REVIEW: Dino Supercharge 15 "Wings of Danger"
Dino Supercharge, and the series of Dino Charge as a whole, is nearing its end. While the second season has been tangibly less impressive than its predecessor (while of course still dwarfing the quality of the Neo-Saban era as a whole) it is not without high points. Looking back, I think it makes sense that this would be a high point, because to all appearances stuff is supposed to happen in this episode, and does. I’m not sure that the episode title really fits the episode content, all things considered. Maybe I’m missing something?
This season has been good with continuity moments for the most part. It’s really a relief to see Tyler and Shelby openly flirting with one another after all this time setting it up and the sort of crammed resolution we got to it. In addition, Koda still seems to enjoy baseball, and Riley is still an expert swordsman. In a way, the monster mash is also a continuity nod, because given Wrench's expertise in reanimating monsters it makes sense that they'd do so. I also like that the eons Doomwing and Zenowing spent together are touched upon, even if that situation probably isn’t given the due it deserves. I kind of wish that there had been time-travel shenanigans involved in this season, because while we’ve had long-lived characters throughout Power Rangers, this season involves a scope of 65 million years. That’s almost too staggering to even imagine, and for Doomwing and Zenowing to have spent that much time together, it seems like there should have been more of an effect than the latter being slightly aloof and unfriendly sometimes.
Remarkably, this is the first Riley-centric that didn’t make me wonder how exactly he got chosen by the Green Energem. I think it’s because of the contrast provided here; Riley (and of course the Rangers by extension) is caught in-between Zenowing’s bitter retribution and Doomwing’s desperate last-ditch scramble, so his position ends up being much more measured. As mercenary as he can be, I don’t think Riley ever really rises to the level of being a sociopath or so austere as to seem incapable of understanding humanity and friendship. Both his qualities of logic and loyalty are on full display in this episode, and it’s a good look on him. I’m going to just call it growth and leave it at that.
The theme for this episode is teamwork. Unlike other unsubtle morals, this one is actually quite well-done, because rather than the episode simply endorsing working as a group just because, and teamwork is always better, and teamworkteamworkteamwork, they actually show us a scenario in which the people working in concert succeed over the bad guys who just throw old monsters at the Rangers in a disposable fashion. Going into this episode it was pretty clear that Doomwing was on his way out, because Power Rangers doesn’t really do subtle and the writing has been on the wall. Nevertheless, it provides an opportunity to show the Rangers prevail over Doomwing as a direct result of working together. Doomwing is explicitly more powerful than any single Ranger, and visibly so, but as Riley states, they are--as one--more powerful than him.
On its face this episode also introduces Zenowing as the Silver Ranger, which is not bad as an introduction. At the same time, it’s not really an introduction per se; they’ve been using his zord for a while now, and of course Doomwing has been posing as the Silver Ranger for the entirety of his time on screen up to this point. I can’t help but find the morph sequence hilarious, because the enormous floating Zenowing head that somehow gets squashed into a human-sized helmet is as eminently ridiculous as it was in SPD when Anubis did the same. I guess that mumble-mumble-Morphing Grid-templates-whatever is a good enough explanation, but I feel like it doesn’t really fit here. After all, the Purple Energem provided a skirt for Kendall when it didn’t do so for Albert; it seems weird that the bond as established wouldn’t give Zenowing a giant avian version of the suit. I know the BTS reasons for it, but it’s still odd even taking that into consideration. It’s especially ridiculous when not only does his morphed form grow wings for his special attack, but Riley does the same when channeling his essence.
Speaking of that, they really pull out the stops establishing Doomwing as a credible threat. Doomwing injuring Riley is a genuinely shocking moment, especially given that the injury translates over to his actual body and puts him in critical condition. This is freaking fantastic, and I wish Power Rangers did this more often. It’s one of the few things Megaforce really got right, and it doesn’t feel like a cheap moment given all that we know about Doomwing and the power of the Silver Energem. It also serves as a good way to go back to the valuable lesson of the day; Zenowing was intent on disparaging the Rangers’ help, which caused them to be divided, so it gave Doomwing an opening to take them down one-by-one rather than being repelled by their full force. Had Zenowing accepted their help, he would never have been in a position where he needed Riley to save his life. At the same time, the so-called sacrifice is kind of undercut by Riley ending up getting a cool new attack sequence out of the deal, but there’s an intervening cause that was a direct result of the redemptive work the Rangers did for Zenowing, so I can accept it.
Of course, perhaps some areas could have been improved. I don’t know how I feel yet about Heckyl’s backstory reveal. The revelation that he’s from Sentai 6 is pretty big, but the fact that he seems incredibly heroic, the last defiant line of defense for the Dark Energem against Arcanon...it’s almost a given that he’s going to be getting a face-heel turn. I’m a little disappointed that he isn’t just bad to the bone, but I guess that’s the difference between people chosen to be Rangers and people who aren’t. I don’t think Heckyl was a bad guy, but obviously his will was weaker than Zenowing’s, because he allowed himself to be influenced by Snide while Zenowing retained his mind. At the same time, perhaps his defiance against Snide was motivated by repressed memories. My guess is that as his memories resurface he’ll turn further and further to the side of good, eventually helping the Rangers.
Wings of Danger is not without its flaws, but it’s a good episode. My only complaint was really the issue of Heckyl’s story going forward. He’s one of my favorite villain concepts, and it’s a shame that he’s probably just going to decide to put aside his evil ways, especially since it will probably cause him not to get to use the Dark Energem for his nefarious purposes. Maybe I’m just a teensy bit over the almost universal redemption for a human-faced villain. It seems especially out of place in a season featuring a bird-man-thing who becomes a Ranger--we don’t even have to wonder what Zenowing’s fate would be if he were evil, because this episode shows us exactly what it would be. I don’t know if it’s dumb to complain about speciesism, but then again fiction does help us to work through ideas in real life, as has been well discussed with Power Rangers’ counterpart from across the pond. As far as ideas that can be left in the past go, I think “the thing that looks like you deserves to live, the thing that looks different deserves to die” is one of the higher ones on the list.
