An episode that's meant to be funny, but is really just stupid. Who out there is crazy enough to write a love poem about their first car? (Who out there is crazy enough to write an episode about someone writing a poem about their first car?) Well, Lucas apparently is. (And Judd Lynn and Jackie Marchand are the answer to the second question.) And Nadira's stupid enough to find it and think it's about her. Ransik's stupid enough to try to get a Blue Ranger-Nadira romance to work.
Look, this episode COULD have worked and been funny, but too much comes at a character's expense and the typical fear of writers going too far. There would have been nothing wrong with Lucas maybe having a thing for Nadira and then it gets blown all out of proportion. It's believable the self-centered and narcissistic Nadira would dive into this scenario. But turning your head villain into a sitcom dad who's hand-wringing and lecturing the guy and giving him tips and coaching him on his date -- it's stupid! And Vernon Wells must think so, too, because he doesn't care how much he lets his accent slip through.
Ransik's not exactly a favorite villain of mine, but I liked him well enough. He was surprisingly good for Power Rangers, and good as a futuristic criminal and a face villain that Timeranger lacked. It's bad enough that Wells softens his performance as the show goes on, but then PR just can't refuse putting him in silly situations; more fear of taking things seriously, more fear of having completely villainous villains. (I'm trying hard right now to block out the stupid thing they end up doing with the character in the Wild Force team-up. Please, don't mention it. In fact, this stupid episode kind of paves the way for that, doesn't it?) The main villain, a supposedly dangerous criminal, a murderer -- I mean "destroyer" -- the freaking Clarence Boddicker of 3000 shouldn't be putting on muumuus or going Al Bundy on the boyfriend of Nadira/Kelly. In fact, I think it would have been funnier -- and actually stressful on Lucas -- if Ransik had been played completely straight in the scenario. That's a predicament for your hero! He really needed only one scene, where he corners Lucas and is like "I don't like you. You and your friends are out to get me, to ruin me. But Nadira likes you. Treat her well or I'll feed you your beanbag." (I checked with both broadcast standards and practices and the FCC and they confirm you can say that on a TV-Y7 show.) See?! Keep your villain villainous, man.
As is, it's just a bad sitcom script. Right down to the Time Force having seen a rerun of My Name Is Earl in 3000 and knowing the way to make Nadira dump Lucas is by having him make himself disgusting, just as Catalina did to make Randy lose interest in her.
Move over random episode about knights and dragons, I almost think this episode of the show might be the worst one, just for how dumb it makes Ransik. This episode is kind of like a throwback to what PR did to Sentai back in the day -- taking the footage and writing just nonsense goofery over it. Because, believe it or not, the Timeranger episode this one is based on...is the episode where the others find out about Ayase's illness. They take that episode and turn it into a dumb Three's Company! That's SO 1994 PR...
Seriously, though, a poem about a car? Only Ninninger would reach heights as dumb with that episode about Yakumo being in love with his lawnmower.
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