3. Jungle Fury
While Disney’s inconsistent tenure under the franchise failed to produce the best season of the series, it did provide what may be the most underrated.
I give a lot of praise to showrunner Bruce Kalish’s ranger run in hindsight of what we've been given for the last 4 years but I can’t deny that his run on the series hasn't been fondly remembered with good reason. While “SPD” featured excellent characters and performances, it suffered mediocre villains with an overbearing soundtrack and a story that was just a little bit too busy for its own good.
Meanwhile, “Mystic Force,” for all of its good ideas and touching moments featured just as much clunkiness in its storytelling. Then there was… one more season that shall not be named[OperationOverDriveLink].
I only wish that I had stuck his tenure out back in the day because “Jungle Fury” made all of the pain worth it.
The martial arts themed season features Pai Zhua academy students Casey, Lily and Theo joining their new master, RJ, to defend the world from an ancient evil Pai Zhua master with a lust for power and ambitions of world domination. The master, Dai Shi acts through his possession of a former Pai Zhua student, Jarrod, who wages his own internal battle throughout the series over the ethics of what he is doing and whether or not he has a choice in the matter.
“Jungle Fury’s” placement towards the end of a poorly received era of “Power Rangers” on the verge of cancellation unfortunately results in it becoming greatly overlooked, which is unfortunate because it’s hard to find anything that the season does particularly wrong.
From a production standpoint the problems of the last several years had been scaled back to the point of almost becoming virtually unnoticeable; visual effects have been dialed back in favor of practical stunt work and fight choreography, the stock music that had plagued the atmosphere of the previous 5 years of the show disappeared and the acting was actually pretty above average for the standards of the franchise.
The monsters of Dai Shi’s army also stay within the confines of the martial arts theme, limiting the number of episodes of tonal whiplash and feeding into the storytelling of the entire season which plays out like a western produced kung-fu story with a tokusatsu infusion.
Casey is something of a prototypical hero’s journey-esque protagonist; an unsure of himself newbie that needs to find his way and save the world in the process. However, his placement as a new student within a cast of veteran Pai Zhua martial artists who are all considered his superiors within the Order of the Claw makes him a rather compelling deconstruction of the idealized red ranger, who is traditionally the overpowered natural leader of the group that keeps fellow rangers in line.
Most of the character play is top notch, with Casey’s nontraditional everyman leader role playing well off of Theo’s more traditional views on leadership and structure and Lily’s friendship with him despite her free and encouraging spirit and positive attitude towards Casey.
RJ also shows to be one of the more memorable mentor figures of the show by finally providing a mentor with quirky sensibilities that is genuinely wise as opposed to correct as dictated by the plot.
The strong dynamics aren’t limited just to the rangers themselves but go out even further to the few side characters and even Dai Shi himself, whose possession of Jarrod evolves into one of the most unexpectedly complex story arcs of the franchise.
“Power Rangers Jungle Fury” feels like Bruce Kalish’s saving grace to his entire run. Its only major failing was that it came too little too late but that doesn’t hold it back from being the second greatest surprise hit of the entire series right behind…
2. Power Rangers RPM
If “Jungle Fury” was a pleasant surprise in the vein of finding a $20 bill on the ground during an otherwise uneventful stroll, than “Power Rangers RPM” is like accidentally finding a paper bag full of C-Notes on the side of the street; you’re so overwhelmed by what’s in front of you that you’re not so much trying to process how good it is so much as whether or not this is even real.
As much as I love “Power Rangers” and even have a fondness for certain seasons of the often maligned Disney era, I had long since given up on the notion of the show growing up any further. I can’t think of any other franchise that has torpedoed my expectations to the extent of “RPM.”
With ratings in decline and Disney’s care and oversight of the show minimal, resulting in its movement to an irrationally early morning slot on ABC Kids, “RPM’s” lack of executive supervision may have actually worked more in the season’s favor than a scenario of Disney executives actually caring.
Set in the aftermath of a post apocalyptic robot uprising, “RPM” follows the efforts of the titular rangers to protect what’s left of humanity from the military forces of Venjix, an AI out to exterminate human error from the face of the Earth. Joined by the amnesiac wasteland drifter Dillon and his talkative but street savvy associate Ziggy, career soldier Scott Truman leads the charge with charming Scottish mechanic Flynn and former millionaire heiress Summer to protect civilization while also seeking out any way to take Venjix down.
“RPM’s” daring is doomed to make all future season look like child’s play by comparison. Within the first 5 episodes alone, the viewer is bombarded with intense sequences of war, references of recent deaths, organized crime, prison structure and implied genocide and even that is just the tip of the iceberg, topped by the half way point with onscreen deaths, debate over survival tactics and implied live experimentations on captured humans by Venjix.
This season was undoubtedly bold and dark which served as a strong hook but the real strengths of the season may lie in how much lighter its tone is than its writing.
While “RPM” may seem grim to a point of excess when its content is broken down, the season actually manages to strike a solid balance between the fun of children’s tokusatsu and atmospheric storytelling.
Like “Jungle Fury,” the acting of “RPM” is very strong by franchise standards, even better than that season itself. The cast convincingly portrays a wide range of emotions and play very well off of each other but still remember to have fun with the material above all else despite the circumstances of the story. Scott may have father issues that drive him to perform to his all and Dillon may angst over what his identity was before his memory loss but that doesn’t stop them from playing motorhead rivalry with their vehicles as fellow mechanics.
Little instances such as these pepper the entire season at just the right moments to lighten the mood while the uncharacteristically overreliance on original footage over “Sentai” stock footage allowed the writers to dictate the story’s development independently of the source material and the show is all the better for it.
I never thought one of my top 5 favorite rangers would be the most incompetent ranger of the franchise, yet Milo Cawthorne’s comedic portrayal of the charismatic and bumbling but well meaning Ziggy is probably one of the most human characters of the franchise.
It’s worth noting that “RPM” had 2 showrunners across its 2 halves. Judd Lynn took over for the second half of the season, reprising his role as show runner from the later seasons of the Saban era (before the Disney buyout) and does the typically rock solid job expected of him with his resources at hand. This shift was brought about after his predecessor Eddie Guzelian burned through the majority of the show’s production budget by the half way point.
Despite this miscalculation ultimately taking him off the project, I have to applaud the man’s ambition and success at what he did accomplish. “Power Rangers” was in desperate need of a shakeup by 2009 and his vision of “RPM” along with a go for broke execution to hook viewers from the start was the breath of fresh air I was waiting for.
With the franchise in the hands of people giving it more care, attention and resources, I honestly wouldn't be opposed to him taking another crack at it in the future.
For now however, his legacy lives on in the form of a 32 episode season that may be the shortest of the franchise but is easily one of the least forgettable.
1. Time Force
A season that has been influential to my tastes in genre fiction in ways that I probably still don’t comprehend, “Time Force” may be slightly dated now but it still holds up as a flawed masterpiece of children’s entertainment.
Laid back young adult Wes Collins’ journey to stop a criminal from the future from altering the past for the worse with time travelers Jen, Trip, Katie and Lucas was one of the most involved and expensive productions of the entire franchise and it shows.
Sheerly from a production standpoint, the season’s production values rival if not surpass that of the current Saban seasons, featuring some of the best stunt work, fight choreography, music and acting of the entire franchise.
From a storytelling standpoint however, “Time Force” soars even further. While not quite as dark as “RPM,” it grapples with issues of destiny, xenophobia and redemption in ways that a kid can actually identify without watering down their own message. The exploration of these themes and the ways that they permeate the lives of the rangers all adhere to tokusatsu formula but work with it in such a way that doesn't diminish their dramatic effect, making it the first American tokusatsu production that could actually work as more of an all ages drama.
Going beyond its mere contributions to the franchise and American tokusatstu however “Power Rangers Time Force” was an incredible season that still has a lot to offer children’s entertainment in general.
Through stronger acting and coherent plotlines, it helped me to better appreciate drama within character driven narrative. Through meticulous editing and detailed shooting meant to better blend the original footage with that of “Mirai Sentai Timeranger’s” it helped me appreciate the importance of strong continuity. More importantly, its tales of man’s right to choose his destiny, the grounds of xenophobia’s cyclical nature and the potentially thankless nature of redemption generated my interest in more sophisticated sci-fi classics as an adult.
The wonderful thing about “Power Rangers” is that when it’s done right, it can bring together genre fiction fans of all ages and while “Time Force” isn’t without its flaws in fleshing out all of its characters and exploring all of the implications of its themes, it nevertheless serves as an excellent example of how tokusatsu can do more than sell toys, something that this franchise has sadly failed to do for nearly 5 years straight.
This season ultimately served as Judd Lynn’s final work as regular showrunner until February’s “Power Rangers Dino Charge” brings him back on board. I can only hope that he succeeds in capturing even a fraction of the magic that he created not only with “Time Force” but across nearly all of his work on the 6 seasons that he has worked on. It would be nice to know that “Power Rangers” could impact a kid today in the same ways that its golden age impacted me almost 10-15 years ago.
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