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 are unable to beat a powerful new monster, Matacore, which causes them to lose faith in their fight. However, Jayden, the former Red Samurai Ranger, shows up with advice and the Double Disc. The Rangers use the new weapon in their Samurai forms to fight Matacore; during the Zord battle, Jayden and Mentor Ji offer their Samurai powers to unlock a new Legendary Samurai Megazord that combines with the Red Lion Zord.
Review
What do we want from Power Rangers Super Megaforce?
That’s a question readily apparent in “Samurai Surprise,” an episode that encapsulates all the best and worst aspects of the season, though ironically wrapped in one of its most competent outings. “A Lion’s Alliance” is perhaps a superior episode as a whole (a review unfortunately didn’t go out last week thanks to the writer having a case of the vacations…sorry!) but that episode excelled at exploring the corner of mythology that Wild Force built, while delivering some entertaining exchanges from the cast on the Skyship. Technically “A Lion’s Alliance” is also the first time Super Megaforce has featured a guest character from earlier seasons—the Zords of Wild Force were explicitly sentient, so technically Lion Zord counts as a character.
But “Samurai Surprise” one-ups it by finally getting to the exciting possibilities of the season: seeing returning Rangers. Jayden might not be an all-time favorite Ranger, but Samurai was the preceding iteration that brought the franchise back from death, and certainly deserves some merit. So even with the misgivings about it, there’s lots of excitement in seeing Alex Heartman—and Rene Naufahu as Mentor Ji, which was a bigger surprise!—back in the roles. What’s surprising is how limited their appearances are, but certainly not to the episode’s detriment. In fact, giving these Legendary Rangers sort of a “wandering nomad/mythic hero” status works in the season’s favor. Not only does it likely cost less money to shoot fewer scenes, but it allows the legends to remain, well, legends. They’re people who have been in the fight before and are confident enough in the new guys and knowledgeable enough to know that good will prevail no matter what, so there’s no reason to jump in and steal the spotlight. It makes the current team seem much stronger to yield the powers of past Rangers rather than simply have a past Ranger jump in and save them.
We haven’t had a proper team-crossover since way back in the SPD/Dino Thunder team-up in 2005 (and even that one was missing Tommy from the Dino Thunder roster, so 2004 may be a better example.) We’ve had crossover-y events since, like Operation Overdrive‘s Retro Ranger anniversary team or the pseudo-RPM/Samurai crossover, the latter of which so barely featured anything from RPM that it doesn’t really justify its own existence. Super Megaforce is staying away from the full-crossover business, it seems, but the idea of sprinkling little cameos throughout lets the world feel huge and intertwined without having to deal with wrecking the continuity or weighing down the show. Super Megaforce has already played fast and loose with its place in the show’s universe, but as much as that may disappoint viewers who’ve tried to explain the mythology’s timeline and keep it tight, it’s allowed this season to feel very free and fun. Absolutely anything can happen, and that’s exciting.
And that random weirdness goes back to the question of the season: What do we want from Super Megaforce? “A Lion’s Alliance” and “Samurai Surprise” both offer up solid examples of what the show is now, but it’s certainly not representative of the franchise as a whole. It’s weird to think that two iterations ago was RPM, which warrants a level of critical analysis and wider acclaim that it unfairly didn’t get much of outside of the core Power Rangers fandom. But the Samurai/Megaforce era seems to favor flash over substance, which makes it nearly impossible to look at critically or introduce to skeptical viewers, but also highlights a the part that attracted many of us as children in the first place. Samurai wasn’t so great at it, as its own self-seriousness only magnified the cheese factor to detrimental levels. But the Megaforce seasons, even at their dumbest and most nonsensical, always feel quite light and entertaining. It encapsulates the wonder and fantasy that we felt as kids when we first turned on the original (and in retrospect, very poorly-written) early episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It doesn’t jibe well with how the show has evolved over the years, especially for those of us who do believe kids’ shows should be allowed to have analytical and artistic merit. But that clearly is not the goal of Power Rangers at this stage in its life, as much as many of us wish it was.
As I’ve mentioned time and time again, the season’s main goal seems to be to have fun, even if that means it’s not exactly telling a riveting story. It’s not my favorite kind of Power Rangers season, but it can’t be faulted for delivering on what it promises: colorful, whimsical fun. What’s more is the history aspect—and both “A Lion’s Alliance” and “Samurai Surprise” deliver on bringing out nostalgia for those seasons by revisiting imperative elements and, in the case of the latter, recurring themes. That’s quite a feat for this week’s in particular, which recycles some vital lines from Samurai (Jayden gave that advice about the enemy to Mike early on) and brings back the Double Disc element to pay homage to a season that was still airing not too long ago. It’s these smart bits of subtlety and the clever use of former cast with brevity instead of overindulgence that keep Super Megaforce afloat among the chaos and nonsense. And speaking as someone who very much did not care for Samurai, this episode does a stand-up job of making that season seem worthy of a tribute.
So perhaps at the end of the day, even with the weirdly lazy bits and continued absence of much plot or character, it’s a season meant to make us nostalgic and warm for Power Rangers as a 20-year franchise. It hasn’t hit that sweet spot just yet, but if it dishes out more episodes like this one, it’ll be on its way. We’ve just got to be okay with the kind of messy, chaotic Power Rangers show we’re getting now.
Odds & Ends
- This is another outing written by Jason Smith, who seems to have a knack for subtlety in his references, as evidenced by his last effort.
- Prince Vekar is turning out to be way more fun as a villain than it seemed like at first. His terrible one-liners and puns are the best kind of bad Power Rangers villain dialogue (“Super Mega hurry up and destroy them already!”) and the fact that he’s a pretty pathetic nitwit who just-so-happens to be royalty yields some much-needed comedy. We haven’t had a comedic main villain in a really long time, not since Lothor and Divatox really, so it’s nice to get a bad guy with personality.
- We finally got a Mighty Morphin transformation! I wish it’d been a bit more of a momentous occasion to make it worth the wait, perhaps having those modes be harder to unlock or something, but oh well.
- How much money has Ernie lost making frozen yogurt dishes that his customers always run out on? He’s got to throw it out every time he makes something no one eats, right? Very irresponsible, guys.
- After all the sword training last week, Noah’s new technique apparently involves shooting everything like crazy. Maybe he trained with Carter Grayson offscreen?
- As much as it made no sense in the original season, I can’t help but love that the Lost Galaxy change features the silly Beast Run those Rangers inexplicably did.
- The grocery story Noah and Jake shop at literally says “The Grocery Store: For All Your Grocery Needs.”
- “What? You never seen a Ranger order a froyo before?”
- For those aware of spoilers: Some of this discussion is a bit moot knowing that we most likely won’t see many other cameos like this until the finale, but the surprise of Mentor Ji’s appearance does give hope that maybe, somehow, some other actors have sneaked under the radar and will cameo. At the very least, it would be nice to get some supporting characters or something. That said…I’m glad we didn’t see Princess Shayla last week. That’s a supporting character I’m okay with never seeing again.
3 Comments
“Some of this discussion is a bit moot knowing that we most likely won’t see many other cameos like this until the finale…”
You obviously haven’t looked at the description for this week’s episode then. I’m looking forward to it so very much.
Key word being “many.” Context clues, dude.
– I think that Super Megaforce may have finally found itself. (And it only took four episodes!)
– Going on, it was practically given away in the title that Jayden Shiba, the Red Samurai Ranger, would be making an appearance. Heck, it was given away months ago. But here, this is the rare occurrences in Power Rangers where “less is more.” While its always good to see veteran rangers make an appearance in Super Megaforce, there is always a genuine worry that they will one-up the current team. For example, take all the previous Power Ranger team-up episodes into consideration. When two teams joined forces to battle a common enemy, there is always a worry that the preceding team will show up the current team, thus questioning their efficiency as Power Rangers. Thankfully, team-ups like “To the Tenth Power” and “Reinforcements from the Future” have showed the combined ranger teams as equals, strong by themselves but unstoppable once combined. Here, I was actually glad that Jayden didn’t get involved in any of the fights. For one, if all the Rangers just got their Legendary butts handed to him while morphed, it would discredit them to have a single, (unmorphed, might I add) Jayden swoop in to save the day, thus making them obsolete. I enjoyed his cameo in that it didn’t overshadow the other Rangers, while keeping him prominent to the plot by giving them the Samurai Double Disk. In essence, I enjoyed his cameo, and to the episode’s credit, they didn’t make it all about him because his story arc basically ended in Samurai. Also, majors props to Renee Naufahu, for making an appearance. I was surprised they managed to sneak him in without the internet catching wind of it, and as always, he makes the best out of his screen time.
– Now that I’m done with that, the rest of the episode is a pretty generic Super Megaforce episode. Go up against the latest monster of the week, lose in spectacular fashion, then learn to believe in themselves (while receiving a ultra convenient weapon that negates the whole “Believe in ourselves” vibe). I won’t dwell on the plot too much, because it’s basically the premise of every tribute episode.
– I was caught off guard by the Super Sentai suits, and that’s not always a good thing. Now, I won’t even try to say that I’m a Sentai expert, because I’m not, and I have no experience on Super Sentai. I’ve only watched the American version of Sentai, so I have no idea what these suits are. A friend told me that these were the suits used prior to Mighty Morphin, so I’ll leave it at that. Feel free to correct me! The reason why I’m bringing this up is simple. When you see the original Mighty Morphin suits, you see your childhood. Why, because when you see the Red Mighty Morphin suit, you flashback to the “good old days.” Even with the Lost Galaxy rangers, memories of Terra Venture and the Magma Defender comes back to you. Heck, you even remember that weird run the Galactic Rangers used to do for no apparent reason, you know, when they spread their arms out like a eagle. Before I digress, I’d like you to keep those sentence in mind. When you see these pre-Mighty Morphin suits, you don’t feel that connection. Instead, you feel confusion, like it takes you out of that nostalgia trip. That’s how I felt about this. Now, I have no idea why they didn’t just edit theses suits out, because if you’re not an avid Sentai fan, or at least a hardcore Ranger fan, you won’t recognize them at first glance without looking them up. So, who were the original groups who first wielded these powers? Now, I know that in several instances in the franchise, its has been either directly stated or implied that there were other Power Ranger teams in the universe. The Alien Rangers and Andros are proof of that. But the difference between them and this, is at least they got some exposition. Heck, at least for the Alien Rangers were properly introduced in the span of the 3rd Mighty Morphin season, so it didn’t come the heck out of nowhere. At least we saw their home world, and their equivalent of Lord Zedd. Here, its like, Gosei hadn’t mentioned them once, and I don’t see Noah flipping out his super mega tablet to pull up some super mega exposition. That lies my problem with this. Not that these episodes feature Sentai suits that have never been properly introduced to the American audience, or that these powers were never named. Only that there is a lack of exposition, and thus, a lack of caring. Why should we care about this new powers if we don’t know anything about them, or at least where they came from? What part did these Rangers play in protecting the universe, and if they hadn’t even been near Earth, why should we care? With that, I leave it up to you to decide.
– Aside from that production hiccup, the rest of the episode had a nice flow to it, and it was nice to see Jayden and Master Ji soak up some screen time. They played their roles as needed, and the episode kept their appearances quick but necessary to the story. Else than the Sentai hiccup, I don’t have any more gripes with the episode. The action was well-paced, and the original Mighty Morphin suits were a nice nostalgia trip. Overall, I’d give it a 9 out of 10.