Time For Undercover Rangers

An inconsistent episode. The strongest part of it is Jen, upon seeing a wedding, realizing she doesn't feel the same way about Alex as she used to. Both she and Wes come close to admitting their feelings for one another, but they're always interrupted by something in a tiresome, sitcom-y way -- at this stage of the show, just commit to the situation, writers. This interruption shit kept happening in episode 22 -- shouldn't we be beyond this type of stuff?

As in Timeranger, both are arranged to work an undercover case by the others so they can get closer, but the cases are both just wastes of time; in Timeranger, it's a forgettable one-off villain with a cult based on the fear of the millennium. Here it's a goofily-depicted case -- Frax just read a comic from the '40s, saw the Charles Atlas ad and based his whole plan of enticing-weaklings-with-promises-of-strength bit. He's really turning them into robots for his army, but it would have been better if Frax were taking the people hostage as human batteries for his robot, Toranza-style. Both are meant to be funny and lighthearted, the focus on the awkward undercover work by Red and Pink, but...in Timeranger it doesn't work because Nagai thinking he's amazing and Katsumura not playing comedy well, as well as the Tatsuya-Yuuri relationship never working, no matter how hard they force it. In Time Force, it doesn't work because they just go too far with the stupidity.

And in Bandai-pulls-stuff-out-of-their-ass news... This episode forces in the debut of a new, ugly toy that's exclusive to this show. When the Rangers are being beat up for no good reason, Alex transmits a message to Wes that he needs to protect Jen, so he sends him this really unimpressive, PR-can't-pull-it-off-with-its-no-budget-and-2001-CGI hover bike thing. Pink sees it and goes "Cool!" and, no, it's not. Isn't it a little late to be introducing new toys? (Guess not, because the next terrible episode brings in an even worse PR-exclusive.) Alex ex Machina does Bandai proud.

Wes and Jen infiltrate Frax's cover by posing as nerds -- it's kinda funny that Wes is basically wearing Tatsuya's outfit, the plaid shit. A secret dig? I like to think so.

In news that interests only horror nerds like me, the main musclehead goon of Frax's is played by Chris Durand, who was Michael Myers in Halloween H20 -- one of the best guys to play Michael Myers.