You know what's funny, I remember watching this two-parter years ago -- and well after I finished Time Force in its entirety -- and thought it was pretty cool. But now when I watch it so closely with the actual series, I don't enjoy it so much and feel it's mostly pointless. There are still some cool things about it, but there's more I *don't* like about this two-parter...
It's an adequate enough way to involve the Time Force, and it at least feels eventful, unlike Time Force's team-up with Lightspeed Rescue. There are weirdo Orgs on the loose that the Wild Force can't quite handle and that the Silver Guardians are no match for. Wes contacts Trip in the future -- using the same equipment the Time Force used to contact Logan and Alex throughout their series -- and finds out that they're Org/mutant hybrids that the Time Force have been tracking. It's discovered that Jen was tracking them, but went radio-silent and they lost track of her.
To combat this Mutorg (that's what I'm calling them for convenience) menace, they need someone with expertise, so Lucas and Katie have to seek out Nadira and Ransik. It's a cool little idea to have Ransik in a Hannibal Lecter role, but Ransik's not bad anymore. He's genuinely remorseful, a model prisoner, a chill dude who wants to help. It's...disappointing. I guess Power Rangers was too safe to have Ransik, like, discover religion in the slammer, which would help a BIT, but I still wouldn't buy this coming from him, really. But this is nothing compared to what ends up happening to Ransik in the end of this team-up... (Yes, it gets even worse.)
I like that they make a big deal revealing Jen -- she's been on the hunt for the Mutorgs and she inexplicably has this really early-00s sci-fi-y uniform that's like a cross between Zeiram's Iria, Aeon Flux and The Matrix's Trinity. She gets a cool, over-the-top Sakamoto fight scene. Wes and Jen don't get to spend too much time together, since the Mutorg threat is on. They try to address this, but the feeling I get is that since this is Wild Force's show, they don't want to devote TOO much time to the old guys, which sucks.
Eventually, the other Time Force Rangers return -- along with Ransik and Nadira -- and after everyone puts aside their differences, like they've been mainlining Brady Bunch episodes in 3001 or something, the hunt's on for the Mutorgs. Ransik reveals he's responsible for their existence -- in the future, he found them as plain old Orgs and freed them, and they coursed through him, being altered by his mutant DNA and became these fancy Gingaman repaints -- er, Mutorgs! This scene also sadly explains that Ransik's neat little pulling-blades-from-his-skeleton trick was a "gift" given to him by the Mutorgs, which was an unnecessary explanation that robs Ransik of one of his cool little quirks.
I'll just get to it -- Ransik feels responsible for these three freaks and so he grabs 'em all and "drains the mutation" from them, making them plain old Orgs that are easy to fight. It looks as if he dies here, but he doesn't -- somehow, even though he just absorbed three times the mutant-stuff-and-junk from these monsters, it's wiped the mutant DNA from HIS own body and he gets up looking like plain old Vernon Wells. Our bad guy gets his happy ending! But that's not all! More as it develops.
Basically, the best part of this two-parter is Uber-Jen and I like just how sorrowful Eric seems in these episodes, and the thing he and Lady Gao Yellow have going. (I'm trying not to cheat and look up her name, but she seems cool, and would be one of the reasons I'd consider watching Wild Force, which otherwise looks mostly...ech.) Not having Eric die like Naoto, and then shuttling him off for all of the important stuff in the final episode robbed the character of a conclusion. He still doesn't really get one here, but there's something interesting about his sadness. Like, he might have mellowed, he might have mended things with Wes, but he still didn't find what he was looking for. He didn't find happiness. There's a glimmer with Lady Gao Yellow, but that ain't going to last. Naoto did find a bit of peace, even if he didn't survive the series. One could argue that Eric has the more tragic tale.
The team-up ends with a big pic-a-nic -- obviously a Wild Force idea, and they obviously just watched Gingaman VS Megaranger, which has a similarly stupid idea -- between the two teams. That's all of the Time Force and all of Wild Force. And Nadira. AND RANSIK! Again: AND RANSIK! He shows up dressed like the lead singer of the first and last Smash Mouth cover band, like everything's all right and always has been and always will be. And everyone's OK with it! Ransik's yukking it up and making funnies about anyone showing interest in Nadira. The two villains...having a picnic with the Rangers. This is kinda like PR's cowardice in a nutshell. It's pure Danny Tanner "he wishes Tim Burton's Batman ended with Batman and the Joker hugging." Villains having a picnic with the Rangers. That's it, this post is over.
F+
The name could not have been better
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