Time For Circuit Unsure

It's funny, this episode is pretty much exactly the Timeranger episode, but it doesn't have the same urgency. What I think is interesting is that, when the others begin the episode by goofing around and asking Circuit for any piece of news about the near future, Alex wipes that section of his memory out. (Still a little creepy what close tabs Alex is keeping on everything from 3000.) It's the kind of suspicious and nefarious-seeming thing you'd expect from Ryuuya, but Alex says it's for the Rangers' own good that they don't know yet...

So we get an episode about Circuit losing confidence and the others not trusting him, and a building nearly getting blown up -- and the Rangers nearly getting blown up along with it -- by Circuit's not deciding to help until the last minute. And for what? To delay information that ALEX HIMSELF GIVES THE RANGERS BY THE END OF THE NEXT EPISODE. Way to go, Alex! Cause all these problems to spare a half a day's worth of pain.

One interesting thing about this episode is that a bored Nadira asks Ransik if they can finally leave the 20th century and go on to some other time to loot. So, the villains have had the ability to time travel all along? And they chose to stay in 2001. I guess that makes sense, since we saw them escape to 2001 with the prison ship on their own, not needing that cockamamie "trick the Timeranger into knocking them back into the past when they leave" scenario. It's kind of hard to keep things separated, especially when Time Force follows Timeranger's scenarios so closely, so I needed to note that this confirms that it's NOT the Timeranger scenario where each side is pretty much stuck in the past -- the prison ship in Timeranger wasn't meant for time-travel and the Timeranger's ship was, of course, destroyed, leaving them all stranded in the past. Time Force eliminates the "stranded from their home" storyline, instead seeming basically more like a military situation -- they miss home, but they're stationed away to combat a menace. By not keeping that part of Timeranger's story, Time Force plugs up some plotholes I always found that show to have. (If their mecha can arrive to and from the future in EVERY FREAKING EPISODE, why don't they wonder why a ship can't be sent back for them, or more people sent back to help them out?)

Too bad Time Force didn't have the budget and was too tied to what Timeranger did, because if Ransik had the ability to hop around time, that would have been interesting for him to do at some point. It's weird for a criminal who keeps getting bested to keep so still. But at least at this point in the series he has a reason -- he tells Nadira he won't leave until he tracks down Frax.