Power Rangers: Wild Force, Episode 25
Original Airdate: 8-3-2002
Last Time: Some half-mutant, half-Org creatures showed up and the Wild Force Rangers and half of the Time Force Rangers teamed up to stop it and it finally dawned on me just how much worse this season is than last season....and I didn't even like last season that much.
On the Animarium, the two teams of Rangers are rather depressed about losing. Wes also wants to know why Jen didn't tell him that she was in the past, but she's rather evasive. You know, Wes, she once heartlessly dumped a guy that looks identical to you, isn't that enough of a warning bell? Shayla interrupts them to explain that some sort of mechanical owl appeared in the Time Force Rangers' viewing screen and it confused her. Circuit calls and explains that the rest of the team is coming back in time to help out. The time ship lands and Lucas, Katie and Trip come out...also Nadira and Ransik. Jen is understandably concerned that the guy who kicked the shit out the Rangers at the end of last season is once again in the past, but Ransik promises that he's only there to help. Cole trusts him, and it's a shame that he isn't wrong, because I would have liked to see Ransik massacring both teams.
Anyway, Ransik decides that he probably should explain how the hell the Mut-Orgs came to be, as he's the one who created them. You see, back when Ransik was just a hideously scarred mutant wandering the world that hated and feared him, he found some sort of Org temple and released some Orgs so that they could team up and kill all the humans. The Orgs took some of Ransik's DNA and became Mut-Orgs and Ransik gained the ability to pull swords out of his body. But, hey that was a long time ago, and Ransik really wants to help kill the Mut-Orgs. Jen, having realized that she never really liked Alex that much anyway, and thus Ransik's murder of him being no big deal, takes the manacles off Ransik so he can fight. He immediately snaps her neck like a twig. Okay, that might not have happened, but it would have been pretty awesome if it did.
Later, Wes and Jen have another conversation about their relationship. It's as thrilling as it was last season. Eric shows Taylor his Quantum Defender and continuing flirting, which, given that they're two of the angriest Rangers in the franchise, consists mainly of insulting each other.
But Master Org has decided to move the plot forward and dispatches the Mut-Orgs to blow up a power plant. The Rangers, plus Ransik and Nadira head there to stop them, and Ransik explains that only he can stop the Mut-Orgs. This crossover, in addition to probably being the best one in the franchise's history, is also interesting because you can see the clear contrast between a guy like Ransik, who's played by a guy who can act, and is hamming it up intentionally, and a guy like Cole, who is played by a guy who just cannot act at all.
The Rangers split up and Trip goes with Lucas, Danny and Max to override the controls so the power plant won't explode. Everyone fights some Putrids, which may be the least successful mooks in Power Rangers history, as even the lowly Piranhatrons did things right occaisionally. Ransik, Nadria, Wes and Cole run into the Mut-Orgs, and Nadira gets knocked out the fight almost immediately. Ransik elects to defeat the Mut-Orgs with the suitably insane plan of blowing himself up to kill them. Ransik being Ransik, it doesn't quite work, but he does manage to destroy their mutant powers, at the cost of badly injuring himself. Trip then deactivates the reactor and Taylor blows up the bomb or something with Eric's gun. Okay, so we're done here?
Merrick, finally having remembered that he was supposed to show up and help, arrives and cuts off the Mut-Orgs escape, and it's time for crossover morphing and introductions! With that out of the way, it's time for the grand melee portion of the crossover, which is accompanied by some oddly out-of-place techno music. As is traditional, the Rangers all work with their same-color counterparts. Plus, since this is all American-made, it's time for the Battilizers, which still look just terrible. The Mut-Orgs get killed and there will be no megazord team-up.
Ransik recovers, and, for some reason, his face has been healed. Who the hell knows why. Huh....still a couple of minutes short, eh? Okay, so the Rangers from both teams decide to have a picnic, which for some reason includes a techno remix on that awful song Shayla was singing a couple of days ago. I imagine that the writers asked the producers if they could have a megazord fight, but no one really wanted to pay for it, so they just did this instead. Max tries to hit on Nadira until Ransik shows up and scares the shit out of him. Lucas then proves more successful. Eric and Taylor snipe at each other, which is how they show that they like each other. Oh, and Katie beats Danny at arm-wrestling because not one episode can go by without something to remind us how much Danny sucks. Cole and Wes hold a race.
Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, "That's an odd way to end a crossover." But you see, the writers were actually making a homage to the works of antiquity. As you know, the Iliad ends not with Achilles' triumph over Hector, but instead with a lengthy description of the funeral games that Achilles held for Patroclus, which included various Greek heroes competing in contests of skill and strength. So, in a way, this picnic sequence is actually an extended allusion.
No, you're not buying it? Well, I tried. Show Over!
Next Time: You know these last two episodes weren't so bad, and I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the rest of the season. I mean, it's not like the writers would be dumb enough to follow these episodes with a story where Cole and Master Org trade idiotic monologues for the better part of twenty minutes....right?
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