Beware the Knight

Power Rangers: Time Force, Episode 32

Original Airdate: 9-22-2001

Last Time: Wes and Jen slowly and painfully groped their way to romance. It hurt.

In Medieval times, an evil black knight steals a box from a white knight, who tells him that he'll never be able to open the box because te black knight is too evil. Um...did I accidentally start watching a different show?

Some centuries later, the Rangers are coming home from an odd job and Trip gets tricked into picking up some pizza. On his way back, Trip runs into the black knight. I bet he didn't see that one coming! Credits!

Trip manages to escape the knight, but the pizzas get slightly trampled. He makes it back to the clock tower and explains that he was just attacked by some sort of evil cavalryman. None of the Rangers believe him because an evil knight showing up out of nowhere bearing the Red Ranger's Battlizer would be a truly, truly ridiculous plot, even by the standards of this show.

In his evil cave, the evil knight still has the box, but can't open it. He realizes that he needs someone pure of heart to open it, and leaves his dragon to guard it while he hunts himself someone suitable. Yeah, the knight has a dragon. What are you going to do about?

Elsewhere, the Rangers are still making fun of Trip when they see the knight rampaging through town. The Rangers return to the clock tower and can't find any information on the knight.

The knight returns to break up a tender moment between two teenagers, as the guy had just promised to protect the girl, and the knight figured that such a promise could indicate a pure heart. Of course, the guy bails on the prospect of being hacked to death with a sword. The Rangers catch up with the knight and fight him for a bit. He beats up Wes for a bit and then flees. Wes, realizing that a flying motorcycle is faster than a horse, gives chase, but loses him in the forest.

The next day, the Rangers search the area but can't find the knight. Wes figures that he'll appear when the sun goes down based on.....a hunch, I guess, and volunteers to wait alone. And so the Rangers wait.....and then the knight finally shows up, and Wes watches him leave his cave. He sends the other Rangers to deal with the knight while Wes decides to invade the villain's privacy.

In the cave, Wes finds the box...and the dragon. In the city, the Rangers fight the knight some more. Now, you might be asking, "Who the fuck is this guy, anyway, and why does he want what's in the box?" Well...that's a shame, because it will never, ever be explained.

Anyway, Wes kills the dragon and thus receives what's in the box: something called the Battle Warrior powers. That means that it's up to Wes to save the day. He activates his new Battilizer and...well, other than the fact that it looks awful stacked on top of the normal Red Ranger suit, and that it makes absolutely no sense for a guy with technological powers from the future to suddenly get a mystical power-up from the Middle Ages, it's not completely terrible. He kills the knight right quick, and since the Japanese weren't quite brain-damaged enough to do something like this in their version of the show, there's no megazord battle.

The episode isn't quite done yet, though, as Wes puts a sword in the ground and seals the cave. Yeah, the audience really needed that sort of closure. Later, Wes exaggerates his story for comic effect and gets caught in a lie. I guess "pure heart" is really more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule. Trip brings in some more damaged pizza and explains that he dropped it. You know, because he brought in the pizza with a seemingly implausible story at the top of the episode. In fairness, if you actually watched the episode, it still kind of sucks. Show Over!

Next Time: A blast from the past...and by "blast," I mean "shotgun blast" and by "from the past," I mean, "to my skull."