Homesick

Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy, Episode 5

Original Airdate: 3-6-1999

Last Time: The sheer douchery of Leo made me reconsider the whole purpose of this blog.

On Terra Venture, a mysterious character with black gloves and a toolkit is breaking into a room marked "Navigations," which I guess is a typo. He gets in and stops the engines, which are apparently controlled from the navigation station. Also, even a marginal knowledge about space travel will tell you that engines aren't constantly running, as with no inertia, they're only needed for acceleration and deceleration. Commander Stanton orders Kai to find whoever "stopped his ship." I recall reading that down the line, one the reasons that Disney cancelled Power Rangers was because they couldn't classify it as educational programming and thus reap a tax break. So, in a way, this episode may have killed the franchise.

Kai heads down to Navigations, and decides to blast open the door. Damon shows up and picks the lock instead. The culprit turns out to be some punk kid. Credits!

Later, Commander Stanton confronts the kid, whose name is Matthew. Commander Stanton demands answers, but Matthew refuses to talk. It comes out that he's a stowaway and he wants to go back to Earth. The crew is able to briefly establish contact with his mother on Earth, who's been worried about him. As she'll never communicate with her son again, she's about to get a lot more worried. It turns out Matthew just wanted to go to space! Matt's mom, tactful as ever replies, "I guess I'll never see you again." The signal breaks up. Commander Stanton explains that they can never return to Earth because of their vital mission of finding a new world. It's worth noting that they don't actually know where they're going, which makes the whole voyage seem rather ill-thought out.

Even later, Matthew has been conscripted as Damon's apprentice. They do some mechanic-y stuff. On the command carrier, Scorpius and Furio send a monster that will emit a sleeping gas that will incapcitate all of Terra Venture, allowing them to steal or destroy or whatever it is that they want to do this week with the Quasar Sabers. The monster goes to work and the sleeping gas starts affecting the colony. Kai alerts Damon, who sneaks away from Matthew.

The Rangers confront the monster, but do little to stop the spread of the gas. Matthew, who has been wearing one of those biohazard suits, is the only one not put to sleep. He runs into Furio and some Sting Wingers but is able to stay out of sight. Both him and the villains run into the command building, and the Sting Wingers unsuccessfully chase after the lad. He eventually makes it to the bridge via elevator, but soon realizes that the Sting Wingers have called the elevator car back down, and will use it to reach the bridge. You know, I can't help but notice that the Sting Wingers have wings, and thus probably have other means of moving upwards rather than the elevator. Of course, Matthew draws on his skills to stop the elevator, which, even by Power Rangers standards is a pretty humiliating defeat for a villain. He hits the alarm and succumbs to the sleeping gas.

Alpha hears the distress signal and calls the Rangers with promises of new gadgets. She shows off the new Jet Jammers which are....basically hover go-karts. They go into space and end up fighting some Sting Wingers. The Rangers eventually win and head to the control center-place. They then decide to go attack the monster again. So, the Jet Jammers did what, exactly? The Galactabeasts show up and "suck out all of the gas." This somehow turns the Galactabeasts to stone as when you expose a giant animal of extraterrestrial origin to sleeping gas, that's really the only logical result. The monster attacks the stones beasts with a giant hammer, but doesn't do much damage. The Rangers use the powers of the Transdaggers to make the Galactabeasts more powerful than ever before! The monster decides to grow to giant-size because he might as well.

The Rangers, however, decide it's time to stop fucking around, and turns the Galactabeasts into robots, and then a Megazord. The resulting fight literally lasts the length of the Galaxy Megazord's finisher attack footage.

Later, Commander Stanton gives Matthew a medal for bravery or something. Of course, Matt is still trapped in space and has been impressed into a life of menial labor, and he's not exactly thrilled about the situation. So the Rangers decide to take him home on the Megaship, which apparently they could have done at any time, but had chosen not to up until this point. Show Over!

Next Time: The least sensical ancient mystery that ever was.