Pretty smart to consolidate this Timeranger two-parter into one; it keeps the core of what makes those episodes, but excises a lot of the repetition and makes for a nicely paced, full episode.
The episode deals with the trust issues between Red and Pink; both here and in Timeranger, I feel like this episode is probably several episodes too late to be believable. Especially with Time Force, Wes has proven himself again and again, they've all accepted him and realize his strength. Timeranger makes Tatsuya look like an idiot, rushing in guns blazing during a drill and pretty much getting everyone killed, and he just laughs it off. Thankfully, Wes isn't made to look so stupid -- when the Silver Guardians arrive on the scene of a Time Force operation, Wes is concerned they'll blow it, so he breaks away from Jen's plan to tell Eric to buzz off. He was distracted from her plan -- especially her Plan B once she realized the Silver Guardians arrived and might mess things up -- but it wasn't out of stupidity or to show off. So Jen's anger and Wes' frustrated reaction at her attitude works for me more here. This episode falls in the mid-20s of Timeranger -- Tatsuya knew better, but was still an idiot, one of a dozen reasons I hate him.
And wouldn't you know? The other Time Force Rangers are trapped in a dimension and Jen and Wes must work past their arguing to work together and get them out. Now, the one thing I like about the Timeranger episode is Yuuri's confession scene to Tatsuya. She admits she's so cold and distant because of her job and never having anyone to go home to. Jen's confession is that she really lacked confidence as a cop when she started; she didn't like the job and was on the verge of quitting until she met supercop Alex, who took her under his wing, trained her, became her partner and boyfriend.
Both backstories accomplish the same thing, but I like the implication that Yuuri was a cop for so long and has seen so much that it took a toll on her and it crushed her soul to return to an empty home at the end of each hard day. Jen, a lot of her coldness is the sense of professionalism learned from Alex, not wanting to disappoint him, having her personal feelings wrapped up in the professional ones. You could say that maybe, on some level, she feels a bit of a shame to get involved with Alex, that that act itself was unprofessional, so she takes it out on other officers she works with by shutting them out.
She was always headstrong, but it got even worse once she lost Alex, especially since she was involved in Ransik's escaping, and that she might blame herself. Add to that that Wes looks just like Alex, but is so different from him. How could this guy who looked just like the man she loved and respected be so unprofessional and disregard her? While I like Yuuri's story, Katsumura's not believable as some jaded cop, and it was one of the only times Timeranger even remembered she was a cop and that the show was meant to be cop-themed. Time Force has let the cop theme creep in again and again and tying it to the Alex side gives it more importance and resonance.
Bottom line: Time Force's episode wins on the basis that it doesn't include the characters playing the moodiest game of leapfrog you'll ever see.
Been rewatching a bunch of Timeranger myself lately. One thing I noticed this time around is how the series seems to drag a decent amount of the time.
ReplyDeleteSure, there's a fair number of story arcs, but I realized they don't get touched upon quite as regularly as I last thought. Especially when compared to something like Dairanger. And speaking of Dairanger, that show often had entertaining filler eps when not dealing with its story arcs. Timeranger has.... quite a bit of filler. I don't think they're awful. But I find they're just kinda there as well.
Dare I say Timeranger drags around more than Megaranger? *Hides from the Kobayashi fans*
Cause one thing I noticed in a lot of the eps where a story arc does develop further... it ends up only being a fraction of an ep. Like a cameo in an otherwise unrelated episode plot. Like ep 4 where we learn of Shion's backstory. That's only part of the ep. Or ep 6 when we learn of Domon's. Again, just part of it. Same with eps 25 and 26 here. We learn just how lonely Yuuri is, which is great. But otherwise, the rest of the 2-parter is kinda mostly it's own thing. Even the final two Honami eps, she's kinda just cameoing in 2 completely unrelated MOTW eps. And that's how she gets together with Domon.
I don't think I find any of the plot ideas necessarily bad, dumb, or boring. But I guess I could see how they might come across a little.... plain I guess?
I do remember you once compared a lot of Timeranger eps to Jetman 22. Which is indeed an interesting comparison. It does kinda feel like Kobayashi does try to make Timeranger essentially as "Jetman 22 the series," and crafting the formula out of that. The craft I do think is an interesting take on Sentai. But it does seem to bring up its own issues.
I know Kobayashi's writing style has always been about character and their dialogue. Whereas plot generally takes a back seat in her shows. This can generally cause a kind of disconnect between character and setting. As well as the middle sagging in between the beginning and end of her stories.
About Tatsuya in this 2-parter, it's weird, cause I remember as a kid, I felt Yuuri was being the stuck up bitch, and I was confused over why she didn't trust Tatsuya more at this point. XD
ReplyDeleteThough as the years went by and I rewatched more, I could see Yuuri understandably had every good reason to be ticked off. What Tatsuya did at the start of 25 was pretty darn dumb, and I'd argue it might not even be very true to his character. And then how they follow it all up with Tatsuya making dumb smiley faces to Yuuri, and that's his way of apologizing. But then the ep gets even more pretentious in how it goes "Tatsuya is always well meaning, not dumb! He's just a very happy empathetic guy! Yuuri, you're wrong about him." All this happening while Tatsuya is getting beaten up by his grandfather.
I mean, I get they were really trying to convince us that Tatsuya has multiple layers. This was supposed to be the ep where we learn just how he ticks as a person. And while I can see the story they're trying to tell... it all just feels kinda like an unedited first draft to me? It all seems so in your face and slapped together. I dunno, but I feel maybe Kobayashi just really needed a Takatera to help fill in some between the spaces, or look over her scripts. Not a Hikasa, who just seems to instantly okay everything.
It's funny you keep mentioning Takatera, because as I watched Time Force (keeping in mind Timeranger), I wondered what a Timeranger under Takatera would have been like. But then I thought it probably wouldn't even be a thing, because he seems to like more mystical shows than sci-fi. (Which is why Megaranger seems least like a Takatera work, IMO.)
DeleteHikasa gets a bum rap, like he doesn't care about his shows. What goes wrong with his shows is I think he gives too much trust and freedom to his writers. (Takatera's so hands on, I wonder if he's actually *too* controlling.) And Kobayashi needs somebody to help guide her since her priorities aren't always on story, but characters and gimmicks.
Sometimes a work can get by on just strong characters -- I think Megaranger mostly gets by on the strength of its characters rather than its stories -- but Timeranger really isn't one of them. Not only is there the issue of performers not being good enough, but because what made the characters unique was their predicament and the setting, the concept of the show, which was instantly made moot and glossed over. Timeranger has the concept, but not the commitment to make it work.
The funny thing about Megaranger is that to me, Megaranger's setting always felt like a fantasy world to me, except with then modern technology (which I thought was pretty brilliant).
DeleteBut I do agree that Megaranger, out of any Takatera show seems like he's the least involved there. And I always thought maybe it was because he couldn't handle doing shows back to back. I've always been under the impression Takatera was a slow creator (maybe too slow for his own good). Thus, why his later works end up taking a bajillion years to be produced. And I guess why he never does shows back to back like he did with his Sentai ever again. I assume he poured a lot of his energy into Carranger, and didn't quite have the time to properly structure Megaranger out (thus, resulting in it's rather slice of life kind of pacing). And maybe realizing Megaranger wasn't going to be his best work, I guess maybe Takatera just focused on getting Gingaman ready for the next year.
And yeah, Takatera is indeed prone to being too controlling. Hikasa can be prone to not being controlling enough.