A cross between our TV Flashback series and Power Rangers coverage, we’ll be looking back week-to-week at past Power Rangers seasons, beginning to end, to coincide with breaks during and between the current seasons.
Episode 17: “The Missing Bone”
Originally aired: May 22, 2004
This week’s flashback includes one of my favorite episodes of Power Rangers ever made, and another episode that has a lot of disappointing stuff but is supplemented with fun references. “The Missing Bone” is the odd man out, here — while not a bad episode or anything, the latter two episodes of this installment are just loads more interesting. So let’s speed through this one.
Trent’s role is the closest to Mighty Morphin‘s Green Ranger arc as it’s ever been, with the fully evil Ranger spending his time…in school, of all places. That can probably be chalked up to Trent still having some hold on his gem, especially considering he doesn’t immediately try to murder any freshmen, as the Rangers worry he might. Reefside High is at the crux of every main hero and villain, though, so as such Trent’s presence lends to some of the episode’s best scenes.
Trent and Principal Randall play a battle of wits in her office, playing up this season’s penchant for characters having secrets they incorrectly think the other doesn’t know. What results is a whole lot of obvious analogies that both understand but neither feel willing to fully admit. Trent describes not wanting to join a team full of losers, which could refer to both the Rangers and the bad guys, and Randall can’t help but be offended. The dialogue, typically hammy as it may be, has its roots in Noir-ish “You don’t know I know what you know” kinds of speech, and it’s lots of fun.
Dr. Oliver’s prolonged abscene from school, thanks to being stuck in his suit, opens up room to fit Anton Mercer in a more direct role, as he fills in as the Rangers’ teacher. This is an exciting development given what we learned about his identity, and it’s the first time Power Rangers put the villian right in the middle of the Rangers’ world without them realizing. And of course, it provides plenty of potential drama for Trent and his father. The fact that Trent is possessed by an evil caused by his father’s dinosaur alter-ego is totally messed up, and we see the brunt of the situation when the Rangers observe the two arguing. Despite all the paranormal elements at play, at the core, this is a story of a father and son who keep getting worse and worse wedges in their relationhip, and it’s a different level of tragedy to overcome.
The A-Plot of the episode, a mind-controlling dinosaur fossil monster, isn’t nearly as interesting. If anything, it only yields the question of why in the world Tommy and Anton thought they needed to make a dinosaur with the power of mind control. Kira gets to wear cool contacts when she’s possessed, but other than that, there isn’t much going on. Right now, Trent’s storyline stands out as the best thing going on so far.
Odds & Ends
- This week’s 2004 reference:
“I know you think he’s a little strange.”
“Yeah, and Justin Timberlake’s ‘a little cute.’” – Okay, that’s still valid today. - Kira gets creeped out by the (terrible CGI) dinosaur statue outside of the museum, and everyone just acts like it’s no big. Did everyone forget the time it did come to life, though? I guess only Tommy saw it, to be fair. But that couldn’t have been a well-kept secret.
- Conner and Ethan can fight in the Megazord without the Ptera Zord in sort of a battle mode, which is pretty cool.
- Kira shows up in civilian form riding on her Zord…just…because. It’s especially silly given that being morphed stops the mind-control, and Kira was just being mind-controlled, so…why not show up morphed?
- Yeah, yeah, constrained by the Sentai footage, I get it. Doesn’t make it any better that the Brachio Zord is kind of lame, and only serves to make Tommy annoyingly comment on the Zord battles instead of contributing at all.
- “Not to mention your skin tone.” What a weird thing to say, Randall.
- “Anton Mercer teaching other people’s children? He doesn’t even like his own from what I can tell.”
Episode 18: “Bully for Ethan”
Originally aired: June 12, 2004
“Bully for Ethan” is representative of the why Dino Thunder works just as much as why it doesn’t. There are two parallel plots in this episode — one a very typical bully plot for Ethan, as the name suggests, and another huge reveal for the main storyline related to Tommy. And where the former succeeds, the latter fails…kind of miserably, actually.
The Zeltrax storyline might be the most disappointing aspect of the entire season. And to be fair, that’s not a terrible insult; nothing with Zeltrax is outright bad or offensive, and that it’s the worst thing this season does is proof of its strength. But, man, everything about the reveal falls flat. Including a veteran Ranger and giving him a mysterious backstory inevitably leads to assumptions that Zeltrax would be someone from Mighty Morphin; the big theories for a long time were Billy or Jason getting brainwashed, both valid theories. There’s no reason to think this wasn’t an option they were exploring in some fashion, and in fact, it very much feels like “Smitty” was the back-up option. He is, after all, a friend of Tommy and Mercer that’s first mentioned in this episode, and he’s mad because he blew up. That’s pretty much all there is to it.
There might have been some resonance had we heard a more detailed account of Smitty earlier on, even if it was predictable. Or they could have gone a similar route to Frax in Time Force, where the character’s story is profoundly tragic while also shedding light on the villain. Smitty’s story seems like an extremely pale and watered-down imitation of that Frax story, stripping away all the nuance and tragedy and more-or-less making Zeltrax a lame version of Dr. Doom. I try not to focus on “What could have been” when writing reviews, but it’s hard not to in a case like this, where nearly every alternative might have better succeeded.
The Smitty stuff fails even more upon considering how lame the build-up was. Every interaction between Tommy and Zeltrax amounted to Zeltrax going after him, Tommy not knowing who he was, and the two crossing swords for a second before leaving. Tommy has been totally passive in this mystery — at least if we saw his investigation progress, it might have felt like it was leading to something — but even that lack of forward momentum might have been justified if it kept a secret as huge as a former Ranger behind the mask.
The biggest problem with the mystery, possibly even beyond the actual reveal itself, is that it hinges on Tommy as a character. It’s supposed to be a tragedy that befalls the hero, as he is indirectly responsible for the creation of his greatest nemesis. Tommy, though, has never worked as a character on his own in this series. As discussed numerous times, but particularly for “Back in Black,” Dino Thunder succeeded at integrating Tommy as Dr. Oliver, a representative of Rangers past rather than a fully fleshed-out character, which Tommy never was. Jason David Frank doesn’t have the chops to truly deliver any feelings of betrayal; his reaction to the reveal mostly boils down to his signature “Aw man!” Not that he’d have the chance to prove himself anyway, since this episode takes place during Frank’s voiceover-only tenure. Considering how this reveal could have taken place at any time, it’s ridiculous that it needed to happen while Tommy is barely even around. The character and actor aren’t built for an emotional story as it is, and these circumstances make matters worse.
The only upside to this storyline is that it involves a fun little scene between Tommy and Kira, where they go through some old photos and files. Aside from a horribly photoshopped picture of Tommy, Anton, and Smitty, the rest of the photos — Tommy as the White Stranger (which no one could have gotten since it was from the Wild West, but whatever), Tommy in a Zeo-era martial arts outfit, and of course the classic Mighty Morphin season 2-era cast photo — are very cute. Many of Tommy’s boxes and files have some blink-and-you’ll-miss references, like logos from Lightspeed Rescue and Time Force, as well as logos from Sentai series that weren’t fully adapted into Power Rangers. There’s even a Dairanger symbol that’s very visible, which is really cool. While many fans might be jaded from the aggressive overuse of Mighty Morphin references and unadapted Sentai stuff in Super Megaforce now, this still plays really well. It’s fanservice that isn’t self-indulgent, it’s self-aware (Kira makes fun of Tommy’s signature hair, like we’d expect), and it ends up playing into the story, even if only slightly. It’s the kind of references Dino Thunder are good at.
On the opposite end of this is Ethan’s plotline, which is a standard one, but also rather strong. This isn’t anything special, but it is a good showcase of how Dino Thunder aptly plays high school tropes straight to a certain point, only to subvert them at the end. For one, we have Conner’s place as a friend of both Derrick’s and Ethan’s. He’s in a difficult situation, but in true Conner fashion, he doesn’t overthink it into a moral quandary. He simply tries his best to mediate things when they’re at their most heated, and he doesn’t do a terribly bad job at it when he’s around. But it’s ultimately between Ethan and Derrick to fix things, and the show takes a basic bully storyline to a less-expected conclusion. Ethan doesn’t identify any trauma that caused Derrick to become a bully, nor does he beat him down emotionally, which is often the case in these types of plots. Instead, Ethan finds a way their interests overlap and offers to strike a deal, giving him advice in order to forfeit the fight. It’s a mature, even realistic way to look at the situation — sometimes people are just jerks and you’ll never get along, so the best you can do is cooperate and find a way to mutually coexist. Ethan and Derrick will never be friends, but they can get by without being enemies too, as long as they identify that the other has value.
Odds & Ends
- This week’s 2004 reference: Ethan clarifying “The net…well, the internet that is.”
- Derrick is played by Dwayne Cameron, who goes on to play Tyzonn the Mercury Ranger in Power Rangers Operation Overdrive.
- Kira is really late for school, apparently. And Cassidy trying to interview the monster is very funny.
- Okay, Ethan gets detention for being late, but is everyone ignoring that there was a freakin’ monster attack that Ethan visibly stood alone in? Then again, a monster attack is probably yet another day for these people.
- Trent is at his most devious here, so of course he’d be wearing a sweatervest.
- “I’m sending Doctor Oliver a message.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of e-mail?”
