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. With Dino Charge currently on hiatus, our Flashback coverage will resume through the summer.
Episodes 33-34: “In Your Dreams” and “Drawn Into Danger”
Originally aired: October 16-23, 2004
The last rush to the end of the series for Dino Thunder begins with some standalone clunkers, to put it mildly. I generally hate the term “filler episode,” because it implies that the episode is a waste of time; even fillers still have the capacity to yield really great character development, thematic parallels, or provide more experimental entertainment. But it’s hard to argue for them when they don’t really add much of anything.
“In Your Dreams” really misses the mark, because the dream setting is basically utilized as a means to burn through unused Sentai footage while giving some cast members a break (Cassidy, Devin, and Hayley don’t appear in the episode at all.) Dream episodes could provide useful insight into characters’ subconscious, and thus let us better understand them in a space where all thoughts are nakedly laid out (check out the Buffy episode “Restless” for a pretty stunning, art film-esque use of the dream trope.) This is Power Rangers, of course, so things would never be so visually layered or complex, but the opportunity is the same. There are very, very minor bits suggesting possible character insight; Ethan’s extra cocky attitude in his dream is consistent with his overly confident attitude in “Isn’t It Lava-ly.” And the monster falling in love with Kira in her dream turns her feminist beliefs into a nightmare, where she’s treated like the version of women she turned into in “Leader of the Whack.” But Conner’s and Tommy’s dreams suggest absolutely nothing about them — the best you could say is Tommy shouldn’t eat Calamari before bed and that something traumatic must have happened to Conner on Christmas — but it’s pretty clear that little-to-no thought was put into any of this, and even the aforementioned characterization seems to be by accident.
“Drawn Into Danger” is only better by a slight margin, because the premise at least stems from a known character trait. Trent’s cartoonist side collides with his Ranger side, and he’s able to save the day with his human skills as much as his White Ranger powers. As this is happening, in a heartwarming development, Anton finally appreciates his son’s interests and decides to financially back his first professional endeavor on his own accord — and does so even without seeing how well it played into the current Ranger battle. It’s not directly stated, but this seems to tie into Elsa’s assessment in “In Your Dreams” that Anton’s power over Mesagog is growing; Anton is climbing more out of his depression thanks to his better relationship with his son, and seeing the light is gradually weakening his evil counterpart. We’ve seen the two become more separate entities once Trent came into the fold, and that opening schism seems to be the one thread for this season to follow to its endgame.
These are but brief glimpses within another another action-heavy episode, though, and many of them have to be implied. The majority of “Drawn Into Danger” is more-or-less a sequel to “In Your Dreams,” as it features another excuse to burn through Sentai footage with a Photoshop filter overlayed to make it seem unique. The cartoon effect here is…well, it’s not the worst, at least once the Rangers morph and we aren’t subjected to the awkwardly-outlined eyes and lips. And the episodes themselves are not “the worst” either; “Drawn Into Danger” probably wouldn’t feel like such a waste if it didn’t come after the emptiness of “In Your Dreams.” But having two episodes so devoid of much development suggests that Dino Thunder is running on fumes, and with such a lack of plot left, it’s time to get to wrapping things up.
Odds & Ends
- How does Elsa and Mesagog see all the Rangers in their houses? Not every Power Rangers season has villains who spy on the Rangers’ civilian lives (which always has some freaky implications), but the ones that do at least use magic telescopes and whatnot. Dino Thunder mostly uses science(ish) to explain everything, so does that mean Elsa broke into the Rangers’ houses and put hidden cameras in their bedrooms? Creepy!
- Why, exactly, are Cassidy and Devin going “undercover” in comic book fandom? I guess she assumes all kinds of reporting involve investigative journalism.
- But why would a prolific comic book artist use a terribly bulky and awkward pen like the one Elsa gave him?
- Nice continuity reference when Tommy mentions being in a place like the comic book world before (and how they’re dangerous.) Intentional or not, it seems like a direct reference to his time trapped in a storybook in Mighty Morphin‘s “Storybook Rangers.”
- The implications of “Drawn Into Danger” are interesting — it clearly doesn’t follow Doctor Who rules of “if you read it, it’s fixed in time.” Since Trent read the end of the book but was able to change it, does that mean the Rangers are essentially reliving that storyline over and over for all eternity until Trent rewrites the story of the book and frees them?
- “Don’t mess with the man in black.”
- “Why can’t you be a slacker like most teenagers?!”
- “Being a comic book artist falls somewhere between being a reality show host and a dog walker.”
Episodes 35-36: “House of Cards” and “A Test of Trust”
Originally aired: October 30 and November 6, 2004
Well, wrapping things up is exactly what the two episodes preceding the finale do. With little lingering except for the season’s longstanding plots, “House of Cards” wastes no time getting to the meat of it all. From the start, the world is turn on its head and ever secret is revealed, forging a great episode with no real flaws.
The weakest bit is, perhaps, how arbitrary the Elsa reveal that sparks the falling dominoes. Tommy basically just-so-happens to finally walk in on her changing, which could have happened at any point in the season. It yields a well-earned fight sequence between Tommy and Elsa in her Principal Randall form, though, a great payoff to what that teacher/principal dynamic set-up. We also have Ethan and Conner both acknowledging how obvious her alter-ego should have been — she only had glasses on, but then that’s the same as Clark Kent/Superman, so they shouldn’t feel too bad. On the freakier side, Elsa mentions that she and Tommy “could have had something,” harkening back to that awkward romantic tension back in “Beneath the Surface” that never made any sense, other than proving that there just can’t be a season where Tommy doesn’t have some kind of love interest.
But it’s only a small piece of the episode’s real story, which shows the carefully constructed status quo collapsing like the titular house of cards. Trent is suddenly an outcast within his own group as Anton’s alter-ego of Mesagog is revealed, and it all happened thanks to Elsa’s smartly set-up declaration to strike Mesagog when he was most vulnerable in “Strange Relations.” Pretty much everything in the episode is pay-off of elements the season previously set-up — even the card game that jumpstarted the plot is tied into Ethan and Devin’s shared characterization, since Ethan learned Devin also liked games in “Isn’t It Lava-ly.” That makes “House of Cards” one of the best-structured episodes of the season, along the same lines of “Fighting Spirit.”
Trent’s role in this amps things up considerably, his character arc reaching a climax few other parts of the season can compare to. We see Trent’s life basically fall apart around him in these episodes, going so far as Tommy even planning to ask Trent to surrender his morpher. “A Test of Trust” is just as much about seeking forgiveness from his teammates as it is about accepting the sacrifice he may have to make when facing Mesagog, which Conner insightfully points out. That Mesagog forcibly ejects his Anton half at the beginning of the episode does weaken the conclusion a bit — with the two split, it’s not like destroying Mesagog will be ambiguous now — but it’s still an engaging progression for the character. Rebuilding trust after massive betrayals ultimately brings the team closer together, and it’s a clever way to make them “more powerful” in the lead-up to the finale without simply giving them more weapons or powers. It’s a testament to how character-driven this season is.
That said, “A Test of Trust” is not anywhere close to being as strong as “House of Cards,” especially as the last episode before the two-part finale. It’s a clip show, for one, and no one ever likes that. But it can be understood as a necessary evil if it’s a cost-cutting measure…which this episode doesn’t really seem to be. On the upside, the flashbacks don’t actually take up that much screentime, and thus there’s still lots of plot momentum — Mesagog splitting with Anton, Trent making amends, the final battle — so this episode is not at all a waste of time. But the flashbacks, then, are just perplexing; the time they do take up could have easily been dubbed over Sentai material if they were that desperate for slashing the budget, since that’s the entire idea behind Power Rangers from a production standpoint.
The flashbacks aren’t very well-integrated, either; the segues in-conversation aren’t terrible, but the clips themselves don’t add much. And there are bits like Trent referencing defeating his clone that make zero sense in context (why did he need to defeat the clone first before getting to a point when he could tell his friends the truth?) The actual Zord fight is one of the more interesting ones in a season full of bland Zord fights, but it’s so rushed that it feels like a missed opportunity. A monster that creates an evil copy of the Megazord is a cool idea that could have led to interesting ground-level fights, but it’s all rather haphazardly thrown together with the clipshow aspect. That’s a shame, since the character material and questions of trust could have yielded a wonderfully tense installment.
Dino Thunder has one last shot at having a good conclusion, though. The season’s first half has shown to be a bit superior to its second half in terms of serialization — though there are certainly some fabulous episodes in the last half — and that really comes down to how it’s struggled with pay-off. “House of Cards,” the best episode of this week’s Flashback, shows what happens when everything is firing on all cylinders. The pieces are nicely set for the final bow, now, so all it needs to do is play them correctly and stick the landing.
Odds & Ends
- Ethan and Devin’s friends are extra mean and condescending about them playing a card game, despite having accepted video games as a valuable hobby for them. It’s weirdly hypocritical, but at least Ethan never gives into the teasing and remains confident that Dragon Wars is more strategic and intellectual than people give it credit for.
- The Triassic logo briefly shows when Conner summons his morpher.
- Love seeing the first instance of all five Rangers contributing to the Z-Rex blaster, as well as morphing straight into Super Dino Mode.
- Nice character beat for Kira, as she’s the only one who picks up on Trent still having a secret.
- I love that no one totally spells out Elsa’s plan, it’s simply implied over the two episodes that she hid the Dragon Wars card in Anton’s pocket in hopes that it would reveal his identity. It’s a really ballsy plan from Elsa, and the show handles it maturely.
- The camerawork in the Anton/Mesagog split scene is very well-handled and perfectly creepy, especially since Latham Gaines plays Anton as looking…well…shockingly dead, at least at first.
- This show has to own the record for most uses of “whack” in any given season. It’s used literally three times in the same scene in “A Test of Trust.”
- Does Conner’s Triassic powers…literally send the monster into space? I thought he had his own dimension, but then they both fall out of the sky. That aspect of the Triassic power is really, really weird.
- “I’d be feeling kind of spacy, too. I mean…more than usual”
- “I knew Mercer wasn’t exactly PTA material, but Mesagog? That’s whack.”
- “It’s cool, I speak Conner.”
