REVIEW: Power Rangers Ninja Steel 3 "Live and Learn"
Well, that was certainly an episode. I suppose I have good news and bad news, the good news being that the episode was more engaging than the last, but the bad news being that it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. On the face of things it’s an old standby--there are probably fewer seasons that don’t have a “Red Ranger learns how to lead” episode than those that do--but this was a bit of a mess. But it was a fun mess. Let’s see how it worked and how it didn’t.
Before I continue, I’d like to suggest that a polar system where each episode falls on a single axis from good to bad is a flawed approach. I think that when I approach episodes I unconsciously categorize them along two axes, both of which measure goodness and badness to an extent. So what makes a good episode good? I’d say it’s an episode that is both engaging and consistent; that’s to say it makes sense and is entertaining to watch. In a nutshell, an episode can basically be a Bridge (smart and fun), a Rose (smart but boring), a Koda (fun but dumb), or an Elgar (dumb and boring). An episode like this one is certainly more fun than last week’s episode, but there are just way too many holes in the narrative for me to call it good.
The good that there was was good enough. I like that we actually see the Rangers in class, as not-at-all-high-school as the class was. That’s another old standby of Power Rangers; they’re almost never actually learning at a high-school level, because it wouldn’t make sense to the kids. The first part when I thought that the episode was going to do something interesting was probably when Sarah confronts Brody over the use of his data-comm. When I think about technology that I’ve had for any appreciable length of time, it’s hard for me to voluntarily give it up just because someone says so, and it makes sense that having spent many formative years on essentially a slave ship would lead him to have a more utilitarian view of morality. Where this falls short for me is in the fact that it doesn’t really address the idea of learning without the help of a cheat device. There’s also something else I’ll get into later that breaks this a little, so I’m sticking a pin in the cheating thing for now.
I didn’t really mention Victor and Monty last week because they barely made an impression, but this week I’m quite pleased with their antics. It’s a little disappointing that they don’t realize that the new kid with the data-comm is the Red Ranger, who the monster (named Spinferno) loudly proclaims to have the same data-comm, but their funny attempt to hold off Spinferno themselves is pretty reminiscent of the better parts of Bulk and Skull, and the fact that Victor is so vain that he sees the Stupid Statement Dance Mix made out of his epic failure as a good thing later on is spot-on for his character. I call BS on it being so memetic as to get more views than the Red Ranger (new to this universe, mind you) but I guess I get the point they’re going for here.
As for the bad, well, let’s return to that pin. Cheating is wrong, just because--the writers don’t bother to go into how it makes a kid less likely to know the material or cheapens the work of those who actually do the work, so the nuance that would be key to understanding the difference between Brody’s actions and the climactic battle of the Rangers versus Spinferno is missing here. Spinferno and Calvin have a race with Calvin’s ninja star as the prize (which I’ll also get back to in the weirdness section) but in order to stop Spinferno the other Rangers jump out of the ambush they’d set up to deliver his defeat. An eagle-eyed reader might notice that last year (two years ago, really) I gave Riley a pass for his mercenary behavior in “When Logic Fails” when he baited Puzzler into a 3D Chess game in order to distract him. The difference is that that episode was not about how cheating is wrong or relying on your own ability and your team’s ability to succeed trumps using a crutch to solve your problems. Because this episode goes out of its way to give the most basic indictment of cheating possible, it becomes bad bad BAD when the key to the Rangers’ victory is...cheating.
As for the weird: the “Legends Explain Everything” handwave is back in full force, with both Mick and Brody just randomly knowing how Power Rangers work in a universe where Power Rangers don’t exist. Mick knows how to make special elemental ninja stars because...of course he does! Brody knows that the zords form a Megazord (a term COINED IN THE EPISODE) because of course they do! On another note, the actual mechanics of Spinferno’s defeat are weird too. Brody attempts to use metal against Spinferno, but his heat weakens the chains (because jet fuel melts steel beams). So by video game logic, it’s not a problem when he changes tactics to water, which is effective in scaring Spinferno off. But when they ultimately ambush Spinferno at the end, they instead use wood to trap him, and then fire to destroy him. That’s right, the metal gets weakened by Spinferno’s fire, but the wood had no problems against him, and then fire destroyed the fire creature. More than the bad section, the weird is what interferes with my enjoyment of the episode the most. It wasn’t because it’s boring, but again, it makes no sense whatsoever.
I guess we all “Live and Learn” eventually, but this episode was wacky and not in a good way. For some, there’s no such thing as wacky in a bad way, but for me I just couldn’t deal with it. Nevertheless, it held my interest until the end, and I feel like I had more fun picking apart the logic burps than the fun I would have had sifting through a boring but sensible episode. So it gets a score high in enjoyability but low in sense from me; it’s a solid Koda.
