The One That’s In Space But Swords

I’m Back! Again! If you haven’t stalked me obsessively, you may have missed my side project that I did last month, a video essay on my new Ranger Things YouTube channel. Check it out here if you haven’t yet. With that said, let’s get back to Ranking Rangers! I’m as excited as ever to still be doing this.

So you’ve purged all evil from the universe? What happens next? Well, it turns out, there’s always more evil.

Let’s Talk About Resets

Super Sentai shows change pretty much every year. Up until now, Power Rangers very much did not. Sure, there would be change of Zords or Powers or Suits etc. Or there are cast changes, for various reasons. But not everything all at once. It comes close a couple times, usually involving the destruction of one set or the other – the Command Center gets destroyed as Morphin’ turned into Zeo, and the Power Chamber was conquered at the end of Turbo, leading To Space. There is a nearly full-cast change in Turbo, save one small, terrible Ranger. But everything else stayed the same – Dimitria and Alpha, Divatox and the Pirhanatrons, all the *sigh* sentient cars. Not so with Lost Galaxy. It still essentially stays within the continuity of the Zordon era – the finale of Space happens about a year before Lost Galaxy begins, and a couple elements continue on in some way, but Lost Galaxy really is its own season. That means that it’s got a lot to prove. With the major threads from the Zordon era tied up, Lost Galaxy, more than any season so far, will have to build a new (Lost) Galaxy from the ground up. All1Nearly the old characters, zords, suits, props, settings, all of them go right out the window. Of the colony ship. Into space. For ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ev- Oh, I’m being told that there’s a crossover episode with Space and a bunch of other times that Zordon-era Rangers come back in the future and the Astro Megaship plays a major role in the background of things. Forget everything I said. 2Please don’t my Galactabeasts are starving Let’s start over:

Let’s Talk About Space

“Space,” a great author once said, “is Big.” It’s big and empty and there we just don’t know very much about it. In this season, Earth tries to expand its reach out into space with the Terra Venture – a colony ship that will find a new habitable planet somewhere out in space. Which is great, in isolation, but we also have to consider what has already been established about space. Some of this is fun and universe-expanding, like the planet Onyx, a space version of the wild west populated by monsters and criminals. But other parts close off possibilities, like the existence of the Astro Megaship, which can and does travel at immense speeds via the only Mega Accelerator in the galaxy. Setting aside precisely why there is only one Mega Accelerator, its existence at all proves the possibility of interstellar travel at negligible cost. If we have this spaceship that already can go anywhere, and contact with KO-35, a human space colony that already exists, it “shrinks” the universe in ways that cut off potential stories that could be interesting, like lone colony ships or blind exploration or the human cost of flying into the unknown, never to return. All of this falls apart if you have even one ship that can go from one end of the galaxy to the other at no cost – your colony ship could receive supply shipments, or you could scout your ship’s final destination, or you could simply shuttle people to and from deep space, eliminating the one-way nature of this genre of space colonization.

So anyway, join me on this colony ship blindly exploring the universe, with no chance of return to Earth in:

Welcome to Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. The Lost Galaxy part actually only comes in towards the very end and only lasts like 5 episodes all together, but the title’s been decided on, so that’s what you’re getting.

Adaptation

I have to talk about the setting of this season. It is weird. There’s a whole colony ship, with normal city buildings and such in the main dome, and a bunch of realistic landscapes in other domes, including beach, mountain, and desert. So you end up with the only thing that ever seems like it’s in a colony ship is if they’re in the command room, their lodgings, or occasionally a corridor. And then everything else just takes place in a normal city/surrounding area as far as anyone can tell, complete with skyscrapers and banks and oddly Japanese looking road signs. I acknowledge that this is a little unfair, given the realities of the genre pertaining to adaptation and available footage, but when you decide to place your show on a spaceship, you should have at least some footage that’s… in a spaceship… to adapt from.

Plot

For the first time except all those other times that happened somehow, Humans are going to Space. The colony ship Terra Venture is launching, with a full complement of engineers, scientists, and whatever collective noun is for Command team3Also a stowaway (or two) and a jungle girl. Like you do.. They’re setting off in some random direction, never to return, unless they take one of the many many transporters and real spaceships that exist, including the stolen Astro Megaship or any of the many villains’ ships and otherwise. It’s fine. It’s fine. Meanwhile, on the jungle planet Mirinoi, magical destiny stuff is happening as some disposable villain tries to pull five swords from a stone. That’s right, five, suck it, Excalibur. But they can only be wielded by the Chosen Ones, which it turns out that these five randos are (They jumped through a portal and/or stole a museum). The Quasar Sabers turn them into Rangers, Mike, the competent one, falls in a chasm and passes his Saber to his brother, Leo, the stowaway. Then they get chased across the regular galaxy a bunch, Mike comes back from the dead, there’s some stuff about stealing beauty, take a quick jaunt to the Lost Galaxy, and bam they are suddenly at their final destination…….. Mirinoi, the planet that had been both portaled to and spaceshipped to in the first episode. And they start a new colony and definitely do not disrupt the less-clothed people who were already there. That would be Wrong.

As a premise, it more or less works. The execution is…… executed, and the space journey gives everything a sense of forward momentum. I’m sure nothing about the details of the setting could ruin that in any way.

In the end, the journey takes only 212 days – less than a year, and happens to find the planet Mirinoi, the same planet that Maya and the Quasar Sabers are from, and for some reason opened a portal on the moon. The only way that this makes a lick of sense is if we accept that Destiny and Prophecy are real and cause-and-effect are happening atemporally, with the Quasar Sabers are causing some kind of self-perpetuating time loop, with the Portal appearing because of the Rangers but the Rangers also coming into existence due to the Portal’s appearance. In such a loop, there would be no way to determine how the loop came into existence in the first place, only that it exists now.

+2861 pts

Music

I hate this intro. I hate this so much. Just… every part of it. Why does the “lost” in the big opening fanfare sound like they forgot to put it in at first and ADRed it later. Why does it sing about “the key to the answer”? Why is there a verse that just goes “AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAaaAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa.” Why does the late-season version of the opening just have Leo ripping his shirt off as his character intro? Why does it have that weird looping verse at the end that when it finally fades out, it’s not the end of the song like would make sense, it just has to throw that opening fanfare in there one last time.

-3000 pts

Fights

The Rangers for this space-based show are animal powered, and you do get to see that in the fight scenes, with lots of jumping, flipping, big arm movements, and in one case, pawing at the ground. Given the premise, there is also an awful lot of swordfighting in this one. There are the Transdaggers which transform to give each Ranger a unique thingy, but it kind of ends up with all of them feeling same-y. However, the fights themselves are good – turns out that there is an awful lot of swordfighting and that’s actually kinda cool. They’re also very active, and if you pay attention, each Ranger has a fighting style that suits their associated animal – Kai has a grounded, strength-based style like a gorilla, Damon has a very aerial Condor-style, and Maya’s Wolf and Kendrix’s Cat are both agile and jump-heavy. Leo the Lion4Oh, I get it is boring because Leo is boring.

+710 pts

Miscellany

There is a lot in this series that just doesn’t make much sense. I don’t know why I’m harder on it than I am on other seasons, because I admit that most of my issues aren’t unique to this season. The big problem that this season makes for itself is how self-contained it is. The setting is inherently constrained by the (admittedly indeterminate) size of the Terra Venture colony ship. The main dome seems to be about the size of a city, and each of the environmental zones are smaller than that, like large parks. But packed inside all of that are the Galactabeasts, the Torozord, and two whole other Megazords. Not to mention the amount of destruction that happens within the city itself. Sure, all of these problems could also apply to other seasons, but when you have an open city setting, it makes sense that there could be untracked wilds outside the city and/or nearby volcanoes for Zords to fly out of, and you can at least wave a hand at the existence of an Abandoned Warehouse District. But when you’ve stripped the setting down to be just the bare essentials that a colony ship would need, devoid of wasteful inefficiency, there just stops being enough room for sheer scale of destruction that monster attacks and Zord entrances imply.

Cumulative Score: 130 pts!

The Good Guys

The Galaxy Rangers! Most of them have real jobs on the space station, and the other two weren’t supposed to be there in the first place, so they get to just sit around chilling apparently. Their powers are animal-based, linked to the GalactaBeasts, who are horrifying-looking giant animals: Lion, Gorilla, Wildcat, Wolf, and… Condor? Sure, that can be a condor.

The Rangers

Leo Corbett (Danny Slavin)  

Stowaway. Brother. Shirt-ripper.

• Color: Red
• Zord: Lion Galactabeast
• Signature Weapon: Quasar Saber and Transdagger (Magna Talon)
• Strength: 90
• Smarts: 1
• Coolness factor: 1

Spending his entire off-screen life idolizing his brother, Mike, he stows away on Terra Venture because he’s not of enough value to be an actual colonist. When Mike falls in a chasm escaping Furio on Mirinoi, Leo inherits his Quasar Saber, and must live up to the perfect image of his brother, who he refuses to believe is really gone.

Kai Chen (Archie Kao)

Accomplished. Trustworthy. Why isn’t he the leader again?

• Color: Blue
• Zord: Gorilla GalactaBeast
• Signature Weapon: Quasar Saber and Transdagger (Cosma Claw)
• Strength: 72
• Smarts: 75
• Coolness factor: 128

When Kai sensibly doesn’t jump in a space-hole, he becomes worried about his friends, Kendrix, Mike, and Leo. Since there isn’t a second space-hole to jump through, he instead goes to Earth to steal a museum. Said museum is the Astro Megaship, and after evacuating everyone except the mechanic, Damon, flies it to Mirinoi to save the day. On the ship, he is in the Command crew, performing capably and responsibly, eventually earning himself a promotion to senior officer. Also he cooks! Which is good because otherwise Leo and Damon would starve to death.

Maya (Cerina Vincent)

Jungle Girl. Takes to space well. Only has one outfit.

• Color: Yellow
• Zord: Wolf GalactaBeast
• Signature Weapon: Quasar Saber and Transdagger (Delta Daggers)
• Strength: 93
• Smarts: 25
• Coolness Factor: 50

Maya grew up on Mirinoi, but when Furio comes for the Quasar Sabers, she escapes his wrath and runs through a space-hole that conveniently leads to Earth’s moon, where the GSA is training and preparing for the launch of Terra Venture. Returning to Mirinoi with Leo, Mike, and Kendrix, she finds herself entangled in an ancient prophecy as one of the Chosen to draw a Quasar Saber from the stone where they had stood for thousands of years. She and the others escape onto the Astro Megaship when the planet is turned to stone and she finds a life on Terra Venture, where she acclimates to life on a spaceship astonishingly well.

Kendrix Morgan (Valerie Vernon)

Smart. Because glasses. Glasses = Smart. Too good for these idiots.

• Color: Pink
• Zord: Wildcat GalactaBeast
• Signature Weapon: Quasar Saber and Transdagger (Beta Bow)
• Strength: 13
• Smarts: 100
• Coolness factor: 99

Kendrix is in the Science division on Terra Venture. She’s smart and dedicated, so when the Galaxy Book is recovered from some random derelict ship, she’s the primary researcher to decode/analyze it, discovering among other things, the existence of the Lost Galactabeasts. When Psycho Pink is about to use the Savage Sword to absorb the morphin’ energy from Space Ranger Cassie’s morpher, Kendrix sacrifices herself and dies destroying the sword to cut off Psycho Pink’s power. Spoilers I guess. She returns as a spirit to say encouraging things before her spirit merges with her Quasar Saber and flies off into space. When the Sabers are returned to Mirinoi, the Quasar Saber holding her essence resurrects her and everything is great again forever.

Damon Henderson (Reggie Rolle)

Mechanic. Hungry. Gets his face dirty but never his jumpsuit?

• Color: Green
• Zord: Condor GalactaBeast
• Signature Weapon: Quasar Saber and Transdagger (Trans Blaster)
• Strength: 60
• Smarts: 34
• Coolness factor: 2

Employed as the senior mechanic for the Astro Megaship Museum, which is just the Astro Megaship with some stairs leading up to it and a bunch of queues. When Kai comes to commandeer the museum, Damon is the one who actually knows how to fly it, having learned this in employee orientation or something. On Terra Venture, he works as a mechanic, and he is skilled enough to be nominated for the position of Chief Mechanic, which he refuses because he would have to wear a suit and stop fixing panels of wires. He really really really likes food, and talks about food constantly, often pestering Kai to cook for him. He’s positioned as the Everyman who gets dragged into this chaos, which is to say that everybody can relate to being hungry.

Magna Defender (Kerrigan Mahan)

Mysterious. Tormented. Likes flashbacks.

• Color: ….cape?
• Zord: Torozord
• Signature Weapon: Magna Blaster (Big Ol’ Greatsword)
• Strength: 250
• Smarts: 50
• Coolness factor: TRAGIC PAST

“That guy had some serious stuff on his mind: Scorpius destroying his son… and then being in that hole.” Thanks, Damon. He’s a mysterious figure who arrives on Terra Venture seeking the Lights of Orion, which according to various ancient legends are now located on this brand new spaceship. With the Lights, he hopes to killdestroy Scorpius to avenge the deathdestruction of his son Zika at Scorpius’s hands years ago. Sometime after that, he ended up in “that hole” on Mirinoi, wounded and near death until he swapped souls with Mike as he conveniently fell into the same hole and went looking for the Lights of Orion, leading him to Terra Venture. Eventually he sacrifices himself to save all of Terra Venture from exploding or something, a problem which he had caused in the first place. But fortunately his death releases his spirit and somehow leads to the resurrection of…:

Mike Corbett (Russel Lawrence)

Dead. Half-Alive? Alive alive.

• Color: Cape (Replaces Magna Defender)
• Zord: Torozord
• Signature Weapon: Magna Blaster/Greatsword
• Strength: 111
• Smarts: 35
• Coolness factor: 5

Mike is perfect and wonderful and can do no wrong and everyone loves him but then he falls in that hole. As he hangs on the edge, he passes the Red Quasar Saber on to Leo, who has to live for both of them now. Fortunately, he’s stopped in his fall by the Magna Defender throwing a sword at him and pinning him to the wall, and spends the next arc as possibly mysteriously inside Magna Defender as his conscience or something. Then he comes back to life and takes over as Magna Defender and then everything is great forever and ever until the next time he heroically sacrifices himself.

Karone (Melody Perkins)

She’s back! With questionable hair! Apparently they just let anyone come aboard Terra Venture.

• Color: Pink (Replaces Kendrix)
• Zord: Wildcat GalactaBeast.
• Signature Weapon: Transdagger (Beta Bow)
• Strength: 95
• Smarts: 85
• Coolness factor: 70

Having been purified at the end of In Space, Karone seeks to do good where she can to make up for what she had done as Astronema. After Kendrix’s death, she infiltrates Planet Space Western in disguise as Astronema to take the Pink Quasar Saber during some kind of monster auction. Trakeena exposes her though, and Karone is barely able to escape to try to return the Saber to Terra Venture. During the ensuing struggle with Trakeena, Kendrix’s spirit appears and passes on the mantle of Pink Ranger to Karone. She then comes to live on Terra Venture, but unlike almost every other ranger in the franchise, she doesn’t wear clothes that match her Ranger color, instead wearing a cool black outfit because she used to be eeeeeeeeeeeevil.

The Team

The zigzag on their suits is teeth. They go chompchomp in the morph sequence. Teeth. Teeth. TEETH. Okay, got that out of my system. Apart from that, the costumes have the same animal-shaped helmets as the Mighty Morphin’ dinosaur ones, which honestly is always kind of a fun design, especially after a couple seasons of essentially identical suits. I particularly like the look of Damon’s Condor helmet, with the unique-looking eye placement.

Later in the season, Kendrix makes a heroic sacrifice to save Cassie, the previous Pink Ranger, and is replaced as the Pink Ranger by Karone, the purified version of Astronema from the previous season. Which is cool, though her arc is more like her epilogue than a part of this season, but we’ll talk about that later. Magna Defender is an interesting one – he doesn’t join the team explicitly, but functions as an antihero until he also sacrifices himself “heroically”, passing his powers and aliveness to Mike, who is just part of the team by default because everyone loves Mike and the fact that he didn’t die. Sort of. 

Ranger Ranker:

1. Kendrix – I know that the “heroic sacrifice” thing is a little bit of an unfair advantage, but it’s also because she combines “science” and “heart” so well in a media landscape where the female scientists have to be cold and detached skeptics. +2944 pts!
2. Kai – The one who gets anything done! He’s cool, responsible, rule-following, and on top of all of that, he also cooks. I will even forgive the occasional “oh no, I left a roast in the oven!” moments. +2845 pts!
3. Magna Defender – So tragic! So tormented! His son is deaaaaaaaaaaad. Plus he got stuck in that hole. Do all of the people on his planet just wear the horned armor and everything all the time? +2813 pts!
4. Karone – I admit, some amount of her appeal is the continuity/nostalgia factor. But also Melody Perkins is really good at this by now. +2798 pts!
5. Mike – oooh, I’m so self-sacrificing and perfect and everybody loves me and I just kind of show up in places because everyone else is there. +2109 pts!
6. Maya – Firstly, the Jungle Girl concept in general is… not great. Secondly, why didn’t anyone ever give her a second change of clothes? +1445 pts!
7. Damon – 90% of his non-plot-related lines are about food. The other 10% is quippy jokery. Meat and sarcasm. That’s it, that’s his whole identity. +1263 pts!
8. Leo – What exactly does Leo do all day? He’s terrible at the one (1) time he tried to have a job. Also I do not care for the shirt-ripping-off in the opening sequence. +2 pts!

The main Galaxy Rangers form a pretty rounded team – on the surface-level as they all have their own roles on the station (except Leo), but also their various personalities – Maya is the heart of the team, Kai is the responsible one, Kendrix is the smart one, Damon is the one who likes food, and Leo is also there. (He’s the reckless heroic one). Mike’s thing is mainly that he came back from the “dead” – he’s got to be this paragon for Leo to look up to, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for him to actually do anything other than sacrifice himself repeatedly. Karone comes in essentially as a space-filler, partially due to production reasons: The actor for Kendrix, Valerie Vernon was unable to be in later episodes because she was receiving treatment for Leukemia5She still appeared in the opening sequence so that she was still getting paid, and the treatment was a success, allowing her to return for an appearance in the finale, necessitating an in-show replacement which, all things considered, ends up pretty well-integrated.

In context, their place on Terra Venture is a little strange – as with a lot of things in this series, there seems to be a lack of bookkeeping or concern when it comes to people just kind of showing up on the ship. Also the Astro MegaShip is secretly docked… somewhere? And none of the crew seems to have any interest in where, why, or how. The setting kind of plays against the “secret identity” trope in that sense: the Power Rangers are just here and then they aren’t and no one cares. Or tries to communicate with them. Or help them protect Terra Venture using the actual ship’s systems, which seem like they would be useful?

These Rangers are animal-powered, so they take on animalistic attributes when they morph. Which is mostly to say that they all run weird because that’s how animals run.

“Go Galactic!”

I. Hate. The Teeth. I hate the teeth. Why do the morph sequences start  with the chomp-chomp teeth. I hate it. I guess there’s probably also other things about the morph sequence, but I can’t be bothered to care about them over the TEETH.

Overall Team Score: 2209 pts

With Special Guest Rangers…

The Space Rangers

Andros is back! Somehow! And he’s wearing his cape again! For some reason! He just… really likes being mysterious I guess. And then all the other Space Rangers show up…..some….how…. No really, how did everyone end up on Terra Venture, a theoretically isolated location? With no space suits or anything. Like, their morphers are all on the Megaship which is docked on Terra Venture. And it’s not like the Galaxy Gliders are rated for interstellar travel or anything. Anyway, the Space Rangers all come back and Cassie gets done dirty as she first pratfalls off of the Cat GalactaBeast and then ends up getting her morpher stolen and used as the power source for the Savage Sword, eventually resulting in Kendrix sacrificing herself to destroy the sword. So that all happens and lands on Cassie’s shoulders.6There were originally plans for Cassie to replace Kendrix as the new Pink Galaxy Ranger, but stuff happened and we ended up with Karone instead, which is also nice.

Oh, also the Psycho Rangers come back again to fight the Space Rangers, so that’s fun.

Gear

Jet Jammers

Every space-based Ranger needs some kind of space-based personal vehicle and you know what’s cooler than space surfboards? Nothing. That’s why the Galaxy Rangers get stuck with Space Go-Karts.

-200 pts

Lights of Orion

The Lights of Orion are an eons old mysterious power source, hidden somewhere in the Galaxy. Which ends up being on Terra Venture because… destiny? So anyway these ancient artifacts end up on this newly built spaceship somehow, and since their power can only be used for good, they attach themselves to the Galaxy Rangers and give them sword upgrades and a cool light-up finishing attack. You know, standard ancient power things.

+5 pts

Astro Cycles/Red Capsular Cycle

Everyone also gets motorcycles why not, but Leo’s Red MotorAstro Cycle is special because it can turn into the Red Capsular Cycle, in which it turns into a big… capsule… and then Leo can ride it into an enemy and go all fiery and whatnot. Because Red Rangers are just special.

+64 pts

Armor Keys

Speaking of Red Rangers being special, the Armor Keys belong to an ancient warrior who was turned to stone by Astronema back when she was evil. To retrieve the key, Karone must face her past deeds as Astronema and the harm that she caused. Karone’s deep regret and commitment to making things right frees the warrior from the stone and in return, she is given the powerful Armor Keys. Which then are immediately given to Leo who has done nothing on this trip except be a victim that Karone can heroically sacrifice herself for. So of course Leo gets the keys and the powerful Battleizer Armor. Because Red Rangers are just special.

-10 pts

Horse

HORSE

+HORSE pts

Zords

Galactabeasts

So the Galactabeasts are some kind of spacefaring megafauna or something. And then they suck up a bunch of poison and turn into stone somehow. And then using the Transdaggers they somehow turn into Zords. Except that they also were already always Zords maybe? It’s….really unclear.

I like this one okay. As far as Megazords go, it’s fine. Interestingly, this one lasts through the whole series without getting replaced, which is unusual for the show up until now. There are the two other Megazords, but we’ll get to them, and the Galaxy Megazord does get a power-up from the Lights of Orion along with the Rangers7In the form of a giant V chestplate, so there’s some progression, but apart from that, this is what we’ve got for the season. A bunch of variously uncanny giant space animals that turn into robots sometimes.

Coolness of Animal

1. Wolf – Ok wolves, those are pretty cool. Space wolves doubly so probably.
2. Condor – I don’t know what kind of condors they have in space but that is clearly some sort of dragon or something.
3. Gorilla – Gentle giants or something. I don’t know. Do people still like gorillas nowadays?
4. Lion – Did you know that male lions are just The Worst?
5. Cat – That cat does not look okay. Something is wrong with that cat.

Galaxy Megazord

Main Weapon: Galaxy Saber

Finishing Move: Condor Galactazord Missile Mode – The Condor becomes A Big Gun and shoots the enemy.

Total (group) score: +834 pts

Torozord

It’s a bull that lives underground. Underground being… beneath the surface of the ground… in space… on Terra Venture… How did Torozord get there anyway? Is this like how the Lights of Orion were buried for eons and also on Terra Venture? Did Terra Venture just steal land from Destiny World or something?

Coolness of Animal

I guess it’s a bull. That’s… fine, I guess. I’m bullish on bulls.

Defender Torozord

So Magna Defender (or Mike) grows super big, goes through some anatomically questionable maneuvers, and then goes inside the Torozord to become Defender Torozord, which can run around and fight and stuff. And blow up heroically in an act of tragic self-sacrifice. Spoilers I guess.

Score: +308 pts

Stratoforce and Centaurus Megazords

Ok so remember how the Galactabeasts were regular animals until the Transdaggers turned them into Zords? Well the Stratoforce and Centaurus Megazords are also Galactabeasts, but they were already Zords and also they’re each made up of 5 tinier Zords that combine together and never show up separately from the Megazords. So I guess the normal Galactabeasts were always Zords to begin with? And the Transdaggers do… something… to make the spinny dagger room inside the Zords?

Coolness of Animal

1. Phoenix – Totally different from a Firebird ok guys? Totally different. Not like we don’t already have two wolf zords, but you can’t have two of the same Bird Zord, not on my watch. 
2. Rhino – Why is the Rhino zord called Centaurus? It’s not a Centaur. And it’s not like, a bull or anything either. It’s a rhino. Do they have Rhino Centaurs? I should watch more Centaurworld. 8I say “I” but I mean “you.” You should watch more Centaurworld. Go watch Centaurworld, dammit. Then come back here and watch Power Rangers with me, I’m lonely

Total Score: +487 pts

Zenith Carrierzord

Oh also there’s the Carrierzord that carts the Stratoforce and Centaurus Megazords around, but it matters so little that it doesn’t even show up in the finale to get destroyed alongside the two auxiliary Megazords.9BTW the auxiliary Megazords go down in possibly the most hardcore Megazord destruction yet. No reversed footage of coming out of a volcano for these guys. Maybe it’s still out there, who knows!

Coolness of Animal

Shark Week!

Score: +965

Mentors/Allies

Alpha 6

Oh boy, Alpha 6 is back. I guess he didn’t have anything else important going on so he just stuck around the Astro Megaship Museum. Didn’t Alpha 6 have any friends? Like Dimitria? Oh right, Dimitria. Yeah, I’d avoid her too, Alpha.

-6 pts

Random Citizens Lightning Round!

Commander Stanton

Poor Commander Stanton. Not only is he personally responsible for every living soul aboard Terra Venture, he’s also surrounded by Ranger Hijinks. He’s just trying to go and do his job and everyone is running around behind his back and learning lessons about trust or friendship or something.

+503 pts

Carolyn Pickets AKA Identical Stranger

She’s a star, baby. Glamour! And she conveniently looks exactly like Kendrix, so they can do some kind of weird switching places thing for… reasons. Anyway, she’s a diva but she learns a Valuable Lesson from Kendrix and then is never mentioned again. Gosh I bet it’s super awkward to see movie posters for someone who looks exactly like your friend who Tragically Sacrificed herself.

+222 pts

High Command, AKA Severe Lady, Mustache Guy and The Other Three

For real though, the Other Three made so little of an impression that I thought there was only one of them when I started writing this. I dunno. These Higher-Ups are just around to look Vaguely Concerned about Commander Stanton.

+5 pts

The Baddies

We’re back to Space Pirates, but not the fun kind of space pirates that you get with Divatox and her piles of filthy loot, just a bunch of bugs who do piracy sometimes. Eventually they’ve basically given up on piracy completely and Trakeena is just on her Quest for Vengeance (and Infamy) to destroykill the Rangers.

The Big Bad: Scorpius – Pirate King

Bug in a box! He’s a bug in a box! I dunno, he’s gross and tentacle-y and… in a box. That’s it. No force of personality at all. And then he just gets taken out by Leo in the course of a devious plot from [checks notes] Deviot. 

Oh, I get it!

Score: +1688 pts

The Other Big Bad: Trakeena – Queen of Pirates

Trakeena starts the series out as a fairly ineffectual villain, mostly just a vain daddy’s girl whose daddy is a gross space bug that wants her to also become a gross space bug. She’s less into the whole space bug thing, so she goes off to Onyx and meets Villamax, who trains her to be a fighter on par with the Rangers. In the end, she does go into the Big Bug Chamber and becomes a slightly unhinged space bug thing and then gets exploded.

+4013 pts

The Other Other Big Bad: Captain Mutiny – Lord of the Lost Galaxy

“I never should have trusted that Captain Mutiny”

-Commander Stanton

Captain Mutiny runs a pirate crew in the Lost Galaxy that exploits slaves to mine for buckets of gems, because you couldn’t get monsters to do that faster and better. Monster Union won’t let them, you see. Also he’s a big boat person with a steering wheel on his… Hey wanna hear a pirate joke?

Chest! His chest. Where the treasure is.10The real treasure is the heart. You can get at least a million for one in good condition

Anyway, he dies when Trakeena’s Scorpion Stinger chomps his ship to death immediately after he escapes the Lost Galaxy behind Terra Venture.

+ 602 pts

Henches

Furio

Furio is a big ol’ jerk who turns all of Maya’s people into stone in the first episode. He also is into stage magic. He eventually dies when he self destructs while fighting Leo.

Treacheron

Treacheron is Magna Defender’s old nemesis. He dropped Magna Defender into that hole. He wasn’t especially treacherous in the end, but he does end up getting blamed and accused of treachery when Trakeena tricks him. He eventually dies during a fight-to-the-death with Leo.

Deviot

Some kind of evil clown villain or something. He betrays everybody repeatedly and then sends Terra Venture to the Lost Galaxy, finally explaining the name of the show. He then betrays everybody in the Lost Galaxy and ends up back in the regular galaxy when everyone there dies in betrayal-related incidents. He eventually dies when he betrays his way into the Cocoon along with Trakeena and is consumed in some kind of Battle of the Will or something.

Villamax

Villamax is a villain with a code of honor and a thing for zippers. He’s great with a sword and teaches Trakeena how to fight on Planet Wild West. He hates Deviot and is actually a pretty swell guy when it comes to it. A little girl even gives him a flower! Adorable! Eventually he dies when Trakeena kills him for not wanting to do war crimes and boy, this series really racks up a villainous body count.

Kegler

Kegler is Villamax’s faithful companion. He’s a monster in a barrel. Or he wears a barrel or something. He’s keg themed, is my point. I hate him.

Fodder

Stingwingers

They’re some kind of space bug people, I guess? They can breathe in space and they don’t have, like, faces or anything. Which isn’t strictly a problem, but I really just feel like they needed faces.

+0 pts

Swabbies

No. No. Please no. No. Just… No. Take them away. Away!

Those faces…. those eyes….. that hook nose face thing.

The Swabbies haunt my nightmares and my life.

-5000 pts

Monsters

There’s a big mix of theming in this one. There are some bugs, some sea creatures, and some samurai-type monsters (some of whom are also sea-themed). This makes some amount of sense since in the source show, there were multiple themed factions, but here there just ends up being a lot of different mishmash themes.

Monsters That Are Good (According to Me)

Loyax

Loyax is an evil Knight With a Code, who intends to face off against the Rangers in fair combat. He ends up falling in a hole11There really are a lot more holes to fall into than you would expect in this season along with Maya and they have to work together to get out. Maya faces him in battle, but Deviot interferes, preventing the fair fight that Loyax had wanted. Loyax turns on Deviot and Maya almost convinces him to give up his evil ways and fight for good, but Deviot gets the upper hand in the end and causes Loyax to go mindless and crazy and there’s just a lot of pathos and I swear I’m not sitting in the dark crying about a pretend monster in a big pretend monster suit.

Crummummy

Crummummy’s thing is that he can “steal beauty” from women. Which in practice means making their skin turn purple and yellow, which isn’t that bad all considered. But then he can make Trakeena extra beautiful so that when she goes onto Terra Venture disguised as a human, she can make men do comedy pratfalls over her beauty. She tries this on Mike, but he only has eyes for his hamburger, so that ends that all pretty quickly.

Hardtochoke

Look sometimes the names are just Too Good For This World.

Chameliac

Chameliac can copy fighting styles, which in itself isn’t super novel or interesting, but to fight him, the Rangers and Megazords all switch styles with each-other and Chameliac gets so bamboozled every time, it’s hilarious.

What About Bulk and Skull and Lt. Stone and Professor Phenomenus?

Friends, we may be in trouble. Bulk and the Professor show up at the launch of the colony, going aboard on the back of Professor Phenomenus’s apparent scientific renown. Skull slept in and missed the launch and no one realizes until they are on their way, NEVER TO RETURN. But at least they’re around, right? Right? Turns out they only show up once more in the Worst Episode Yet, Stolen Beauty, as bartenders who got booted out of the science division because well….. no, that makes sense, good choices all around. They again show up in the finale, landing on Mirinoi, ready to start their new lives. FAR FAR AWAY! DEEP IN SPACE! Oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *crying noises*

+2 sad final points

THE FINAL SCORE

We now begin the completely transparent scoring system, where I give a value (in Pts) to each of the major elements, and I also get to decide what those are. And also how much they have accrued in Bonus Points(pts) up to now.

• The Team:  700 Pts 
  • Individual:  400 tPts The individual team members are mostly good, except for a certain shirt-ripping red Ranger. 
  • Together:  1000 tPts They work together like professionals, which most of them are.
  • Leader:  0 tPts *riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip*

• The Zords:  25 Pts
  • Individual: 75 zPts The Galactabeasts in general were fun, if somewhat uncanny.
  • Megazords: 10 zPts There was only the one main Megazord and the others were kind of extraneous
• The Villains: 5000 Pts
  • Leader: 5000 vPts I’m going to call Trakeena the leader villain, since she’s the one who makes it to the final confrontation.
  • Henchmen: 600 vPts Such a body count
  • Fodder: 2 vPts I hate 
• The Monsters: 1000 Pts I liked the array of different themes and combos and the monsters really did have a lot of personality.
• Story: 2500 Pts It doesn’t…. make… sense? I just have so many questions

After totalling all the scores for each section and normalizing the results according to the secret formulae that definitely exist and are not a screen to get me out of having to think about scores ever at all:

Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: 14,212 Power Points

Let’s see the rankings!

Power Rangers Seasons, Ranked

1. Power Rangers in Space 1225000 PPs
2. Power Rangers Zeo1319096 PPs
3. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy 14,212 PPs!
4. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 31413,097 PPs
5. Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers1513001 PPs
6. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 21612,198 PPs
7. Power Rangers Turbo1710,519 PPs
8. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 11810,518 PPs

A perfectly solid showing for the first non-Zordon season. See how things go as we continue to find our feet without a giant head to light our way. This metaphor got lost somewhere I think.

Anyway,19In-joke for those of you who watched my Ranger Things video That’s Lost Galaxy! This has been a really fun one to watch, and especially in context with Mystic Knights, it was interesting to see sword-based fighting done in a much different way, much more Action-y with less weight behind the weapons. Thank you so much for keeping on reading these, I really appreciate all the positive response I get. If you’re so inclined, feel free to buy me a coffee on my ko-fi. And keep an eye out on my Ranger Things YouTube channel, as I’m excited to do more in the video essay space. That said, I can only do so much at once, so I’m probably going to be switching back and forth between Ranger Things and Ranger Ranker, so you’ll be getting the same general cadence of output, just split between the two. On the other hand, let me know if you’d be interested in seeing me video-ize old Ranger Rankers in a similar style to the Tommy Oliver essay, because I’d love a chance to revisit those and put them up in a new format. Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying everything I’m making, because I’m enjoying making it.

And be sure to come back next time for: The One With Lots and Lots of Trains