to progress and grow or there is no reason to watch this.

I don't consider a procedural to be a form of pandering to the audience, but instead simply another type of periodic show. MMPR and it's sequels are a "science fiction procedural" instead of a police, courtroom, or medical procedural. This is a long standing tokusatsu TV tradition dating back as far as the original Ultra Q (and the following year, Ultraman).

SPD would have been the perfect show to actually mash those two concepts together, and make a science fiction police procedural!

A crime is committed. SPD B-Team is assigned to investigate. Some sort of clue is discovered. Depending on who is getting the spotlight that episode, deeper investigation is performed. A hypothesis of the means, motive, and perpetrator of the crime is formed. The suspects (monsters or otherwise) are confronted by the B-Team, and then we move into the more familiar super sentai style tropes.

Of course that is not what we got with SPD, but I think that approach has a lot of merit. Marrying the more serious aspect of policework with the more crazy aspect of giant monster fighting.

[Locke]

Oh yeah but procedurals still have overarching stories to tie the seasons together and character arcs functioning in the background. Power Rangers doesn't even often have that, SPD does but only when the good writers get a chance to shine.

[Locke]

So the Kat focused episode rests on the fact that she is offered a promotion?

What a crock of shit, she was offered this same position before and turned it down. I know Birdy was a dick in that episode but she didn't just stay for that, she stayed because of her loyalty (and possible attraction) to Kruger so she shut down the offer immediately.

Now she needs a whole episode to decide the same fucking thing? Actually she didn't even decide, she did it because apparently the entire staff of SPD is a fucking sham. Kat is doing everyone's jobs for them and the episode proved that if the Rangers and Boom did their jobs properly they actually wouldn't need Kat at all. I mean seriously the kind of stuff that goes wrong after she leaves, if that is because of a single person, then Earth has no hopes.

This is also coming less than ten episodes away from the end. I mean is this supposed to suggest that the bond between Kruger and Kat is fraying? Sure she seems to have a shorter fuse with him perhaps but you think if anything their love would be rekindled after he went back into active duty again, something he swore against after his planet fell, to fucking save her.

When you feel like you pay more attention to the characters than the show does, there is a fucking problem.

Remember kids, you can be lazy and a sexy cat lady will do all your work for you! I mean great message guys but not great storytelling. And she likes getting her hands dirty, eh? I can help with that...

The villain this week was fucking terrible as well. "But we went to school together!"

On the positive Kat Ranger may well be my new favourite Ranger. She is a sexy cat lady, who actually hisses and scratches like a real cat...and her suit is orange.

JUST MARRY ME KAT MANX JESUS. I dunno who I am more in love with, her or Ichijou. Let's just have a threesome and you can Kamen Rider my Kuuga huuur.

[Locke]

So what actually took place in the Deka episode SPD's Missing was based on? I'm just intrigued because this episode was terrible.

That one tiny sign that said 'train station' which is apparently supposed to convince us that those warehouses are something other than that, the way bridges morpher broke and was immediately replaced or all the broken and poorly written dialogue that never matches up to the sentai footage I dunno, it just felt like the episode wanted to be as far removed from the original episode as possible whether it made sense to or not.

[Locke]

Right I'm on the Dino Thunder SPD crossover and... of all Rangers of the past they choose those ones? Yeah I know it was the last series before this one but come on guys you've gotta be more convincing than that. Then again since they did it all in a single episode I guess they didn't have much room for story.

I was really excited to see Conner again, the one character I liked in Dino Thunder other than Tommy, but somehow they even managed to make him uninteresting. At least Kira finally sorted out her makeup, then again her fanbaiting outfit was a little eh....

I dunno the action was all well made and everything I just don't really care about either of the teams, at least Dino Thunder gave me a cross over where I got to see a team I liked school a team I didn't and outshine them in their own series.

Oh no wait, the crossover keeps going...into the next episode. Great...

So now Mora is back, apparently a key part of Morgana's arc happened off screen then, and now we're in 2004 rather than whenever SPD is set, a year before the last episodes past, if that means anything.

At least it meant more Conner, seeing the Triassic Ranger in action again and I've really warmed to Bridge. And at least we also got to hear what Tommy would sound like if he was a chain smoker.

[Locke]

Really struggling with SPD now, I thought after we got that shitty Dino Thunder crossover out of the way we'd be on great episodes until the end, but I'm on the final five episodes and I'm just waiting for this series to end. Honestly this series hasn't really been great since the Reflections two parter where the series seemed to hit its peak.