![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The quest for the Lights continues: Lost Galaxy 10-12
“The Sunflower Search” begins with an incredibly powerful flashback, as the Magna Defender holds the dagger that had belonged to his son, Zika, and remembers the day Scorpius destroyed their home planet. One of Scorpius’s henchmen, Fish Face, held Zika hostage and threatened him if Magna didn’t stand down. Before we even get the chance to laugh at the monster’s ridiculous name, Magna is getting his ass whupped, and Zika is screaming at the monsters to leave his father alone. But Fish Face throws Zika to the ground to get a piece of the action, and Zika decides he’s going to save his father. He pulls out his dagger and charges toward Scorpius, only to fall to a blast of electricity through the heart, as Magna pulls himself over to his body, sobbing and pleading with his son to get up. Sadly, this is why nobody ten or younger should have a morpher, and in the present, Magna clutches the dagger and swears his revenge. Right off the bat, I have to give major props to Magna’s voice actor, Kerrigan Mahan. While he could come off sounding kind of silly as Goldar in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, this whole flashback pretty much erased my hang-ups about him as Magna Defender.
Scorpius wins my respect when he tells off Treacheron and Fish Face for jumping to the conclusion that the Lights of Orion are hidden inside sunflowers, based entirely off an overheard conversation between Kendrix and Maya about the importance of sunflowers in Mirinoian religion. But Trakeena suggests that maybe the Lights are in a sunflower statue on Terra Venture, and once again I wonder why they assume that after 3000 years, they’ve just been hiding on a space station built within the last few decades at most. I also don’t understand how or why Leo has Mike’s dogtags (which will be a plot point to come), when Mike fell through a chasm on Mirinoi and only had the chance to pass along the Quasar Saber. Plus, Mike was super-responsible; it seems unlike him to just leave his GSA tags behind in his room.
Jill Donnellan wrote this episode, and she brings to the difficult Leo/Magna relationship a set of similarities as well as the differences. Leo is the first to realize that Magna has a personal vendetta against Scorpius, and when Magna reveals his tragedy, Leo is the one who insists that he knows how Magna feels (continuing what I mentioned about a subtle vendetta between Leo and Furio, which ultimately could not be resolved—here, we see that if Leo had settled the score, he would have compromised his own integrity), which I really liked to see. Leo understands and sympathizes, and I get the feeling that on some level, he wants Magna to be able to settle the score.
However, the difference between them is that Leo is not willing to sacrifice innocents and refuses to let his anger blind him. When Magna attacks Fish Face and endangers and injures civilians in the crossfire, Leo angrily confronts him and tells him to stop acting as bad as the villains. When Magna is put in the same hostage situation Zika had been in, he’s willing to sacrifice the little girl to get revenge, and Leo tries to push him back, taking blasts from Fish Face as he hangs onto Magna, desperately pleading with him not to let her get hurt. The fact that the girl’s mother somehow loses her grip on a six-year-old and fails to retrieve her at any point while she runs from safety into the middle of a battle to retrieve her teddy is another thing entirely. Good God, at least the mother in RPM’s “Ranger Red” knew her child was in danger and kept trying to go back for her, even if Scott didn’t realize it!
Notably, a few notes of Karone’s theme play for Leo as he broods about Mike. While the theme is mostly reserved for any mention of Karone’s past (Andros’s flashbacks, Astronema looking at her locket, Karone remembering everything), it does get recycled from time to time for other families in the Saban era. Also, we see that the Transdaggers can all change to a crossbow-shaped blaster mode, which makes poor Damon’s Trans Blaster completely un-remarkable in comparison. What kind of lame power is Green anyway?
“Silent Sleep” (Jill Donnellan) features a villain plan I’m actually really impressed with. Scorpius’s monster, Chillyfish, knocks out the entire colony with a frozen sleep—humans and machines alike. Leo is only saved by his dogtags, which took the blast and protected him. Magna, of course, is out looking for the Lights of Orion, and he apparently finds them as Leo begs him to let him use them to awaken the colony. Naturally, Magna’s not cool with that plan and fights him, losing the Lights. But as Magna leaves, Leo notices a bunny hopping around just fine and remembers seeing a dog and a bird okay. For some insane reason that probably made more sense in the Japanese version where there weren’t space colonies and robots, animals aren’t affected by the attack. Since Leo’s Jet Jammer and Astro Cycle are frozen, he has to depend on the horse that threw him off in the beginning of the episode. Interestingly, when he morphs, the horse apparently morphs too. Yeah, it’s from the Japanese version, but actually including it makes me think, “Hey, Rangers, grab hold of some civilians before you morph! That way, they’ll be better protected and you can destroy monsters easier!” Chillyfish gets hold of the Lights, only to realize they’re a fake (God, what is it with this season and fake weapons that are never utilized properly?), and before kicking his ass as Defender Torozord, Magna tells off Leo for screwing up his plan. That he never explained in the first place and would have spared himself a lot of trouble anyway. Yeah. So, the colony’s safe, everyone’s awake, and Leo confronts Magna, thanking him for saving everyone. As a nice touch, Magna insists to Leo that he’s got to stop being so naïve and trying to believe there’s good in his heart; he’s a being of vengeance and darkness ever since his son was killed, and Leo refuses to accept that. It continues the clash between them, how Leo believes that the most important mission is to protect innocent lives and Magna believes it’s to defeat Scorpius and get revenge, this time emphasizing it a little more on Magna’s side. I also like Leo’s line delivery in the battle between them over the fake Lights earlier. Magna tells him to stand down, and Leo quietly insists, “Never.” For a character who was stated to be so reckless and hotheaded (shown in the first few episodes that way too), it’s a very nice moment of character development that he says this with quiet conviction. You know that he’s starting to grow up and take his responsibility as the Red Ranger seriously.
“Orion Rising” (Denise Skinner) is essentially “A Rift in the Rangers” Lost Galaxy style, as the Yellow and Pink Rangers start arguing. The fight begins over Damon’s birthday cake, when Maya devours it on Kendrix. While Maya has a point that she couldn’t have known it was for Damon (after all, Power Rangers in Space established that not all planets celebrate birthdays, and this is something Maya reveals Mirinoi has in common with KO-35), I’m going to have to side with the angry Kendrix. Sure, Kendrix’s arguments are really, really bad (because they sound borderline racist against the non-Terran), but her anger is justified. Maya insists that in her tribe, everyone is expected to share the food. But who’s the one who ate almost an entire cake, leaving behind only one slice by the time Kendrix got home? Yeah, not making your case well, Maya. Hilariously, Leo is grinning pervertedly as he listens in, calling over Kai to do the same. Yes, Leo deserves the slice of cake thrown at him. The girls’ argument is interrupted when they’re trapped behind a forcefield, and at this point, things kind of start going into the “makes little sense” department. The monster is shocked to discover that two Rangers are trapped under the forcefield, which seems like a logical possibility when the Rangers, you know, live on Terra Venture! What, did they all think they lived in the Megaship? Second, I have no idea how that much air is used up that quickly. People start collapsing quickly, but they’re all alive for a while. I just don’t get it. But props to the monster for having the forcefield extend below the surface, so Leo, Kai, and Damon can’t easily waltz right in. It also provides the chance for us to see Leo smack his head against the forcefield when he crashes into it.
Overall, I’ve got to say Maya came off as a bitch. There’s the whole gluttony thing I brought up before, with her hypocritically lecturing Kendrix on the importance of sharing when she could have just eaten a slice or two instead of leaving only a slice behind, and when Kendrix tries to treat her injury, Maya bitches at her for retreating instead of helping her fight. Maya of course realizes her mistake when she sees a bakery advertising birthday cake (was the Terra Venture lotto system based on birthdays, and so they have a huge sale whenever everyone’s birthdays are coming up or something?), and she concludes it was “dumb,” but I’ve got to say that doesn’t nearly describe it well enough. Kendrix comes and rescues her after witnessing the friendship of two little girls who happen to look exactly like them, and she brushes off Maya’s apology and insists that she overreacted (which she did) and that she forgot what great friends they are (which is odd, considering I’m usually seeing Kendrix hanging out with Leo or Kai). I’m still not convinced entirely that Kendrix should apologize for anything other than making some really rude statements about jungle people.
Also, I really love Magna Defender deadpanning to the boys, “I was wondering when you’d show up to annoy me.” It’s a bright spot of character awesomeness in an otherwise painfully OOC episode. Magna’s stopped when he has an apparent heart attack, forcing him out of Megazord configuration as he clutches his heart in extreme pain and runs away. This is, of course, Mike’s way of saying, “Touch my little brother again, and I’ll kill you.”
But for all my bitching about the plot, the Lights of Orion are indeed on Terra Venture, and the monster manages to unearth them. But they leave Terra Venture and head off into parts unknown in the galaxy. Wow. That was a waste of time. Really, they could have just waited and left it that the Lights weren’t found and that they’d just build up for the next episode, like they’ve done for all the others. Just…argh. It’s like they only did that just so they could make sure this monster would survive for the next episode.
And so Damon, exhausted and led to believe that his friends are complete dicks who forgot his birthday, comes home to a surprise party with presents and a new cake. I’ve really got to hand it to him. Yeah, he barely shows up in the episode, but he doesn’t once carry on about how his friends forgot. He actually seems somewhat touched that they did remember, though that might have been the exhaustion talking. Of course, Kendrix and Maya put a damper on the party by moping about the Lights, and I am left to growl incoherently at the waste of a plotline. Basically, it's a change of pace from the past two sets, where the first two were filler with a strong third; this one has two stronger and more important episodes with a third that feels more like filler.
Scorpius wins my respect when he tells off Treacheron and Fish Face for jumping to the conclusion that the Lights of Orion are hidden inside sunflowers, based entirely off an overheard conversation between Kendrix and Maya about the importance of sunflowers in Mirinoian religion. But Trakeena suggests that maybe the Lights are in a sunflower statue on Terra Venture, and once again I wonder why they assume that after 3000 years, they’ve just been hiding on a space station built within the last few decades at most. I also don’t understand how or why Leo has Mike’s dogtags (which will be a plot point to come), when Mike fell through a chasm on Mirinoi and only had the chance to pass along the Quasar Saber. Plus, Mike was super-responsible; it seems unlike him to just leave his GSA tags behind in his room.
Jill Donnellan wrote this episode, and she brings to the difficult Leo/Magna relationship a set of similarities as well as the differences. Leo is the first to realize that Magna has a personal vendetta against Scorpius, and when Magna reveals his tragedy, Leo is the one who insists that he knows how Magna feels (continuing what I mentioned about a subtle vendetta between Leo and Furio, which ultimately could not be resolved—here, we see that if Leo had settled the score, he would have compromised his own integrity), which I really liked to see. Leo understands and sympathizes, and I get the feeling that on some level, he wants Magna to be able to settle the score.
However, the difference between them is that Leo is not willing to sacrifice innocents and refuses to let his anger blind him. When Magna attacks Fish Face and endangers and injures civilians in the crossfire, Leo angrily confronts him and tells him to stop acting as bad as the villains. When Magna is put in the same hostage situation Zika had been in, he’s willing to sacrifice the little girl to get revenge, and Leo tries to push him back, taking blasts from Fish Face as he hangs onto Magna, desperately pleading with him not to let her get hurt. The fact that the girl’s mother somehow loses her grip on a six-year-old and fails to retrieve her at any point while she runs from safety into the middle of a battle to retrieve her teddy is another thing entirely. Good God, at least the mother in RPM’s “Ranger Red” knew her child was in danger and kept trying to go back for her, even if Scott didn’t realize it!
Notably, a few notes of Karone’s theme play for Leo as he broods about Mike. While the theme is mostly reserved for any mention of Karone’s past (Andros’s flashbacks, Astronema looking at her locket, Karone remembering everything), it does get recycled from time to time for other families in the Saban era. Also, we see that the Transdaggers can all change to a crossbow-shaped blaster mode, which makes poor Damon’s Trans Blaster completely un-remarkable in comparison. What kind of lame power is Green anyway?
“Silent Sleep” (Jill Donnellan) features a villain plan I’m actually really impressed with. Scorpius’s monster, Chillyfish, knocks out the entire colony with a frozen sleep—humans and machines alike. Leo is only saved by his dogtags, which took the blast and protected him. Magna, of course, is out looking for the Lights of Orion, and he apparently finds them as Leo begs him to let him use them to awaken the colony. Naturally, Magna’s not cool with that plan and fights him, losing the Lights. But as Magna leaves, Leo notices a bunny hopping around just fine and remembers seeing a dog and a bird okay. For some insane reason that probably made more sense in the Japanese version where there weren’t space colonies and robots, animals aren’t affected by the attack. Since Leo’s Jet Jammer and Astro Cycle are frozen, he has to depend on the horse that threw him off in the beginning of the episode. Interestingly, when he morphs, the horse apparently morphs too. Yeah, it’s from the Japanese version, but actually including it makes me think, “Hey, Rangers, grab hold of some civilians before you morph! That way, they’ll be better protected and you can destroy monsters easier!” Chillyfish gets hold of the Lights, only to realize they’re a fake (God, what is it with this season and fake weapons that are never utilized properly?), and before kicking his ass as Defender Torozord, Magna tells off Leo for screwing up his plan. That he never explained in the first place and would have spared himself a lot of trouble anyway. Yeah. So, the colony’s safe, everyone’s awake, and Leo confronts Magna, thanking him for saving everyone. As a nice touch, Magna insists to Leo that he’s got to stop being so naïve and trying to believe there’s good in his heart; he’s a being of vengeance and darkness ever since his son was killed, and Leo refuses to accept that. It continues the clash between them, how Leo believes that the most important mission is to protect innocent lives and Magna believes it’s to defeat Scorpius and get revenge, this time emphasizing it a little more on Magna’s side. I also like Leo’s line delivery in the battle between them over the fake Lights earlier. Magna tells him to stand down, and Leo quietly insists, “Never.” For a character who was stated to be so reckless and hotheaded (shown in the first few episodes that way too), it’s a very nice moment of character development that he says this with quiet conviction. You know that he’s starting to grow up and take his responsibility as the Red Ranger seriously.
“Orion Rising” (Denise Skinner) is essentially “A Rift in the Rangers” Lost Galaxy style, as the Yellow and Pink Rangers start arguing. The fight begins over Damon’s birthday cake, when Maya devours it on Kendrix. While Maya has a point that she couldn’t have known it was for Damon (after all, Power Rangers in Space established that not all planets celebrate birthdays, and this is something Maya reveals Mirinoi has in common with KO-35), I’m going to have to side with the angry Kendrix. Sure, Kendrix’s arguments are really, really bad (because they sound borderline racist against the non-Terran), but her anger is justified. Maya insists that in her tribe, everyone is expected to share the food. But who’s the one who ate almost an entire cake, leaving behind only one slice by the time Kendrix got home? Yeah, not making your case well, Maya. Hilariously, Leo is grinning pervertedly as he listens in, calling over Kai to do the same. Yes, Leo deserves the slice of cake thrown at him. The girls’ argument is interrupted when they’re trapped behind a forcefield, and at this point, things kind of start going into the “makes little sense” department. The monster is shocked to discover that two Rangers are trapped under the forcefield, which seems like a logical possibility when the Rangers, you know, live on Terra Venture! What, did they all think they lived in the Megaship? Second, I have no idea how that much air is used up that quickly. People start collapsing quickly, but they’re all alive for a while. I just don’t get it. But props to the monster for having the forcefield extend below the surface, so Leo, Kai, and Damon can’t easily waltz right in. It also provides the chance for us to see Leo smack his head against the forcefield when he crashes into it.
Overall, I’ve got to say Maya came off as a bitch. There’s the whole gluttony thing I brought up before, with her hypocritically lecturing Kendrix on the importance of sharing when she could have just eaten a slice or two instead of leaving only a slice behind, and when Kendrix tries to treat her injury, Maya bitches at her for retreating instead of helping her fight. Maya of course realizes her mistake when she sees a bakery advertising birthday cake (was the Terra Venture lotto system based on birthdays, and so they have a huge sale whenever everyone’s birthdays are coming up or something?), and she concludes it was “dumb,” but I’ve got to say that doesn’t nearly describe it well enough. Kendrix comes and rescues her after witnessing the friendship of two little girls who happen to look exactly like them, and she brushes off Maya’s apology and insists that she overreacted (which she did) and that she forgot what great friends they are (which is odd, considering I’m usually seeing Kendrix hanging out with Leo or Kai). I’m still not convinced entirely that Kendrix should apologize for anything other than making some really rude statements about jungle people.
Also, I really love Magna Defender deadpanning to the boys, “I was wondering when you’d show up to annoy me.” It’s a bright spot of character awesomeness in an otherwise painfully OOC episode. Magna’s stopped when he has an apparent heart attack, forcing him out of Megazord configuration as he clutches his heart in extreme pain and runs away. This is, of course, Mike’s way of saying, “Touch my little brother again, and I’ll kill you.”
But for all my bitching about the plot, the Lights of Orion are indeed on Terra Venture, and the monster manages to unearth them. But they leave Terra Venture and head off into parts unknown in the galaxy. Wow. That was a waste of time. Really, they could have just waited and left it that the Lights weren’t found and that they’d just build up for the next episode, like they’ve done for all the others. Just…argh. It’s like they only did that just so they could make sure this monster would survive for the next episode.
And so Damon, exhausted and led to believe that his friends are complete dicks who forgot his birthday, comes home to a surprise party with presents and a new cake. I’ve really got to hand it to him. Yeah, he barely shows up in the episode, but he doesn’t once carry on about how his friends forgot. He actually seems somewhat touched that they did remember, though that might have been the exhaustion talking. Of course, Kendrix and Maya put a damper on the party by moping about the Lights, and I am left to growl incoherently at the waste of a plotline. Basically, it's a change of pace from the past two sets, where the first two were filler with a strong third; this one has two stronger and more important episodes with a third that feels more like filler.