Uniquely Trip

Power Rangers: Time Force, Episode 11

Original Airdate: 4-14-2001

Last Time: Katie angsted. End of summary.

In the clock tower, Trip is explaining a new weapon, and Wes is bored because he's not quite smart enough to realize that he's going to have to use the damn thing at the end of the episode. They're interrupted by a monster attack. The Rangers show up to confront the monster and Credits? Here? Okay....

Back to the fight, Trip notices that the other Rangers are actually good at fighting, and gets discouraged by his own suckitude. The monster gets killed, but Trip still feels bad. Wait, wait, wait, Trip is having a crisis of confidence because there's the possibility that somewhere down the line his crappiness at fighting might lead to the Rangers getting killed? I don't know, what else you got?

Trip heads to the park and sees four children playing Power Rangers, and guess which color isn't picked. First of all, as a young kid who grew up during the peak of the Rangers' popularity, you weren't going to, nor would you want to, have two girls in that group. Also, no one wanted to be Billy. Now, by the time that Time Force came out, I was a bit old for that, but yeah, I can't imagine anyone wanting to play as Trip. Where was I going with this?

Anyway, these slights have forced Trip to perform a training montage. Great. At Ransik's House of Villainy, Frax releases some monster that can drain electricity. Ransik orders him to drain the power from Silver Hills. I'm not exactly sure what Ransik's plan in the past is, but I guess this somehow furthers it.

Back at the clock tower, the Rangers find Trip pinned under some weights. I really wish this episode were only ten minutes long. Trip tries to explain to Lucas his problems, but Lucas decides to flirt with a random woman instead of listening. This somehow leads Trip to purchase the same sort of douchey clothes that Lucas usually wears and try to pick up some women. It goes horribly, horribly wrong, and he ends up pushing a girl into a fountain and getting stung by a bee.

Meanwhile, in a plot that matters, the monster attacks the city's power plant. The monster drains the power from the Rangers' weapons, and Trip manages to lose his blaster when he tries to spin it and thus show his sense of style.

Later, the Rangers are discussing that their blasters don't work and Jen won't let Trip come because he's mildly injured and she's not good at reading her teammates emotions. This leaves Trip to slowly come to grips with his status as the comic relief Ranger. The other Rangers fight the monster again but make no headway.

Back at the clock tower, Trip builds a new gun that will be so powerful as to overload the monster. The Rangers keep fighting the monster, and those stupid kids are still playing Power Rangers and end up at the very power plant where the monster fight is occurring. They managed to get trapped behind some fallen machinery giving off sparks next to a leaking drum of gasoline. I think the moral of today's episode is that you probably shouldn't be storing large containers of highly flammable liquid in places where sparks are a common occurrence.

Trip shows up with the Electro Booster, but can't be trusted to fire it correctly, and so it's given to Wes to defeat the monster. But, well, you know, megazord fight. The Rangers win by electrocuting the monster with some power lines they rip off a transformer, and stock footage.

Then the writers realize that they put those kids in danger in the last act, but the Rangers have no way of knowing that. So Trip's power magically tell him of the kids' predicament and he rescues them.

Later, at the park, the Rangers show their affection for Trip by putting on fake green hair. Er....since green hair seems to be a racial thing for Trip, wouldn't that be like putting on blackface to make a person of African descent feel more welcome? Oh, and the kids that Trip rescued are now all dressed up as the Green Ranger. Show Over!

Next Time: Mr. Collins sets up a PMC!