Power Rangers Dino Charge #1.7 “Let Sleeping Zords Lie” Review

Summary: An episode focusing Shelby and Kendall misses opportunities for relationship exploration, but still provides some decent character work for the female characters.

Recap

While digging for fossils, Shelby gets frustrated that the group is essentially looking for Energems in fossils at random. She comes up with an idea to cross-check known facts about the dinosaurs to determine fossil locations with Energem signatures across the planet. She and Kendall work together to build a machine to do it, but the signal is intercepted by Sledge’s ship. Poisandra, wanting to show Fury that she’s more capable than him, uses it to find the Ankylozord. With no Aqua Ranger around to use the Energem to tame it, the Ankylozord is stung by a monster that causes it to run wild. Kendall blames herself for not encrypting the signal, and goes after the Ankylozord herself. Shelby stows away, and ends up falling in the cave with the Ankylozord. While Kendall fights off monsters with the help of the other Rangers, Shelby manages to remove the stinger from the Ankylozord and tame it. The Rangers for the Tri-Ankylo Zord formation and defeat the monster together. Kendall shows her gratitude to Shelby for her idea by giving her a fossil of her favorite dinosaur…or rather, a fossil of its dung.

Review

Sounding like a broken record here, but Dino Charge continues to tread the careful line between very basic Power Rangers style storytelling, and being just a bit different and new enough to make it fresh. With 20+ years under the franchise’s belt, this is probably the smartest way to handle things; it’s different enough to be a distinct season, but familiar enough to not alienate viewers.

“Let Sleeping Zords Lie” is made up of common Power Rangers storylines – searching for, finding, and taming new Zords; allies being magically/genetically turned against the other; two previously bickering allies learning to work together; allies having to prove themselves after a failure. The hodgepodge here makes this episode less solid than its predecessors, since it’s throwing in a slew of character arcs that trip over one another and don’t quite jibe. But enough of the individual details in these storylines are tweaked that they’re still relatively interesting to watch.

The existence of a mystery Aqua Ranger may be the most interesting part of the episode, even though it’s only briefly touched on. But it’s a new sort of storyline for Power Rangers, oddly enough. We’ve gone after Rangers after they appear, and we’ve searched for people to become Rangers, but I can’t recall a situation where someone has gotten a Ranger power somewhere, and no one knows who, where, when, or how. There’s a much better and more coherent sense of the expectedly unexpected that comes with Power Rangers now; we know we’ll occasionally have new powers or Zords randomly pop up from time-to-time, but with this, have legitimate set-up for a future Ranger. That it’s a Ranger who could show up at any time, with virtually any backstory and in any situation, is incredibly exciting.

It also makes the Zord searches both more interesting and more dire. Plenty of past seasons have thrown out copious amounts of Zords just because of toy sales, and it’s often to the season’s detriment (I’ve already expressed that it’s my least favorite part of Dino Thunder, for example.) Dino Charge has managed to utilize the concept of supplemental Zords and integrate it much better into the story. It’s still a Macguffin that the good guys are trying to get from the bad guys, sure. But it also means whenever a Zord is awakened, there’s another person out there wandering around with an Energem and no idea what it is. That means more danger for everyone if Sledge gets to that person first. Suddenly the search for more Zords seems like a necessity rather than a bonus strategic advantage.

The episode is a little more muddled in how it handles the story between Shelby and Kendall. Individually their stories are fine, even if predictable; Shelby wants to prove herself to the guys, and turns out to be right. Kendall and Shelby learn to trust each other despite their differences. Kendall screws up and goes too far to make it up to everyone. For whatever reason, arcs that could make up a multiple focus episodes are smooshed together, and it makes it hard to pin down what we’re supposed to be getting out of it.

On one hand, it’s clever to have Kendall and Shelby sort of parallel each other, with both having to go above and beyond to prove themselves to the team for different reasons. It’s not like we can’t have spotlight episodes on multiple characters – even last week, it was a Chase episode almost as much as it was a Riley episode – and that aspect is fine here. But really, the more interesting storyline is that Kendall actually trusts and works with Shelby in the first place. Much as it’s played for laughs, there’s been a real viciousness in Kendall’s dislike for Shelby from the get-go. It’s not inexplicable, since Shelby can be plenty insufferable in complete opposition to Kendall’s stuffiness. But a view into how the two truly see each other beyond the petty annoyances would have been interesting.

Instead, we get Kendall immediately embracing Shelby and her plan after a beat and going from there. Sure, the truth may be that beyond the façade, Kendall truly does care about Shelby. But we don’t get any sense of transition; Kendall just sheds her annoyance so the plot can keep going. It’s not the worst offense the show could commit, but that Kendall and Shelby are both such distinct and potentially rich characters makes it all the more disappointing that their dual spotlight doesn’t do much to service their relationship.

What the episode doesn’t succeed at in character work, it certainly does in the action. The civilian fights are on point, particularly the extensive full-team fight that gets even more interesting when Koda is turned against everyone. Dino Charge is having very old fashioned fun with its classically elaborate civilian-form martial arts, something the past few seasons haven’t done much of. We also have Kendall getting down and dirty, with Claire Blackwelder making a solid case for why she could be fully equipped to play a full-on Ranger. It actually seemed as though the episode was trying to pull a fake-out and imply that Kendall was the new Aqua Ranger, given the fight sequence and her concerned reaction when the Rangers figure out another Ranger would be out there.

The only other subplot continues detailing the dissension among Fury, Poisandra, and Wrench, which is par the course for the villains. Poisandra, like Shelby and Kendall, has to prove herself to the monsters on Sledge’s ship, which makes some sense considering she doesn’t quite fit in as a walking lollipop. There isn’t much to her storyline, as usual, and while the villains this season are fun and distinct, there isn’t much by way of complex characterization just yet. So a little bit goes a long way right now, at least.

It’s probably not an accident that this episode has all three female characters on both sides striving to prove themselves to everyone else. Luckily, the episode doesn’t harp on proving themselves “because they’re girls,” instead focusing on distinct character flaws: Shelby’s klutziness that doesn’t inspire confidence, Kendall’s arrogant inability to handle failure, and Poisandra’s inability to look like much of a threat. There’s a subtle feminist message within, even if only marginally, but for the most part it’s a very typical story of characters trying to be better. While it’s not the most expertly structured episode and misses some opportunities at genuine character work, “Let Sleeping Zords Lie” nails its more familiar notes and brings in some freshness. As such, it’s on par with the season which, so far, has yet to give us anything below average.

Odds and Ends

• Shelby has a real knack for hiding in truckbeds.
• Whoa, Curio can talk! Not the voice I expected, though.
• It’s cool that we actually have a somewhat decent explanation for how they’re tracking the Energems. It’s still technobabbly Power Rangers science, but it’s coherent in a more typical sci-fi way than the usual space magic we get.
• Koda’s grandfather was a famous caveman, and he invented the wheel!
• Everyone actually pronounces “Ankylozord” correctly, because “ANK-ill-oh-SORE-us” is an accepted pronunciation for Ankylosaurus. But it still sounds awkward for anyone who was into the second season of Digimon, considering how they pronounced Ankylomon.
• Power Rangers has a poop joke in this episode. Has it ever had a poop joke before now? I don’t really remember one. Not much gross-out humor in this show.
• Man, I love that Tyler calls his Zord “Rexy.”
• Yes, I’ve heard the spoiler about who will be the Purple Ranger. Let’s be honest…it was pretty obvious.
• “Why you hug me?”
• “Attack the nearsighted scientist!”