Power Rangers Super Megaforce #2.14 “In the Driver’s Seat” Review

Summary: An improvement over the previous week still has this season’s same problems, but it’s at least easy to watch.

If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t wish to be spoiled, don’t continue reading. It’s not like we’re MEGAFORCEing you to, or anything.

Recap

The Rangers respond to an emergency broadcast signal from Corinth, located in the alternate dimension home of the RPM Rangers. The Mega Rangers enter through the wormhole to respond. However, it’s a trap set by Professor Cog, who appears in the Mega Rangers’ home world and starts terrorizing it in their absence. The Mega Rangers find the Turbo Falcon Zord in Corinth, a sentient wild Zord that they are forced to tame. When they do, the Zord uses its strength to break through the barrier between dimensions and allow the Rangers to cross back to their Earth and fight Professor Cog. Eventually, Turbo Falcon Zord arrives in the Mega Rangers’ dimension and transforms with the Legendary Megazord, helping them defeat Professor Cog.

Review

“In the Driver’s Seat” is a marked improvement over “The Grass is Always Greener…or Bluer,” though that has less to do with quality writing and more to do with warm references, than anything else. It’s very akin to “A Lion’s Alliance,” which also featured the Rangers going to a past location and having to “tame a Zord.” If we can’t get many guest stars sprinkled throughout, then getting old locations and direct references is slightly more satisfying, at least. It doesn’t totally make up for what’s revealed itself to be an extremely low quality season, but like “Super Megaforce,” “Samurai Surprise,” and “Spirit of the Tiger” showed, the fanservice makes it entertaining.

That said, the RPM fanservice isn’t all that great, considering the richness of that stellar season. But trying to tie in any of the subtlety and genius storytelling of RPM wouldn’t really do anything but make Super Megaforce look that much worse, so in this case, perhaps it was for the best. Either way, it’s nice to hear that Corinth has been at peace since RPM ended, even with that season’s ominous ending. And while the Samurai/RPM crossover Clash of the Red Rangers was not very good, it’s always fun to see the show embracing continuity by having Professor Cog as the villain again, even if no one acknowledges his connection to the past.

The new design of Corinth is surprisingly cool. Though the design is simplistic, it’s quite beautiful, and the dark backdrop against the bright lights makes for the most striking visuals this season has done. And yes, the Corinth scenes were lifted out of the Sentai footage, which is not even close to the plot of RPM and the story behind Corinth. But by integrating it into the Power Rangers history, it looks as though the Corinth universe has flourished in the years since Venjix was defeated. With no need for a dome, there are long roads stretching to infinity, and without the Venjix virus, more focus on futuristic technological advancements. It probably sucks that their first fully sentient Zord has an AI that’s haywire just like Venjix had appeared to be, which must cause some PTSD for those behind the project. Was Dr. K involved, since it has her signature “anime eyes”? Is there a new nefarious government sector post-Venjix that is stealing her old designs and performing unethical experiments, and Turbo Falcon Zord was one of them? Obviously, Super Megaforce has no interest in answering any of the more interesting questions regarding its own history, but at least it sparks some feasible fodder for fanfiction.

Of course, there’s the problem with this entire area being completely, utterly empty. With Professor Cog and the Grinders still active, it’s possible that the Venjix army has had a resurgence and certain parts of the world have been evacuated (or exterminated?) Or more optimistically, the area was simply evacuated because of Turbo Falcon’s rampage. It still doesn’t explain why someone else wouldn’t be trying to wrangle it up, or especially why the Rangers just sort of float around in the sky without ever bothering to see if there’s anyone around to help them. Like, you know, other Rangers they explicitly know exist here. (Yes, the answer is lazy writing, but we’re trying to think of this as optimistically as possible, okay?)

The Rangers entrapment at least gives us some decent interactions. It’s always fun to see them helmetless on the Skyship no matter what the circumstances, as those scenes are generally well-shot and forced to be character-centric because of the close space. While everyone gets to throw in a couple of jokes, the standout is the resurgence of Orion’s tragic backstory. It’s darkly funny that, for all the talk over saving Earth and humans always prevailing over the two seasons of this show, Orion stands as an example of how easy it is to fail. It’s especially poignant given that his loss is featured in a tribute to a season that grounded its characters in similar loss. Nothing new comes out of the conversation–Orion reaffirms that his teammates are his best friends, they’ll defeat the Armada, yadda yadda–but it’s an example of the more complex things bubbling under the surface of the season. There’s a wealth to explore about Orion and his relationships with the Rangers. There’s a wealth of ways to tie it into the even bigger wealth of Power Rangers history this season has an even bigger wealth of opportunities to tie into. But every week there’s a new way to say why this season has been disappointing and full of missed opportunities, so this time it’s best to just be glad the Orion bit was brought up to remind us that there’s something to this show, even if it’s very, very slight.

Since so much of the episode is spent with the Rangers floating and trying to “tame” a giant car, there isn’t much else to talk about. It’s cool seeing the individual Zords out, since most episodes skip right to forming the Megazord. The Turbo Falcon Zord is kind of boring looking, which is to be expected considering car-themed Rangers rarely have the most interesting Zords. Also, this Zord literally rips a hole in dimensions like it’s a chainlink fence, which is ridiculous. It’s fun seeing the Legendary RPM transformation and battle sequence, including the reappearance of the hybrid Silver/Gold Ranger. And they really seem to blow the budget on showing the civilian-Rangers on CGI Zords and Zord sets. What else is there to say?

“In the Driver’s Seat” is not as much of an affront to the senses as last week’s catastrophe, but that’s mostly because it doesn’t set out to do much of anything to begin with, so there’s less to fail. Pretty much all the same complaints about Super Megaforce‘s disappointing lack of trying in this back half apply, but it manages to not totally fall flat on its face. That’s about the best compliment it can get at this point.

Odds & Ends

• This can be chalked up to laziness from the writers (like most things can), but for rationalization’s sake–since Corinth is no longer a domed city, and Gosei refers to the alternate dimension as Corinth rather than Corinth being a specific city in that dimension, is it safe to assume perhaps that the entire US (or planet?) has been renamed Corinth to honor the original city? Just postulating.
• Time and time again I’ve said that the Megaforce cast is way better than the material they’re given. But poor Cameron Jebo got the short end of the stick; he’s arguably one of the best, as evidenced by his first appearance, but he came in right as this season plummeted over the edge.
• I try to be forgiving of how unnecessarily talkative the Rangers are when they’re fighting, but why in the world is it necessary to insert Troy commanding, “Guys, we need to morph back to Super Mega!” Someone explain to me why that seemed necessary, when even the little kids watching know that they can’t hold the Legendary Mode long, and it doesn’t matter because they’re always going to morph back in a cool pose anyway. Which they do, about a second after he says it, rendering the statement utterly superfluous.
• Sorry, but that dumb tractor joke at the end is not worth the stupidity of saying they had no transportation without the Zord, since a) They’ve teleported before, and b) They can summon a goddamn flying pirate ship at any point.
• “Another dimension? How cool!” – Emma says about the dystopian wasteland where everyone she ever loved would have died.
• “Something fishy’s going on…”
  “I don’t like fish!”
• “Levira has a plan…that I came up with!” At least Vekar is still pretty funny.