"The Millennium Message"
Original Airdate: 05-17-1997
At the juice bar, Tommy and Tanya are sparring with a punching bag and Adam walks in dressed as a magician. ChimpBulk and ChimpSkull wish they were. Suddenly, all hell breaks lose as the building starts shaking. Credits!
Back from the credits, the juice bar is still shaking. Inevitably, Lt. Stone gets a bowl of mashed bananas on his head. All present would laugh at his misfortune but for the ongoing earthquake. Everyone checks the TV, but the anchorwoman has no explanation for what's going on. What must it be like to be the anchorwoman in Angel Grove? "Tonight's top story, a city councilor has been indicted on federal corruption charges. In other news, a pitched giant robot fight leveled the Angel Grove business district today, leaving dozens injured. Now let's check on the five-day forecast with Cowboy Steve!" The Rangers figure that it's probably something they ought to check on.
Meanwhile, Divatox is being carried in a little down the beach. She and the goons are taking a day off. At the Power Chamber, the Rangers see the cause of the disturbance, a spaceship heading for Earth. They continue to watch as the ship explodes. Problem solved! It does, however, ruin Divatox's day off. Divatox and crew decide to check it out. In the Power Chamber, Adam is still dressed as a magician...and it's rather distracting. The Rangers decide to split up and check it out.
Divatox gets to the wreckage first and finds a robot, she is not pleased that said robot disrupted her day at the beach. They take the robot and head out. At the space-sub, they switch him on and learn that he is the Blue Senturion, an intergalactic agent of peace who has an urgent message for Dimitria....From the Future! Which kind of means it's really not that urgent, is it? The message is apparently super-important, "As it can change the balance of the course of the universe" or something. Wait, but he's from the future? Shouldn't that mean that he already knows that this isn't going to work? Or is he planning to change the future?
Anyway, Divatox tricks him into playing the message. Apparently, in the future, Divatox is going to join up with Rita, Lord Zedd and the Machine Empire, conquer the universe and split it between them. Only the Power Rangers can stop them, and that this will all happen in the far-off year of 2000! I think that the writers are trying to create some sort of long-running subplot with this story, but it really doesn't work. Divatox is not pleased, so she reprograms the Blue Senturion for evil. Porto tells her that intergalactic robo-officers can't be made evil for some undefined reason. But Divatox figures out that she can just make the Blue Senturion think that the Rangers are evil.
Elsewhere, Tommy is searching for pieces of the Blue Senturion's ship, Divatox sends some Piranhatrons as required by their collective bargaining argreement. Tommy fights them off, but allows Divatox to convinve the Blue Senturion that the Rangers are evil. Blue Senturion is on the case! Tommy beats up some more Piranhatrons. Blue Senturion shows up to stop the cruel beatings of Piranhatrons. Tommy tries to reason with ol' Blue. I think that the moral of today's story is that you cannot trust the machines, for they lack moral agency, and therefore can never be allowable to be part of the justice system. The rest of the Rangers teleport in to help. This causes the Blue Senturion to flee. Blue may be the wimpiest robot in history.
Anyway, they discuss the situation, and it turns out the Blue Senturions are the most reliable form of robotic law enforcement that there is. That's probably a bad sign for the future of robot cops. They also figure out that Divatox put a bomb into the Blue Senturion because she cannot change her nature. The Rangers split up. Tommy and Kat find Blue, and Kat manages to twist her ankle and Tommy fights the Senturion to a draw. Divatox decides to send in a monster called Terror Tooth, because Blue Senturion is turning out to be a bit of a dud. Terror Tooth shows up and attacks Kat, and the rest of the Rangers show up and start whaling on it with their power weapons.
Kat shoots it with her turbo bow thing, but the Blue Senturion merely adds it to the list of the Rangers' offenses. He beats them all up with a nightstick, as robotic officers are wont to do. But then the Rangers hit his off button and he's defeated. Justin tries to remove the bomb, but accidently plays the super-important secret message. The Blue Senturion kind of sucks at everything, doesn't he? Also, I just realized that this is the second time this season that someone has come from space to give a message to Dimitria, got captured by Divatox, and was brainwashed into fighting the Rangers. Outstanding.
They figure a hard reboot will fix Blue, and turn him back on. He immediately teleports out....and the Rangers forgot to defuse the bomb in his chest. Divatox torpedoes the Terror Tooth, because, well, she's got the torpedoes and she might as well use 'em. The Blue Senturion walks right up to the giant monster and tries to arrest him. Terror Tooth declines. The Rangers call out the Turbo Megazord. The Turbo Megazod saves the Blue Senturion and blasts Terror Tooth down to normal size with its chest lasers, because that's evidently how they work this episode. The Rangers dismount and team up with the Blue Senturion to blast the monsters with their guns. Terror Tooth flees.
The Blue Senturion decides to give chase to the Piranhatrons, even though he still, still, still has a bomb in his chest. The Rangers see an explosion. Divatox shows up to taunt the team in person and has apparently grown Terror Tooth back to giant-size. Having used up their one Turbo Megazord per episode limit, they try to blast him with the Turbo Ram Cannon, it fails. The Rangers stand around trying to figure out how to combat a giant monster, as they apparently forgot how they defeated this particular monster five minutes ago. The Blue Senturion shows up in a giant police car, apparently he suvived the explosion of the bomb in his chest. I don't know why the Rangers keep getting worked up over Divatox's bombs, they never fucking work. Hell, her high point was doing minor damage to a plywood downhill racer.
Anyway, Blue shoots Terror Tooth with his lasers, and then activates Robo Racer mode. The Rangers are amazed at a vehicle turning into some sort of walking giant robot, the likes of which they have not seen in nearly six minutes. The Senturion puts a pair of giant handcuffs on the monster, which works about as well as you'd expect. So Senturion goes to plan B, shooting the monster to death with a giant pistol. Police Brutality!
The Blue Senturion still has the bomb in his chest, and so Alpha 6 shows up to cut the wires. She cuts the wrong one and both go up in a firey conflagaration from which no survivors escape! Actually, she does cut the wrong wire,but nothing happens. Then Justin steps in, and he also cuts the wrong wire. Nothing happens again. They eventually cut the correct wire and the bomb is defused and the Blue Senturion is saved. Great.
Back at the Power Chamber, the Rangers are trying to get the message to replay. Adam is still dressed as a magician. The Rangers get the message up until the part where it explains who the only force that can stop the enemies of the Power Rangers is. So the Rangers are bummed that they don't know who can defeat the forces of evil who have all been defeated by the Power Rangers. It's a tricky one for sure. Justin welcomes the Blue Senturion to the team, and I am consumed with hatred of all things blue. Show Over!
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