Power Rangers Super Megaforce #2.3 “Blue Saber Saga” Review

Summary: A decent, even if typical episode doesn’t hit all the right notes and suffers from logistical slip-ups, but still continues to be a marked improvement from last season.

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

Noah is caught fighting a swordsman monster, Skatana, by himself, and fails miserably. Frustrated by his failure, he trains hard to master the sword attack. He goes to face Skatana alone, against the team’s wishes. But when the team gives him their sabers, he’s able to combine all five into a powerful weapon, using the powers of past Blue Rangers from Megaforce, Samurai, Ninja Storm, Lost Galaxy and Mystic Force. This also allows the Rangers to unlock the Legendary Mystic Dragonzord and the Legendary Mystic Force Megazord.

Review

After the past couple of weeks have been used to finish off the massive invasion from the finale, things have settled back down to normal in “Blue Saber Saga”. And while it’s hardly a disappointing episode, it kills some of the momentum presented in “Super Megaforce” and “Earth Fights Back.” The scope of the invasion and its aftermath felt dire in those episodes, but now that it’s back to basics for the most part, it’s hard to not feel let down.

That’s a little unfair, because “Blue Saber Saga” isn’t a terrible outing if you consider that it’s not striving to be much more than a basic character-centric episode. And while it’s apparent that Super Megaforce will never reach the depths of character development many other seasons have, it’s already a step up from last season’s relative lack of any. This episode in particular is strikingly similar to last season’s “Going Viral”, albeit with Noah mastering a bunch of swords instead of an axe. Nevertheless, “Blue Saber Saga” is a huge improvement on its predecessor, while working best because it’s the first piece of character development to actually build upon previous character development. Noah’s journey in “Going Viral” had him gaining confidence that he’s worthy of being on the team in general—that was only his third outing, after all. This week, Noah is totally confident in his place on the team, but his insecurity is still apparent. He already spends much of his time researching the Ranger Database to learn more, to the point that he almost turns his back on his friends, because he desperately needs to reinforce his role on the team. Luckily he’s able to pry himself away from the computer at the beginning, but his inferiority complex rears its ugly head again as he relentlessly trains himself to fight Skatana alone.

While the episode lays the groundwork for some very good character material, the lesson in all this doesn’t really jibe with how things play out. Emma and Jake both worry that Noah is overworking and overworrying to a detrimental extent, and neither of them are wrong. But in the end, Noah’s fierceness and frustration is what ultimately defeats the monster and unlocks a new Megazord, all thanks to him forcibly working alone. The episode would like to have its cake and eat it too, presenting Noah’s obsession with perfection as a flaw, but still having that obsession be what saves the day. It’s a weird lesson to have in the show, especially given Megaforce‘s big “humans working together” theme, so it doesn’t jibe terribly well. The one saving grace to all this is that Noah’s big win does come from a team contribution—they all donate their sabers, which allows for a very cool moment of Noah yielding five at once. But then, Noah still defeats the monster with those five swords by himself while the team stands idly by. There are scattered pieces that sound like a solid, albeit typical story of a hero facing a physical representation of his own flaws by himself, but they don’t link perfectly within the scope of the show. It definitely seems to be playing on that old “fight alone to fight with honor” theme—Emma even calls out Skatana for claiming to have honor but not fighting with it. But since Noah isn’t worried about honor so much as not feeling like a loser, that doesn’t exactly work.

That said, it’s clear that the Megaforce seasons are trying to keep things as simple as possible, even if that simplicity manages to ironically overcomplicate things. On the production side, there are few oddities that come from this season’s mixing of footage, like Megaforce Blue being used as a power key rather than a Legendary Ranger, even though that’s totally just Noah’s level one power. On a hyper-analytic (and totally-not-what-the-writers-were-thinking) standpoint, it’s a fun way to represent Noah’s acceptance of defeating this monster by himself. His own base power gets to deliver the first blow of the final strike, reinforcing that he himself has the ability to defeat the monster on his own. The lesson is still problematic, but hey, if I could have a key of myself in those gorgeous Megaforce costumes, I’d use it too.

That Noah and Emma morph directly into their Super Mega Modes without using the Gosei morpher is another oddity of the season. It’s not like kids’ shows with power-ups haven’t faced this dilemma before—early seasons of Digimon introducing warp digiolution made the middle evolutions superfluous, for example, and even Power Rangers has always had the question of “why don’t they go straight to the battlelizer/combined weapon/Megazord at the start of the fight” question. At the end of the day it’s something that can be chocked up to “toy sales,” so it’s not a big deal. But from a story standpoint, showing the lack of necessity for the Megaforce level one powers does present another missed opportunity; Megaforce could have easily had an even more dramatic finale by destroying the Megaforce powers, ensuring the dire need of the suit change and amping up the “Legendary powers are dangerous but necessary” aspect. That said, the show seems to be treating the Megaforce suits as akin to Mighty Morphin season 3’s ninja suits, which were used as a special mode against lower-powered mooks before “upgrading” to their regular spandex. That season didn’t make a whole lot of sense, either, considering their ninja animal power coins still morphed them into the dinosaur-themed costumes, so Power Rangers certainly has a history of nonsensically mixing things. At the end of the day, again, it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

But setting aside the weird logistics of the series, “Blue Saber Saga” exemplifies the cast when they work best. One of the best parts about the series is how fun and likeable everyone is, even when the actors aren’t exactly the best we’ve seen in the franchise. But when they’re on, they’re on, and John Mark Loudermilk in particular is very entertaining as Noah. Loudermilk’s casting works wonders in the role, as he carries a stature that matches that of a hero physically, but he carries himself with clear insecurity on his shoulders. His higher pitched voice also shows off his youth, which actually makes it all-the-better when he gets to be a total badass at the end of the episode.

This episode is written by Jason Smith, former Red Ranger Casey Rhodes of Power Rangers Jungle Fury (and the episode appropriately features a Jungle Fury change.) Dialogue-wise, he fits in with the rest of the writers—which is to say, it’s cheesy and on-the-nose. But that’s also exactly what you expect with Power Rangers, so it totally works. The one difference is how much quieter and introspective Noah’s journey is throughout. Sure, there’s still lots of obnoxious talking during the fight scenes, but Loudermilk is free to express his frustration and subsequent overcoming of it in his actions rather than copious dialogue. That means a lot in a series that’s been very, very talky as of late, and is a major reason why the episode works so much better than much of last season.

In the scope of what we should expect from Super Megaforce, “Blue Saber Saga” is a decent, even if typical episode of Power Rangers. It doesn’t hit all the right notes in terms of character development, and certainly carries all the flaws of Megaforce as a whole, but it’s still trying harder to do something with the characters than last season. That might sound like a backhanded “you tried” compliment, but it really is a marked improvement from what it was, particularly for its use of the characters. And hey, let’s not skirt over the fact that our Blue Ranger just fought a monster with five swords at once. That’s just awesome.

Odds & Ends

• We weren’t originally going to do weekly reviews of Super Megaforce, but the premiere review was the #1 review on this website for two straight weeks. So, here come weekly reviews. Thanks for being awesome, Ranger Nation!
• Since we didn’t have a review last week, “Earth Fights Back” in summary: satisfying follow-up to the premiere; the SPD theme song should have totally played; the missle plot was surprisingly intense; the meta comedy with Vekar angry about his own “two hour” time on the launch was hilarious; and that scene with the civilian Rangers on the Skyship was totally gorgeous. As for the use of the Dairanger suits, my thoughts on the episode preview remain unchanged. It’s cool, and doesn’t need to be overthought because it was clearly meant to be a fun little reference for people in the know, nothing more. Also, toys.
• I don’t think anyone expected the showrunners would put enough time into the season to do this, but it might have been nice if the episode introducing a new Legendary Zord would have some thematic ties to that season. For Mystic Force, why didn’t we get an episode about believing in magic or something, silly as that may be? We didn’t even get a Mystic Force mode change this time around. And at the end of the day, these are just more “Rangers get random Zords for doing their jobs” like last season was, which is disappointing considering the opportunities “tribute episodes” present.
• That said, a weird, special little anniversary tidbit is that Nic Sampson, who played Chip the Yellow Ranger on Power Rangers Mystic Force, actually returned to voice this week’s villain, Skatana. That’s pretty darn cool.
• Maybe there’s a little magic in this episode, considering that’d be the only way Noah’s sword contraption that he trains with could possibly work.
• Are there really places in California with forests full of nothing but 30-foot bamboo?
• There’s a brief bit of Jake in his Jungle Fury mode jumping in the background in excitement. It’s totally because of the Sentai footage, and we probably aren’t supposed to notice, but it’s totally adorable nevertheless. Even if it doesn’t quite jibe with his season one fighting style, I don’t think anyone would complain about more silly Super Mega Green stuff.