Better Know a Ranger: In Space: Silver Ranger

Zhane, The Silver Space Ranger
Actor: Justin Nimmo

Zhane is basically a douche. I mean, all sixth Rangers are douches at heart. They always show up in the middle of the season are always more powerful than everyone else on the team, which doesn't exactly endear them to people. But still, it takes a special brand of douchery to agree to go out on a date with your archenemy while she's still trying to conquer the entire universe in the name of evil. Also, three of the next four episodes of Zhane-centric. Still, they'll be worse in the coming seasons.

You guys aren't going to believe this, but Justin Nimmo's career basically begins and ends with this series. Oh, wait, he also had a bit part in Dude, Where's My Car?, which, for those of you who don't remember, was a film mostly known for its title, which was so mockable that it was, for a time, often used to make fun of other things. As far as I know, however, no one ever actually saw the film itself as the title, when coupled with stars Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott, proved to deter even the basest portions of society.

Better Know a Ranger: In Space

Andros
Actor: Christopher Khayman Lee

Andros is a human from the planet KO-35. How such a thing is possible is never explained. Anyway, when he was a lad, his sister was kidnapped by an evil monster, and he's spent the rest of his life looking for her. If you guess that he'll find her over the course of this season, you'd be correct.

Around Power Rangers in Space, the producers decided to really emphasize the Red Ranger, and give them way more storylines than had normally been the case. Sometimes this worked out okay, like in this season, sometimes...it didn't. Someday, we'll have to deal with those other shows, but Andros is basically okay.

Christopher Khayman Lee's only other roles have been bit parts on TV, and he hasn't worked since 2004. According to the internet, he's Chyler's Leigh sister. I don't know who Chyler Leigh is, though, so I have no idea what that means.

T.J. Johnson
Actor: Selwyn Ward

T.J. has been demoted to Blue Ranger this season, which is probably for the best given the unfortunate end to his tenure as leader of the Turbo Rangers. As further punishment, his main role this season is to get beaten up a couple of times.

Selwyn Ward hasn't done any acting since I last wrote about him, as is true for the remaining Rangers.


Carlos Vallerte
Actor: Roger Velasco

Carlos is now the Black Ranger, because that's just the way the Japanese footage roles. This season, he continues his development as a poor man's substitute for Adam. He has a couple of spotlight episodes, and neither are very good. Less soccer this time, though, and for that I am grateful.


Ashley Hammond
Actress: Tracy Lynn Cruz

Ashley returns as the Yellow Ranger and spends most of the season doing her level-best to become the first Earth-woman to sleep with a man from another world, namely Andros. Beyond that, she fulfills the role of the Yellow Ranger, that of space-filler, admirably.



Cassie Chan
Actress: Patricia Ja Lee

Cassie is back as the Pink Ranger. I don't remember what she did last season, I think she had a bunch love interests that sucked. Okay, we're done here.

Better Know a Ranger: Turbo (v2)

T.J. Johnson
Actor: Selwyn Ward

T.J. replaces Tommy as the leader of the Rangers. Apparently he came to Angel Grove to improve his baseball skills. This will lead to a memorably bad episode in the future. Beyond that, he is notable as being the last Red Ranger who doesn't get enough powers to make the remainder of the team superfluous.

Selwyn Ward has exactly one entry on the Internet Movie Database after 2002. That really says it all.



Carlos Vallerte
Actor: Roger Velasco

Carlos is Adam's replacement as the Green Ranger. He was selected due to his ability to play several different positions on the soccer field in the hopes that Divatox was release a series of soccer-related monsters on Angel Grove. She didn't. But he does inherit Adam's ability to be the Ranger most likely to be emotionally targeted by a villain.

Roger Velasco hasn't done anything since 2004. Christ, this is getting depressing.


Ashley Hammond
Actress: Tracy Lynn Cruz

Tanya's replacement. As is long-established Ranger tradition, the Yellow Ranger is there strictly to ensure that the number of Power Rangers is equal to the amount of Rangers in the Japanese footage. There's probably more to her character, but I refuse to check as a matter of principle.

Tracy Lynn Cruz has zero imdb entries since leaving Power Rangers. Damn.


Cassie Chan
Actress: Patricia Ja Lee

Cassie spent more of her first appearance complaining that she didn't want to get involved with saving people. She also wants to become a singer, and later has a crush on the Phantom Ranger. Any of these would be damning on its own, but taken together, they bury her character deep.

Patricia Ja Lee has done a bunch of voicework for dubs of anime, and is the current voice actress of Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. By the standards of actors who have worked on Power Rangers, that's fantastic.


Justin Stewart
Actor: Blake Foster

Justin is still the Blue Ranger. Awesome.

Better Know a Ranger: Turbo Edition (v1)

Red Ranger: Tommy Oliver
Actor: Jason David Frank

Tommy started out as the evil, brainwashed Green Ranger, but, having the snazziest duds and being shown to be a badass (or as much of a badass as you could be on children's TV in 1993) ensured that he'd stick around long after they ran out of Green Ranger footage, so they made him the White Ranger, and the leader of the Power Rangers. He eventually became the Red Zeo Ranger....right after he learned of his Native American heritage, and then became the Red Turbo Ranger.

This season, having completed high school, Tommy becomes a race car driver because....well, I mean, the show was called Turbo, and Tommy had been in high school forever by that point, so they had to do something. As the leader of the team, he is contractually bound to receive more spotlight episodes that any other two characters combined.

Jason David Frank left Power Rangers midseason to pursue other opportunities. Unfortunately, said opportunities remained outside he grasp, no matter how hard he hunted for them, through the meadows of chance and the heaths of fortune. His crossbow of talent never seemed to hit it's quarry, no matter his effort.

*Ahem* He eventually became a MMA fighter.


Green Ranger: Adam Park
Actor: Johnny Yong Bosch

Adam Park was introduced way back in season two of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers when half of the actors held out for more money, and had their characters sent to a "Peace Conference" as revenge. Adam was the replacement Black Ranger, most notable for being stuck with Frog Ninja Powers, and being bummed about it.

Anyway, by the time of Turbo, he has the team's second-in-command (much the same way Klingons ascend through the ranks), and in his civilian life, a stuntman and a soccer coach. He gets a few spotlight episodes before he leaves.

Johnny Yong Bosch is best known for his extensive voice-over work and apparently also has a band.


Pink Ranger: Kat Hilliard
Actress: Catherine Sutherland

Kat was the second Pink Ranger, replacing Kimberly after the actress quit in order to pursue other opportunities (hint: it didn't go well). Anyway, the producers, perhaps catching a glimpse of the future after an opium binge, decided to cast an antipodean for the role, and introduce her as a girl captured by Rita Repulsa and then brainwashed into infiltrating the Rangers...as a cat. It...was a weird plan.

Anyway, by assuming the powers of the Pink Ranger, she also inherited the duty of being the love interest of the Red Ranger. She has a couple of spotlight episodes, both of which deal with her adventures in becoming a professional dancer, and both of which will make you want to hit your head against something hard.

Catherine Sutherland has basically done no acting besides Power Rangers. But as a kid, I thought she was hot....I stand by that opinion now.



Yellow Ranger: Tanya Sloan
Actress: Nakia Burrise

Tanya was introduced in the midst of a complicated story-arc that I don't care to recapitulate, other than to say that due to the vagaries of time travel, she may actually only be eight years old.

Anyway, her character basically exists because the footage had five Rangers in it, and so they had to have someone in the yellow spandex. She is the focus of exactly zero episodes this season.

Nakia Burrise has had a number of bit parts on TV. By the standards of Power Rangers alumni, that's pretty good.



Blue Ranger: Justin Stewart
Actor: Blake Foster

Star Trek has Wesley, Doctor Who has Adric, Power Rangers has Justin.

I could see how, in the abstract, it might seem like a good idea to have the new Ranger be the same age as the target audience. That said, there was no way in hell that it was going to work. First of all, having a twelve-year old in fighting sequences always looked faintly ridiculous, even by Power Ranger standards. Second, the acting in Power Rangers had always been dodgy at best, and adding a child actor to the mix was probably one step too far.

Still, I have to admire the conviction that the producers seemed to have in this character. We are going to experience Justin-centered episode after Justin-centered episode, and they will be uniformly terrible.

Blake Foster grew up to become an unemployed former child star, but not prominent enough of a child star to be in a reality show. He apparently earned a black belt at age 11, which would likely make him the least threatening black belt in human history.