Time For A Parting of Ways

I can't help but keep comparing Time Force to Timeranger. While I'll often prefer Time Force's take or change in direction to what Timeranger did, sometimes I'll still see what I'll call the cowardice of the Power Rangers production seep through. The PR Cowards are afraid to take things too seriously, too afraid to upset censors or little kids with their little brains. A lot of the time, I feel like the PR staff is just lazy and will excuse that lazy work with a "Screw it, it's for kids" rationalization. A better example of this will be made in a couple of upcoming episodes.

But a few episodes back, Ransik's plan was "Well, let's announce that I'm here. Send out a monster!" and a monster is sent to just generically destroy the city. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of the original Timeranger episode, where the monster's M.O. was to plant an explosive at a building and extort money, and the focus of the episode is Tatsuya trying to convince his dad to help and trying to prove a point about himself. My reaction was like "Well, it's sad to lose that subplot in favor of 'Bad monster smash city!' But Power Rangers is going to Power Rangers."

But then along comes this episode, which is basically the same scenario as that Timeranger, but actually greatly improved upon. Here we have Nadira hatch the plan of kidnapping people to ransom off, and the monster selects a busload of kids. Wes recognizes one of the kids and tries hard to get the ransom money from his dad, who declines, but is happy to immediately turn around and invest in some shitty-sounding company. Wes then intercepts that check to get it cashed and used as the ransom money! He just ripped off his dad! Even if it's for the greater good, we've come far from the let's help Mrs. Applebee remodel her house over the weekend goody-goodies.

And even after Wes robs his dad, things take an uglier turn when Nadira gets the money and orders for the kids to be killed, anyway! Not only does Nadira out-evil anything Lila did for the entirety of Timeranger in this one episode, but again it's something unheard of for a PR villain. And them kids would have been dead if Jen hadn't managed to find their location just in time. Wes gets the money back from Nadira and returns it, and here's where he finds out his father is truly a snake...

It was bad enough he's seen his dad be nothing but self-centered and greedy and blackhearted throughout his life, but one of the final straws was his dad turning down helping the kids. And the breaking point is when reporters get wind that he put up the money to save the kids and he has the gall to slap on a smile and take credit for it. Mister Collins is a real piece of work, and it's here that I have to praise the late Edward Laurence Albert, who gives a real, grounded performance, the likes of which had never really been seen in a Power Ranger prior to Time Force. He's not hammy, he's not looking down on the show, but focusing on making Wes' dad credible as this selfish, despicable, money-corrupted man. (Timeranger missed out on the opportunity to compare Wataru to a Londarz, something Time Force would have probably picked up on had Ransik's gang been as money-obsessed as the Londarz.) Albert's not given much material when you look at it, but he does A LOT with it. I don't know how the production ended up with him, but they lucked out.

Wes gets the last insult in by declaring to the press that the returned ransom money will be donated to a kids' charity by his father, before telling his dad that he's moving out and on. (He moves to the clock tower with the other four, the building owned by his dad. So, he's not exactly sending the big message to his dad he wants to, is he? But Tatsuya did pretty much the same thing.) While this more or less comes from Timeranger, the difference is more felt in Time Force. In Timeranger, his dad did come around to help by coughing up the ransom -- which he would have done twice (!), if something had happened to the case he gave to Tatsuya -- which was surprising and unbelievable for a character so cold. Tatsuya then ends up moving just to make his point that HE'S in control of his future, blah-blah-blah. Wes breaks away because he's pretty much genuinely disgusted by his dad and the life he leads, and wants to be a better person leading a purer life. There's always just a vagueness to Tatsuya's attempts at grand speeches about destiny, this sense of a hollow teenage rebellion without much behind it; Wes seems more believable and human and mature.