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akinoame“Redemption Day” (Judd Lynn and Jackie Marchand) actually takes advantage of the fact that the series takes place in space, showing a nice shot of the Mountain Dome with the City Dome in the background, and Leo and Maya traveling through the tubes with nothing but black space and stars behind them. It’s something that I feel is generally forgotten here. In RPM, we were constantly reminded that they were in a domed city, and beyond it was a desolate wasteland; even though Corinth seemed to have everything, they took constant care to remind us of the city shield and how fragile everything was. Terra Venture never really felt so fragile, even when the station itself was under attack. It looks impressive how the Scorpion Stinger is draining power from the Mountain Dome, but I feel like things fall flat again. One, the Rangers can always (and should have) taken the Megaship to attack the ship and force it to decouple with the station. And two, everything is too well connected. Draining the power from the Mountain Dome will drain Terra Venture dry in two hours, and Magna Defender’s plan to destroy the Mountain Dome (and what has apparently become a volcano) will destroy Terra Venture. Why not just worry about the one dome and the people trapped there? We saw how close it was for Leo and Maya to escape to the command dome or whatever it is, so logically, there are probably people trapped in the Mountain Dome. I don’t know. I think it’s just another matter of Terra Venture stretching my suspension of disbelief again. I also completely lose track of the plot after the Ranger destroy the Freaky Tiki (*sigh* even I’m offended by the look of this monster, and I’m not from any of the cultures I think it was going for) and somehow the volcano’s going to blow. There’s no reason why it’s a volcano, first of all (because what kind of idiot would build an artificial volcano in a biodome for space colonists), and the danger was supposed to be the Scorpion Stinger draining Terra Venture’s energy. Suddenly, there’s no energy crisis anymore and there’s a volcano to worry about? It’s like a season of 24! And don’t argue that it has something to do with the Freaky Tiki’s spear getting thrown in the volcano; there was no indication there was anything special about that spear, nor that they should worry when it fell in the pit.
Fortunately, everything’s made up for with the Magna Defender plot. Leo once again really goes out of his way to try to save Magna, even though he knows Magna is going too far. It says a lot for Leo’s sense of mercy and forgiveness (which will come into play with Karone later) that he keeps trying, keeps hoping there’s some good inside him. Magna’s been abandoned by Torozord, who’s not cool with the “blowing up Terra Venture” idea, and he’s dying from his injuries. Leo helps him escape and continues to defend him, even when Magna points out there’s no reason for him to do so and he’s “weak” for it. When Leo insists it’s the right thing to do, Magna says that’s exactly what Mike would say. To Leo’s shock, Magna reveals that Mike still lives inside him and has been weighing heavily on his heart in his revenge quest—that the crevasse he fell into 3000 years ago was the same one that Mike would fall through. The dying Magna Defender used his sword to break Mike’s fall and “switched life forces with him” in order to survive.
Now here’s where I get confused again. By saying that they “switched life forces,” it implies that Mike would be somewhere else with the dying remnants of Magna’s life energy. But what we see is that Mike is pretty much possessed by the Magna Defender—that they merged into one being, and Magna uses Mike’s young, fit body to fight (thereby gaining all of Mike’s fighting skills and styles). Why they didn’t say this is beyond me. Fortunately, Mike explains it exactly this way in “Destined for Greatness.” Also, back in “The Magna Defender,” Magna had a throwaway line about “not [having] much time,” which implied that the connection to Mike would fail at any moment—like the recharged Green Ranger powers in MMPR. But nothing ever came of this and they never referred to Magna being on some kind of time limit for anything ever again.
In any case, Magna reveals that the only way Leo will ever free Mike is to destroy Magna. This moment is handled beautifully for both characters. Leo, naturally, refuses. From the very start, we’ve seen that he has his principles and he will never violate them to get what he wants, even if it’s a good cause. Magna taunts him, but he too realizes that Leo will never abandon his integrity, and he says, “I’ll make it easy for you. Call it self defense,” and tries to attack. For all Magna insists that he no longer has any honor, it’s a truly honorable moment for him; he knows that what he’s asking Leo to do is impossible for him, so he tries to make the right choice a little easier for him. And still, Leo refuses.
Another of the most beautiful character moments—and probably one of the best this season and maybe the entire franchise has to offer—is the return of Zika. The injured Magna Defender, watching the Rangers try to stop the explosion, laments on how noble they are and how he used to be that way before Scorpius killed Zika and he became obsessed with revenge. He apologizes for failing his son—not for failing to avenge him, but for failing to honor him as he should have all these millennia—and he suddenly hears Zika’s voice. He looks up to see his son walking toward him, carrying the flowers he’d accidentally cut in his attempt to attack Leo. A beautiful score plays as Zika tells his father that he has to save the colony. The acting in the stock footage falls flat, as Magna walks just fine before stumbling and crawling, weakened by his injuries, but Kerrigan Mahan continues to do an amazing job conveying Magna’s grief and sense of failure. As Magna’s about to quit, Zika promises him that he’s still the great warrior he once was and that if he does the right thing, he will honor Zika’s memory and they’ll be together forever. He then hands his father the flowers and asks him to try before disappearing. The apparent hallucination fades, leaving Magna near the volcano, but he still has the flowers, and it gives him the will to go on.
The demorphed Rangers try to head to the volcano, but the hissing, burning gasses are too much for them. Magna tells Leo that only he can do it, since it was his hatred for Scorpius that created the problem in the first place, and he sets down his sword to create a forcefield, protecting the Rangers and preventing them from interfering. He tells Leo not to worry about his brother, and as a very nice touch, Kai and Kendrix stare at each other in shock to hear their friend is alive. Torozord even tries to join him, but he tells him that he’s got to do this alone. As the energy from the volcano attacks him, he keeps holding onto the flowers and staring at them so he can keep going. We’re then treated to one more of his “hallucinations,” where he’s restored and whole, walking hand-in-hand with his son, telling him that he was right and there’s still good inside his heart. Zika tells him he’s proud of him, but Magna says that he’s proud of Zika and thanks him for showing him the way. We’re brought back to reality, and Magna’s tattered and beaten, dragging himself to the summit. He reaches it and drops the flowers, saying, “This is for you, Zika,” as he becomes some kind of energy being (which, as “The Power of Pink” will prove, is basically the afterlife in Power Rangers; more or less, Ascension), neutralizing the energy from the volcano—kind of like Zordon’s sacrifice in “Countdown to Destruction.”
With Magna dead, the forcefield fades, and starlight falls all around them (again, like it had with Zordon). The Rangers ask if that’s the end of the Magna Defender, and Leo picks up his sword, seeing the gem shining, and sadly but firmly insists, “No, the Magna Defender will live forever,” while Torozord mourns. Alpha tells them that the day’s been saved, and in the middle of their mourning, Leo hears footsteps. He turns, and everyone sees Mike—exhausted, battered, but alive and well. The Rangers run over to him in amazement, and Kendrix even hugs him, but Leo stares frozen in shock. Mike starts to make his way over, and Leo finally runs over, and the brothers grab each other in a hug. Mike tries to explain that there’s so much that he can’t tell him, but Leo insists he always knew that Mike would make it back one day. Mike promises that he’ll never leave his brother again, which brings both the Magna Defender story and Mike’s story to a wonderful conclusion.
“Destined for Greatness” (Judd Lynn) is an excellent follow-up, dealing with the expected consequences. The Rangers are ready to celebrate Mike’s return, but Mike is burdened by the loss of the Magna Defender, and he insists that they remember him. He explains that if not for Magna, he’d never have survived his fall, and Magna had taken care to release him before destroying himself in the explosion. Which makes no sense, given what Magna told Leo in “Redemption Day”—that the only way to save Mike was for Magna to die. So why not just stick with that explanation and have it that Ascended Magna = Released Mike? In any case, Leo is burdened by the knowledge that he was never chosen to be the Red Ranger; he’s the replacement, and Mike was the one who pulled the Saber from the stone. It deals subtly with the implication that Mike would make a better Red Ranger and a better leader; the team bonded with Leo, so they’re not abandoning him for Mike. There’s never any favoritism. It’s all in Leo’s head; he’s the one who feels he doesn’t measure up, and he’s the only one who thinks this is what should happen.
We also see that despite not having any powers, Mike is determined to protect his little brother at all cost, just as he had when he was merged with Magna. When Skelekron attacks the Rangers and traps them in mirrors, Mike shoves Leo out of the way before ducking out of the way himself, and he hurries to help Leo retreat to treat his injury instead of continuing to attack. Leo confronts him on this (after all, “Never leave a man behind” from “Quasar Quest”), but Mike reveals that he had a plan the whole time. When he flipped over one of the Stingwingers, he planted one of his dogtags on him (and as a nice touch, when Leo gave him back the dogtags, Mike looked at how dented and beat up they’d gotten from “Silent Sleep” and asked what happened to them, and Leo said it was a long story), and they can track them from it. Of course, the idea that they can track them because it’s metal and totally ignoring there’s metal all over a space station and Scorpius’s generals and monsters all have metal swords makes no sense, but I digress. It is a workable idea, but I wish they’d gone with “computer chip” or something; come on, it’s 1999, not entirely the Stone Age!
Sure enough, they track down Skelekron and the Stingwingers, who have found the dogtag, and they have to fight off the Skelekron Warriors, who have drawn their power from the trapped Rangers. It’s actually a very good sequence of demorphed fighting, with the Corbett brothers fighting on even ground and defeating the Stingwingers and Warriors, before Leo loses the Quasar Saber. Mike tries to give it back to him, but Leo insists that it was Mike’s destiny all along. Mike argues that his destiny was only to pull the sword from the stone; Leo’s destiny was to be the Red Ranger, and Mike’s seen that in the way he fights. He knows the sword is a part of Leo. He’s proven right when the Warrior revives and Leo manages to power up the sword without morphing, destroying the Warrior in an epic explosion. Score one teenager with attitude. Leo continues to use the powered-up Saber without morphing to defeat the final two Warriors, Skelekron, and free the others. While the Rangers morph, Mike continues to help fight, watching his brother in pride. But when the Galaxy Megazord is trapped in a mirror, Mike feels completely helpless and wishes he could do something, which makes the Magna Defender’s sword react. The spirits of Magna and Zika appear before Mike, and Magna calmly tells Mike that it’s his destiny to become the new Magna Defender and continue the work that Magna and Zika started. Defender Torozord kicks ass, Leo’s shocked to see there’s a new Magna Defender, and he’s thrilled when they meet up with Mike and see him with the sword and his new destiny. Though Damon points out that a bull is nowhere near as cool as a condor, which Torozord loudly objects to.
As an excellent touch, this episode also has Mike ask just how he’s going to explain what happened to him all this time. At the very end, he interrupts a meeting between Commander Stanton and the Council, and they’re all shocked to see him. The cover story the others gave was that he’d been left behind on “the practice moon” (which is, of course, OUR moon). Mike fails to explain himself, but High Councilor Renier says she and the others are glad to have him back anyway, indicating how important he really was to the mission (as implied in “Quasar Quest”). And once he’s out of there, Mike celebrates like only a man who didn’t have to beg for his job back can. I do have to say, though, that what Stanton and the others were talking about makes no sense whatsoever. Stanton explains that since “Quasar Quest,” they’ve traveled about 5 lightyears—the distance it takes light to travel in five years, of course. That’s impressive for Earth FTL drives that have never existed before then. But the Councilors say that they’ll be waiting for a report when they reach the next galaxy.
…What, getting this far isn’t impressive enough for you? First off, the galaxy is huge. Going five lightyears from Earth is nowhere near enough to get out of the Milky Way, no matter what direction in space you take. And second, they point out repeatedly that the events of Lost Galaxy take place in our galaxy until they actually do get to the Lost Galaxy. Mirinoi, Scorpius, all of these things are in the Milky Way. It makes no sense.
On a final note, for all I sometimes think Danny Slavin goes over the top with his delivery of some of his normal lines, he knows how to pull off the badass ones. He knows how to do understatement and how to do it well. When Skelekron tells Leo he doesn’t know who he’s messing with, Leo coolly replies, “Neither do you.” And again, when he’s told that he’ll regret it, he responds, “We’ll see who has regrets, won’t we?” He recognizes how powerful the lines need to be, and he makes sure that Leo comes off as a badass when he says them—with no fear and no hesitation.
Fortunately, everything’s made up for with the Magna Defender plot. Leo once again really goes out of his way to try to save Magna, even though he knows Magna is going too far. It says a lot for Leo’s sense of mercy and forgiveness (which will come into play with Karone later) that he keeps trying, keeps hoping there’s some good inside him. Magna’s been abandoned by Torozord, who’s not cool with the “blowing up Terra Venture” idea, and he’s dying from his injuries. Leo helps him escape and continues to defend him, even when Magna points out there’s no reason for him to do so and he’s “weak” for it. When Leo insists it’s the right thing to do, Magna says that’s exactly what Mike would say. To Leo’s shock, Magna reveals that Mike still lives inside him and has been weighing heavily on his heart in his revenge quest—that the crevasse he fell into 3000 years ago was the same one that Mike would fall through. The dying Magna Defender used his sword to break Mike’s fall and “switched life forces with him” in order to survive.
Now here’s where I get confused again. By saying that they “switched life forces,” it implies that Mike would be somewhere else with the dying remnants of Magna’s life energy. But what we see is that Mike is pretty much possessed by the Magna Defender—that they merged into one being, and Magna uses Mike’s young, fit body to fight (thereby gaining all of Mike’s fighting skills and styles). Why they didn’t say this is beyond me. Fortunately, Mike explains it exactly this way in “Destined for Greatness.” Also, back in “The Magna Defender,” Magna had a throwaway line about “not [having] much time,” which implied that the connection to Mike would fail at any moment—like the recharged Green Ranger powers in MMPR. But nothing ever came of this and they never referred to Magna being on some kind of time limit for anything ever again.
In any case, Magna reveals that the only way Leo will ever free Mike is to destroy Magna. This moment is handled beautifully for both characters. Leo, naturally, refuses. From the very start, we’ve seen that he has his principles and he will never violate them to get what he wants, even if it’s a good cause. Magna taunts him, but he too realizes that Leo will never abandon his integrity, and he says, “I’ll make it easy for you. Call it self defense,” and tries to attack. For all Magna insists that he no longer has any honor, it’s a truly honorable moment for him; he knows that what he’s asking Leo to do is impossible for him, so he tries to make the right choice a little easier for him. And still, Leo refuses.
Another of the most beautiful character moments—and probably one of the best this season and maybe the entire franchise has to offer—is the return of Zika. The injured Magna Defender, watching the Rangers try to stop the explosion, laments on how noble they are and how he used to be that way before Scorpius killed Zika and he became obsessed with revenge. He apologizes for failing his son—not for failing to avenge him, but for failing to honor him as he should have all these millennia—and he suddenly hears Zika’s voice. He looks up to see his son walking toward him, carrying the flowers he’d accidentally cut in his attempt to attack Leo. A beautiful score plays as Zika tells his father that he has to save the colony. The acting in the stock footage falls flat, as Magna walks just fine before stumbling and crawling, weakened by his injuries, but Kerrigan Mahan continues to do an amazing job conveying Magna’s grief and sense of failure. As Magna’s about to quit, Zika promises him that he’s still the great warrior he once was and that if he does the right thing, he will honor Zika’s memory and they’ll be together forever. He then hands his father the flowers and asks him to try before disappearing. The apparent hallucination fades, leaving Magna near the volcano, but he still has the flowers, and it gives him the will to go on.
The demorphed Rangers try to head to the volcano, but the hissing, burning gasses are too much for them. Magna tells Leo that only he can do it, since it was his hatred for Scorpius that created the problem in the first place, and he sets down his sword to create a forcefield, protecting the Rangers and preventing them from interfering. He tells Leo not to worry about his brother, and as a very nice touch, Kai and Kendrix stare at each other in shock to hear their friend is alive. Torozord even tries to join him, but he tells him that he’s got to do this alone. As the energy from the volcano attacks him, he keeps holding onto the flowers and staring at them so he can keep going. We’re then treated to one more of his “hallucinations,” where he’s restored and whole, walking hand-in-hand with his son, telling him that he was right and there’s still good inside his heart. Zika tells him he’s proud of him, but Magna says that he’s proud of Zika and thanks him for showing him the way. We’re brought back to reality, and Magna’s tattered and beaten, dragging himself to the summit. He reaches it and drops the flowers, saying, “This is for you, Zika,” as he becomes some kind of energy being (which, as “The Power of Pink” will prove, is basically the afterlife in Power Rangers; more or less, Ascension), neutralizing the energy from the volcano—kind of like Zordon’s sacrifice in “Countdown to Destruction.”
With Magna dead, the forcefield fades, and starlight falls all around them (again, like it had with Zordon). The Rangers ask if that’s the end of the Magna Defender, and Leo picks up his sword, seeing the gem shining, and sadly but firmly insists, “No, the Magna Defender will live forever,” while Torozord mourns. Alpha tells them that the day’s been saved, and in the middle of their mourning, Leo hears footsteps. He turns, and everyone sees Mike—exhausted, battered, but alive and well. The Rangers run over to him in amazement, and Kendrix even hugs him, but Leo stares frozen in shock. Mike starts to make his way over, and Leo finally runs over, and the brothers grab each other in a hug. Mike tries to explain that there’s so much that he can’t tell him, but Leo insists he always knew that Mike would make it back one day. Mike promises that he’ll never leave his brother again, which brings both the Magna Defender story and Mike’s story to a wonderful conclusion.
“Destined for Greatness” (Judd Lynn) is an excellent follow-up, dealing with the expected consequences. The Rangers are ready to celebrate Mike’s return, but Mike is burdened by the loss of the Magna Defender, and he insists that they remember him. He explains that if not for Magna, he’d never have survived his fall, and Magna had taken care to release him before destroying himself in the explosion. Which makes no sense, given what Magna told Leo in “Redemption Day”—that the only way to save Mike was for Magna to die. So why not just stick with that explanation and have it that Ascended Magna = Released Mike? In any case, Leo is burdened by the knowledge that he was never chosen to be the Red Ranger; he’s the replacement, and Mike was the one who pulled the Saber from the stone. It deals subtly with the implication that Mike would make a better Red Ranger and a better leader; the team bonded with Leo, so they’re not abandoning him for Mike. There’s never any favoritism. It’s all in Leo’s head; he’s the one who feels he doesn’t measure up, and he’s the only one who thinks this is what should happen.
We also see that despite not having any powers, Mike is determined to protect his little brother at all cost, just as he had when he was merged with Magna. When Skelekron attacks the Rangers and traps them in mirrors, Mike shoves Leo out of the way before ducking out of the way himself, and he hurries to help Leo retreat to treat his injury instead of continuing to attack. Leo confronts him on this (after all, “Never leave a man behind” from “Quasar Quest”), but Mike reveals that he had a plan the whole time. When he flipped over one of the Stingwingers, he planted one of his dogtags on him (and as a nice touch, when Leo gave him back the dogtags, Mike looked at how dented and beat up they’d gotten from “Silent Sleep” and asked what happened to them, and Leo said it was a long story), and they can track them from it. Of course, the idea that they can track them because it’s metal and totally ignoring there’s metal all over a space station and Scorpius’s generals and monsters all have metal swords makes no sense, but I digress. It is a workable idea, but I wish they’d gone with “computer chip” or something; come on, it’s 1999, not entirely the Stone Age!
Sure enough, they track down Skelekron and the Stingwingers, who have found the dogtag, and they have to fight off the Skelekron Warriors, who have drawn their power from the trapped Rangers. It’s actually a very good sequence of demorphed fighting, with the Corbett brothers fighting on even ground and defeating the Stingwingers and Warriors, before Leo loses the Quasar Saber. Mike tries to give it back to him, but Leo insists that it was Mike’s destiny all along. Mike argues that his destiny was only to pull the sword from the stone; Leo’s destiny was to be the Red Ranger, and Mike’s seen that in the way he fights. He knows the sword is a part of Leo. He’s proven right when the Warrior revives and Leo manages to power up the sword without morphing, destroying the Warrior in an epic explosion. Score one teenager with attitude. Leo continues to use the powered-up Saber without morphing to defeat the final two Warriors, Skelekron, and free the others. While the Rangers morph, Mike continues to help fight, watching his brother in pride. But when the Galaxy Megazord is trapped in a mirror, Mike feels completely helpless and wishes he could do something, which makes the Magna Defender’s sword react. The spirits of Magna and Zika appear before Mike, and Magna calmly tells Mike that it’s his destiny to become the new Magna Defender and continue the work that Magna and Zika started. Defender Torozord kicks ass, Leo’s shocked to see there’s a new Magna Defender, and he’s thrilled when they meet up with Mike and see him with the sword and his new destiny. Though Damon points out that a bull is nowhere near as cool as a condor, which Torozord loudly objects to.
As an excellent touch, this episode also has Mike ask just how he’s going to explain what happened to him all this time. At the very end, he interrupts a meeting between Commander Stanton and the Council, and they’re all shocked to see him. The cover story the others gave was that he’d been left behind on “the practice moon” (which is, of course, OUR moon). Mike fails to explain himself, but High Councilor Renier says she and the others are glad to have him back anyway, indicating how important he really was to the mission (as implied in “Quasar Quest”). And once he’s out of there, Mike celebrates like only a man who didn’t have to beg for his job back can. I do have to say, though, that what Stanton and the others were talking about makes no sense whatsoever. Stanton explains that since “Quasar Quest,” they’ve traveled about 5 lightyears—the distance it takes light to travel in five years, of course. That’s impressive for Earth FTL drives that have never existed before then. But the Councilors say that they’ll be waiting for a report when they reach the next galaxy.
…What, getting this far isn’t impressive enough for you? First off, the galaxy is huge. Going five lightyears from Earth is nowhere near enough to get out of the Milky Way, no matter what direction in space you take. And second, they point out repeatedly that the events of Lost Galaxy take place in our galaxy until they actually do get to the Lost Galaxy. Mirinoi, Scorpius, all of these things are in the Milky Way. It makes no sense.
On a final note, for all I sometimes think Danny Slavin goes over the top with his delivery of some of his normal lines, he knows how to pull off the badass ones. He knows how to do understatement and how to do it well. When Skelekron tells Leo he doesn’t know who he’s messing with, Leo coolly replies, “Neither do you.” And again, when he’s told that he’ll regret it, he responds, “We’ll see who has regrets, won’t we?” He recognizes how powerful the lines need to be, and he makes sure that Leo comes off as a badass when he says them—with no fear and no hesitation.