REVIEW: Dino Supercharge 18 "The Rangers Rock!"
Going into this episode I knew that a) Phillip would be returning, and b) it would feature Shelby covering her eyes and doing an awesome flying kick. Both of those prospects are exactly what I want from Dino Supercharge in large quantities--in fact, recently I made a comment to my friend that my ideal team-within-a-team would probably be the Gone Fishin’ group of five, minus James and plus Shelby. Of course, that’s not even the best thing about this episode, so I’m already breaking my own decree regarding formatting these reviews. Hope you like words, because you’re about to get some.
As hard as it has been to be unbiased regarding Shelby, there really is something about her focus episodes that works for me. Really, the only one I had negative feelings toward was “Besties 4Eva” which was half the terrible name and half the fact that--as I stated in that review--it wasn’t really a Shelby focus episode but an Erin focus episode, and who the heck is Erin? Maybe part of it is because she’s the only woman on the core team (and a woman of color at that) and Kendall barely ever does anything out in the field, so any episode revolving around her gives her a chance to shine and do girl-power things. Of course, despite the somewhat mixed reputation that the phrase "girl-power" has, it doesn’t feel forced when Shelby is able to make things happen.
Obviously I would be remiss in skipping over the most hilarious scene Dino Supercharge and really the Neo-Saban era as a whole has given us (at least intentionally): the scene where Sledge explains his return and the workings of his plan. Naturally, because Poisandra is understandably upset due to Sledge’s absence, he has to give a little flashback of his time over the past year, which he’s spent gathering his resources, namely some glowing green eggs (which get punned about 6 times in 3 minutes) and his hidden trump card in Snide. Going through this scene I was pleasantly surprised by the return of the broken jetpack joke, especially with Sledge’s reaction to it still being broken. But nothing compares to Sledge’s vacation photo album, in which he loudly protests that he wasn’t having any fun while living it up in Hawaii, China and Japan. While the photos themselves are funny enough, the perfection of the scene comes from the impromptu “Having Fun in Japan” performance that he’s still singing along with after the flashback ends. This humor is played perfectly, and the DC crew has to be commended for it.
Speaking of the crew, I’ve been informed that the group of people Sledge is dancing with is the suit actor stunt team for the core Rangers, which is a nice touch. I liked when they did this in ToQger as well, because it’s a good way to let them be seen and given props for their work as well. Considering they have one of the toughest jobs in the show with the least direct recognition, I always appreciate it when they’re allowed to get face-time and a good salute.
Another thing I always appreciate is intelligence in both the hero and villain teams. When you have both teams working on specific plans and strategies rather than just throwing bad guys with overly-specific power sets at good guys with super-generic blasting powers, you can actually get a story in the mix. I also like that Shelby’s plan fails, oddly enough, even though after discussing the merits and risks of the plan it ended up being the better one. It’s not supposed to be easy to beat the villains; that’s why the Power Rangers are needed. If the villains didn’t present a credible threat--not to mention having a security system around their base just in case the Rangers tried a sneak attack as they do here--then there would be no justification for the associated threat presented by the Rangers. The thing that justifies the rampant death and destruction caused by, say, Zord battles, not to mention the property damage, is the fact that humanity would be much worse off without the Power Rangers to protect them from the monsters and evil space aliens. Remove that justification and the whole thing falls apart. Also to this end, we see that all of the team is involved in this week’s episode, even Keeper. That makes it quite clear just how big of a deal this is.
I’m of two minds on Heckyl, maybe three. After the revelation that he was once a good guy who didn’t have the wherewithal to resist Snide’s evil influence and that of the Dark Energem, I go back and forth on his redemption tour. It kind of continues in this episode when he rescues the Rangers from Badussa, an alien criminal who petrifies people (like Medusa, obv) with his magical totem via line-of-sight. (As an aside, he destroyed the Kyoryuger galaxy in such a manner, which parallels the destruction of Sentai 6 as is explicitly stated by Heckyl.) On the one hand, maybe he shouldn’t really need a redemption arc, because he was the victim of the power of the Dark Energem. On the other, Zenowing managed to fight and remain a good guy even with Doomwing around.
Additionally, Heckyl isn’t helping--as his former self presumably would have--out of kindness, but out of what seems to be displaced revenge. Arcanon is dead, Singe is dead, Doomwing is dead. Everyone connected to the destruction of Sentai 6 has been vanquished. However, Badussa is similar enough that Heckyl’s projecting his anger onto him instead. That’s an interesting way to go, because even though it’s got a good outcome in helping Shelby and the others gain the upper hand against Badussa, it’s still just revenge. As another somewhat related aside, it’s interesting that the episode gives James a minor redemption for running off while giving him a new reason to be the worst dad. They pretend that he was attempting to find the ship all this time (since they had located all 10 Energems before now) but then when Tyler gets petrified, the one who expresses the most regret over this is Shelby. Yes, I know, ship moment (of which there are a few this episode), but James could have said something to her like “I can see how you feel about my son” or something along those lines. As the character is established, he just comes off as a bad father.
I don’t know what the Kyoryuger storyline involving the Spino Zord was, but I think it worked well to have the Rangers get picked off until the only remaining ones were forced to make a new zord for the purpose of creating a Megazord. If I remember correctly, the only other time that or something like it has happened was in Wild Force when they changed the Red Lion in order to make the Pegasus Megazord. I didn’t realize that Zenowing making the zords would end up being foreshadowing for him actually showing Shelby how to make a zord, and this is kind of the perfect arc for her over the entirety of the series. From going to a dino-crazy waiter at a dino museum cafe to actually constructing a Dinozord herself...it’s a great moment, even though Keeper ends up being the one to add the soul element. I’ve seen the idea expressed that Keeper rather than Shelby makes the zord due to this, but I disagree; I think that’s more like adding chocolate to the cake than mixing the ingredients and putting it in the oven. The only negative I have is that now we have a dark-colored Spino Zord and a Dark Energem, but no Dark Ranger spot for Heckyl.
There’s a lot of good in “The Rangers Rock!” and I don’t have a lot of bad to say about it. The humor, the action, the romance, the stakes, and the setup for the finale were all present, all developed well, and all given adequate time for their development. My only regret is that this wasn’t the entire series. I thought it was a great episode and I’m really interested to see how this ends. I guess this is basically Part 1 of 3, given that it ends on a cliffhanger. Full marks for this episode; now onward to Part 2!
