Full Exposure

Power Rangers: Time Force, Episode 23

Original Airdate: 7-14-2001

Last Time: We learned that Trip has a thing for girls with thick glasses and pigtails....yeah, that sounds about right.

The Rangers are fighting some nameless monster and a photographer takes some photos of them. They kill the monster and the photographer sneaks away. At the local paper, Mitch, the photographer of notes runs his pictures by some sort of low-rate J. Jonah Jameson, who wants pictures of the Rangers without their helmets on, or else he'll fire Mitch. (Note to people who are reading this blog in years to come: In the year 2001, newspapers were still seen as viable in the long-term, incredible though that may seem.) Credits!

In the clock tower, Katie shows off her super-strength by lifting the entire couch with one hand in such a manner that it appears that she also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics. Wes discusses the unreliability of tabloids, and the Rangers get called down for an odd job. It's Mitch, and he needs someone to help him take pictures. What? Why, it's a photo-camera, they aren't that heavy or complicated.

Anyway, Katie gets chosen and Mitch explains to her that their job will be unmasking the Rangers, which, of course, concerns Katie, because they need to keep their identities secret from the common lest....I don't know, dissatisfied people plant bombs set to go off in a thousand years under their future family homes. Mitch gets report of a mutant attack and heads to the scene.

The Rangers get beaten up for a bit, and Katie abandons Mitch to go help them. The monster eventually flees and the Rangers are about to demorph when Katie warns the other Rangers. Mitch is thwarted, and yet he still has to pay Katie for the work...man, that is bullshit.

In Mitch's dark room, Katie learns that photographers, just like the rest of us, must labor to earn their daily bread. Katie argues that revealing the Rangers' identity may endanger their mission, but Mitch kind of wants to keep his job, and probably isn't too down with eugenics anyway.

The monster attacks again, meaning I get to see another inconclusive fight scene. Huzzah. Mitch gets sent out again to take photos. The Rangers lose again, but this time they're forcibly demorphed. Mitch takes their pictures, and knows something is up when he sees Katie among them.

Back in his dark room, Mitch ponders the morality of publishing the pictures, but decides to go through with it. Katie shows up at the paper for a last-ditch effort to stop him. Mitch is still unmoved and turns in the photos. The monster, in a rather contrived, okay, super-contrived, twist of fate, attacks the building that Mitch is in and traps him in an elevator that loses power. Oh, man, only someone with super-strength can save him now! Katie saves him by tugging at the elevator cable to prevent him plummeting to earth. Of course, this season's Rangers being the pricks that they are, Katie decides to get self-righteous with Katie before running off to help the others.

The third battle between this particular monster and the Ranger ends with the Rangers blowing him to bits with their power cannon and then freezing him with the megazord. I don't know how slashing at a monster turns them into a shrunken, frozen state, but apparently between now and the future, a scientist will develop giant freezer sword technology. Other scientists will question the utility of such a device, and some the scientist will create evil mutants that can only be captured via freezer sword. Scientists will then accuse him of a shocking lapse of ethics, and the original scientist will then kill them with his evil mutants so that they shut the fuck up.

Back at the clock tower, the Rangers have to move because everyone will know where they live once the photos hit the paper. Meh. Mitch, being the spineless sop that he is, shows up to give back the pictures so that the Rangers can continue their crusade for genetic purity. Hooray! Mitch also quit his job so that he can be the artistic photographer he'd always wanted to be. So....six weeks until he's a barista at Starbucks, then. Show Over!

Next Time: The Power Rangers have the unlikeliest two-parter that ever was!