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akinoameOkay, mini-review time of the first episode of Power Rangers Samurai: "The Team Unites." Not enough Bulk, that is all.
...Okay, it's not all. But it's a big thing. Really. His one scene in the episode is completely disconnected from the rest of the episode. I mean, I even would have waited for the introduction of Bulk and Spike, just as long as their scenes made more sense. He had more sense and more screentime in his episodes of Lost Galaxy.
First up, I've got to give credit where credit is due: the credits. For the very first time in Power Rangers history, they credited the Japanese writers of the source Sentai series. As Samurai is being lifted pretty much wholesale from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, according to executive producer Jonathan Tzachor, then it makes sense to credit the original writers along with the writers of the adaptation. Also, video quality is crisp and beautiful, making it more difficult to pick up where the footage from Power Rangers ends and the Shinkenger footage begins.
Now for the inevitable complaints. Samurai isn't the first season not to have a team origin story. Wild Force and RPM come to mind--a new guy (or two) joins an established team and tries to prove he (or they) belong with them. The difference is that Wild Force and RPM managed to establish the personalities of the established team. Wild Force gave a brief look immediately at everybody's personalities before jumping into Cole's story, and RPM gave us a prologue featuring Scott, Summer, and Flynn before they became Rangers, so by the time Dillon and Ziggy met them, we had a fairly good idea what they were all about. Not so with the Samurai Rangers. We only really get to meet Mike and see a little bit of Jayden. Mike is the Reluctant Green Ranger, which at this point might as well be a trope in itself (Damon, Joel, and Ziggy). He doesn't like the idea that being a samurai means he's got to sacrifice his friends, family, and school--which is EXTREMELY odd given the history of Power Rangers emphasizing the importance of education (so many of the Rangers were still attending high school, such as the original and Dino Thunder Rangers, and others were all about their college plans like Alyssa of Wild Force and Rose of Operation Overdrive). So we've got isolated high school dropouts as our heroes--not a promising start. But hey, I'm willing to give it a chance. After all, for all we know the awesome Power Rangers in Space had to drop out of high school after all their absences to save the universe.
But what got me was that Jayden really lacked personality in that first episode. He was the calm, rational, serious leader. Now, granted, this is Jason from MMPR in a nutshell. But here's the difference: Jason got the emphasis in the first episode. Also, paradoxically, Austin St. John's kind of amateurish acting in the first episodes made Jason seem better--with all the yelling he did as Red Ranger, you got to think that Jason was constantly controlling himself in public. Jayden--not so much. His actor is very good so far, and I think that's what hurts this performance. There's not enough for him to work with, and that's a disappointment. Plus, in trying to make him the lovechild of Jason and Takeru from Shinkenger, he really doesn't seem to make as much of an impact. I know what Jason was about--he was upfront all the time about teamwork and saving the world from Rita. I know what Takeru was about--his determination to preserve the Shiba Clan and all of the stuff he had to do as a Shinkenger while at the same time hiding a huge secret. I don't know what Jayden's about, and they don't offer enough to reel me in.
For an episode called "The Team Unites," we see nothing except Mike and a little bit of Jayden. There's no sense of teamwork. They probably could have called it "Go for the Green," "Green Courage," or "Missing Green," except all those titles were already taken. Emily and Mia were practically nonexistent. Kevin existed long enough for Mike to feel a pang of jealousy--and to let off an asshole comment that makes me wonder, "Okay, is he an asshole all the time? Am I going to hate this guy?" We didn't get to learn anything about anyone other than Mike, and that hurts the first episode. It feels like the pilot they would have sent Nickelodeon, to prove "This is a normal day in Power Rangers." When we should have learned who everyone was and started hinting about why they were there, we didn't get it. And I really think it suffers for it.
I'm going to continue to give Samurai a chance because, hey? Bulk. Okay, well, that and I learned with Lost Galaxy that first appearances can be deceiving. But at the same time, I really want to see a better balance.Not to mention the bad guys are doing a lousy job being intimidating; they make the dialogue from Digimon classic seem...well, classic. Plus, give the big bad an intimidating enough voice! He sounds like merely a henchman!
And wow, that was nothing resembling mini at all.
...Okay, it's not all. But it's a big thing. Really. His one scene in the episode is completely disconnected from the rest of the episode. I mean, I even would have waited for the introduction of Bulk and Spike, just as long as their scenes made more sense. He had more sense and more screentime in his episodes of Lost Galaxy.
First up, I've got to give credit where credit is due: the credits. For the very first time in Power Rangers history, they credited the Japanese writers of the source Sentai series. As Samurai is being lifted pretty much wholesale from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, according to executive producer Jonathan Tzachor, then it makes sense to credit the original writers along with the writers of the adaptation. Also, video quality is crisp and beautiful, making it more difficult to pick up where the footage from Power Rangers ends and the Shinkenger footage begins.
Now for the inevitable complaints. Samurai isn't the first season not to have a team origin story. Wild Force and RPM come to mind--a new guy (or two) joins an established team and tries to prove he (or they) belong with them. The difference is that Wild Force and RPM managed to establish the personalities of the established team. Wild Force gave a brief look immediately at everybody's personalities before jumping into Cole's story, and RPM gave us a prologue featuring Scott, Summer, and Flynn before they became Rangers, so by the time Dillon and Ziggy met them, we had a fairly good idea what they were all about. Not so with the Samurai Rangers. We only really get to meet Mike and see a little bit of Jayden. Mike is the Reluctant Green Ranger, which at this point might as well be a trope in itself (Damon, Joel, and Ziggy). He doesn't like the idea that being a samurai means he's got to sacrifice his friends, family, and school--which is EXTREMELY odd given the history of Power Rangers emphasizing the importance of education (so many of the Rangers were still attending high school, such as the original and Dino Thunder Rangers, and others were all about their college plans like Alyssa of Wild Force and Rose of Operation Overdrive). So we've got isolated high school dropouts as our heroes--not a promising start. But hey, I'm willing to give it a chance. After all, for all we know the awesome Power Rangers in Space had to drop out of high school after all their absences to save the universe.
But what got me was that Jayden really lacked personality in that first episode. He was the calm, rational, serious leader. Now, granted, this is Jason from MMPR in a nutshell. But here's the difference: Jason got the emphasis in the first episode. Also, paradoxically, Austin St. John's kind of amateurish acting in the first episodes made Jason seem better--with all the yelling he did as Red Ranger, you got to think that Jason was constantly controlling himself in public. Jayden--not so much. His actor is very good so far, and I think that's what hurts this performance. There's not enough for him to work with, and that's a disappointment. Plus, in trying to make him the lovechild of Jason and Takeru from Shinkenger, he really doesn't seem to make as much of an impact. I know what Jason was about--he was upfront all the time about teamwork and saving the world from Rita. I know what Takeru was about--his determination to preserve the Shiba Clan and all of the stuff he had to do as a Shinkenger while at the same time hiding a huge secret. I don't know what Jayden's about, and they don't offer enough to reel me in.
For an episode called "The Team Unites," we see nothing except Mike and a little bit of Jayden. There's no sense of teamwork. They probably could have called it "Go for the Green," "Green Courage," or "Missing Green," except all those titles were already taken. Emily and Mia were practically nonexistent. Kevin existed long enough for Mike to feel a pang of jealousy--and to let off an asshole comment that makes me wonder, "Okay, is he an asshole all the time? Am I going to hate this guy?" We didn't get to learn anything about anyone other than Mike, and that hurts the first episode. It feels like the pilot they would have sent Nickelodeon, to prove "This is a normal day in Power Rangers." When we should have learned who everyone was and started hinting about why they were there, we didn't get it. And I really think it suffers for it.
I'm going to continue to give Samurai a chance because, hey? Bulk. Okay, well, that and I learned with Lost Galaxy that first appearances can be deceiving. But at the same time, I really want to see a better balance.
And wow, that was nothing resembling mini at all.