Power Rangers in Space, Episode 1
Original Airdate: 02-06-1998
Last Time: The Rangers lost all of their powers, and the Power Chamber got blown to bits. However, Justin left the team....so, all in all, a net win for the Rangers.
On some unnamed planet all of the Power Ranger's enemies are having a party. Lord Zedd! Rita Repulsa! Those Machine Guys that no one liked! Divatox is recounting how she blew up the Power Rangers. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure in a cloak mills around. Divatox and Rita exchange pleasantries. Divatox taunts Rita about being the one to destroy the Rangers. Rita can't believe it, and shoot Divatox with her staff. She misses and the energy is absorbed into a younger, prettier villainess. She's Astronema. Divatox is not pleased about being replaced. The cloaked figure continues to move about the party. New Credits! As for how good the theme is...the first line is "Rangers....in SPACE!" I think the guy who wrote these themes had completely given up by this point. Interestingly, this formulation of the credits still has Divatox credited as the main villain.
The evil leaders are all sitting down to dinner. Interestingly, the table is set up to look suspiciously like the table from the Last Supper. The cloaked figure sits down, and no one seems to be too curious about who this mysterious stranger is. Dark Specter shows up to brief his generals. He's captured Zordon and is draining him of his powers. This is apparently bad. On the plus side, it will take about 40-some odd episodes to work. Everyone drinks the "lava juice" or whatever the evil wine-like substance is except for the guy in the cape. Divatox finally figures out something is up with him. Astronema announces that he's a spy! Some Quantrons move to capture him, and get their first of many, many beatings. He reveals his weapon...it's a drill sword. I can't imagine how that's supposed to work. Anyway, the combined villains try to fight him off, but can't quite do it. Dark Specter wants to know who this spy is. Goldar manages to rip off the strangers cloak and it's a new Red Ranger. The villains are confused because they thought they'd finally killed the Power Rangers, only to have this happen. The Red Ranger calls for something called a "Galaxy Glider" which is apparently some sort of space-surfboard. And I thought the go-karts from last season looked stupid. He escapes. Astronema manages to overact even when saying and doing nothing...it's quite impressive, actually.
Dark Specter realizes that he's going to have to send someone after the new Red Ranger, and he can't be happy with his options. Rita and Divatox both try to impress Dark Specter/undercut the other one. He ultimately chooses to send Astronema and something called the "Dark Fortress" to take care of the Ranger.
Elsewhere, the Rangers are still in the shuttle from last season. T.J. asks Alpha 6 how long until they reach Eltar. Alpha 6's voice is broken. It's pretty great. The Rangers notice that they're about to hit a giant ship. The mysterious ship opens up and docks with the shuttle. The Rangers enter the ship and stealthily investigate what's going on. Cassie notices a plaque, in English, mind you, that names the ship as the Astro Megaship. Carlos notices an ominous camera device monitoring them. T.J. sees an open door, and slowly manuevers the Rangers towards it. They find the engine room, and T.J. wonders if anyone's even on the ship.
The team splits up and keeps searching...and searching...and searching. Ashley finds a machine that works basically like the food replicator from Star Trek. For some reason all of the signage is in English. This will make less sense later on. Carlos finds a plate of half-eaten food. The reassembled team moves on and finds the bridge. The pace is glacial. The Rangers all ponder the situation they're in.
Anyway, the Rangers discover they're in orbit around a planet that kind of looks like Jupiter. Meanwhile, the Red Ranger is flying back towards the Astro Megaship, but has to fight off some Quantrons in space fighters. He defeats them by shooting them with his blaster. Incidentally, the physics of this season veer from "not realistic" to "the exact opposite of realistic," which makes every fight scene in space kind of seem a bit stupid, even by Power Ranger standards. In fairness, the Japanese never intended the footage to represent space action, and these scenes are usually the result of Saban tried as hard as he can to turn a show not about space into a show about space, even when it looks very, very sloppy as a result. The Red Ranger shows up to find the ex-Turbo Rangers on his ship. T.J. tries to explain the situation. The Red Ranger bravely...runs away. The other Rangers give chase. The Red Ranger eventually ambushes them as the other Rangers try to explain that they don't want to fight.
Suddenly, the Astro Megaship gets attacked by some sort of evil space ship. The Red Ranger locks the other Rangers in a room and goes off to deal with it. The other Rangers are confused by the presence of a Red Ranger that doesn't lead to devastating defeat, and T.J. pieces together that the Astro Megaship belongs to the Red Ranger. Astronema is aboard the evil space ship and orders to it continue attacking the Astro Megaship. She manages to knock out his engines. The other Rangers notice and decide to help out. Astronema orders her ship to hold fire, and she explains that it "was too easy" in an oddly sexy voice. In the engine room, T.J. is able to diagnose the problem with an interstellar space engine as an unplugged cable. The Astro Megaship crashes towards that Jupiter-looking planet. T.J. manages to fix the engines. The Red Ranger realizes that the other Rangers are on his side, but can't keep the Astro Megaship from crashing.
The Red Ranger confronts the othe Rangers about their identities. The ship's computer, DECA, announces that quantrons are landing on the planet. T.J. continues to try to explain the Ranger's purpose. The Red Ranger tries to take off, but can't. He decides to fight the quantrons instead. T.J. and the other Rangers volunteer to fight with him. To Be Continued! Wait, the episode is over? Nothing happened! What the fuck?
Next Time: Stuff (probably) happens!
No comments:
Post a Comment