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Ranger Ranker! #13 – Power Rangers Dino Thunder

The One Where Tommy Comes Back

We’re back!1 It took a while, but I guess that’s what you get when you’re working with the kind of quality content that I’m providing. Speaking of content, let’s jump on in:

Let’s Talk About Identity

High School, in America at least, is what one might call, A Time. Everyone is figuring themselves out, deciding who they want to be, who they are, and who they are going to be. And it can’t be any easier to do that when you’re also a superhero, not that I would know. It’s a popular conceit though, ever since the days of Peter Parker. You’re a Teen With Problems (and possibly Attitude), and on top of all of that, sometimes you have to go off and save the world without revealing your secret identity. In Power Rangers Dino Thunder, most of our main characters face this crisis in different ways. Everyone in the main three has their little Breakfast Club roles that get nicely laid out in the first episode – Conner is The Jock, Ethan is The Nerd, and Kira is the Punk Music Girl, which I guess is the modern version of the Ally Sheedy weirdo. Trent comes around later in a couple different identities – New Kid, Rich Kid, Artist, he even tries on the Bad Boy persona during his Dark phase. But it’s also made clear that there’s more to each of them. In an episode where a magic meteor surfaces the buried, hidden desires of each teen, Conner reveals that he wishes he were smarter, Ethan wishes he were stronger, and Kira wishes that she were more fashionable and popular, which is crazy because her normal 00’s fashion is On Point2 for the whole series.

More than just their secret wishes for themselves, the teens with attitude need to reckon with who they are growing up to be. Conner starts out as kind of a high school Lothario, but over the course of the series, getting to know and befriend Kira and meeting a girl he likes who actually has standards and principles in Krista, he grows as a person and finds the self-respect and strength within to reveal his Special Red Ranger Mode, the Triassic Battleizer. Ethan has defined his life by video games, but has to reckon with possibly not being a prodigy who doesn’t need to work and practice when he loses in a tournament to Devin. He even has a shirt with the name of the game on it – “I am Detonation Man” – in case the theming wasn’t obvious enough. And Kira has to make her own steps into adulthood, figuring out her future career with her internship at the local TV station and then her foray into making music professionally with a producer who wants to rewrite her whole image. Or, her identity, one might say. If one were me. Which one is. I am. Me, that is. I’m saying that identity is a whole big theme in this season.

Trent’s whole identity crisis is even more centered – he starts out as the adopted son of successful businessman Anton Mercer, who wants Trent to follow in his footsteps and become a man of Business. Trent rejects this, wanting instead to be an artist, but it turns out that he follows in Mercer’s footsteps in a different way, as Mercer is secretly the villain Mesogog,3 and when Trent accidentally bonds to the White Dino Gem, the gem’s inherent aura of evil infects him and starts turning him evil, a process accelerated by one of Mesogog’s monsters. Mercer himself, however, doesn’t actually want this for Trent. It turns out that Mercer and Mesogog are having an identity crisis of their own, and Mercer was actually preparing Trent to take over his company when Mesogog inevitably subsumed his own personality. Mercer has constantly been sacrificing himself for Trent, trying to give him his best possible future without actually investing himself in what Trent wants for himself as a person. Over the course of the season, Trent has to reckon with this and prove himself to his father, to himself, and to his own allies that he is the good person that he ultimately wants to be, ultimately winning the respect and support of both Mercer and the Rangers.

Even aside from Mercer’s identity crisis, the villains of this season are themed around identity as well. Elsa has her own secret civilian identity as the hard-nosed Principal Randall, the Evil Clone of the White Ranger has to find his own meaning and purpose as an Evil Clone, eventually facing off against Trent to determine who is “the Real White Ranger,” and Zeltrax is secretly Tommy Oliver’s old friend who we’ve never heard of before, Smitty.

Oh yeah, and Tommy is here too. What’s up with that?

Let’s Talk About Tommy Oliver

Tommy. Freaking. Oliver. In the words of the show itself, “Not the oldest Power Ranger, just the best.” How true is that? Well, I’ll get to the ranking part later, but let’s just say that Tommy has had a real up-and-down life as a Power Ranger. He started out as an evil Green Ranger, brainwashed by Rita Repulsa, then got turned good again by the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He lost his original Green Ranger powers, then got them back again, then lost them again and gained new White Ranger powers, lost those, gained new Ninja-themed White Ranger powers, got turned into a child, gained new Red Zeo powers, got brainwashed and turned evil again by the Machine Empire, gained new Red Turbo powers, then gave those up to “retire” from Rangering, which actually meant that he got his doctorate in paleontology while also finding time to organize a team of Red Rangers from across the universe to go to the moon to blow up Serpentera. And that’s not even mentioning the Tommy Oliver clone that he sent back in time to colonial times to possibly become the ancestor of a Lone Ranger knockoff. I made a whole video about this, you should check it out some time.

Anyway, Tommy gets a doctorate in Paleontology, because… dinosaurs? Which he then takes to become a teacher in Reefside, of all places.4 Because that’s the state of academia and teaching jobs in the US, am I right guys?5 Meanwhile he’s also working with Anton Mercer and this Smitty guy and there’s a whole dramatic backstory to the season that the show never really gets into, but it ends up in a big paleontology accident where Tommy explodes a whole island. We’ll get into that later.

Tommy fits into the Identity theme of the season in an interesting way, because Tommy has always kind of been a blank slate to stick the theme of the season on. In MMPR Season 1, he’s the Teen with the most Attitude finding his place in a new school with new friends and new love. In Season 2, he’s dealing with Change, losing his powers, then gaining new ones and new friends and new responsibility and in Season 3, he’s dealing with Responsibility as he’s got a target on his back because the villains see him as their biggest failure. In Zeo, he’s wrestling with Leadership and Legacy and moving forward in his life, finding new-new love after his breakup with Kim. In Turbo, he’s suddenly really into Cars. And now he’s got this paleontology degree that no one ever really talked about him ever being interested in. That’s his whole thing now, Paleontology. All his friends are into paleontology (and revenge), and his job is teaching paleontology to kids, which is honestly a pretty weird thing for Reefside High to bring him in to do. But that’s his thing now and he’s going to do it, because he’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does is whatever the theme of the season tells him to do. 

Eventually, Tommy ends up having to face his identity crisis literally, as when he drops into a coma after his Dinogem goes awry, locking him first into morphed mode and then into his invisible mode, he ends up facing down his past selves in the form of Zeo Ranger V Red, White Tiger Ranger, and Green Dragon Ranger. I guess he doesn’t have a connection to the Turbo powers any more after giving those powers away to TJ.6 While he is unable to best them in combat, he proves his worth, his will to live, and his Fighting Spirit7 and is rewarded with a stabilized Black Dinogem that lets him become this season’s Black Ranger for good, without any unexplained complications.

So let’s get into this season with:

So Tommy’s back. That’s great and all, I’m sure he stays around for the whole season with no complications and nothing terrible happens to do with that, but what about all these high schoolers running around, now actually going to an actual high school, rather than the implied one that maybe just Tori was going to last season? How does that dynamic work? And who is Mr O’Shaugnessy? Let’s find out!

Adaptation

If Ninja Storm was a return to the vibe of MMPR, Dino Thunder is arguably a return to the vibes of Zeo, and not just because Tommy is in a main role again. We’re back to a high school setting with Reefside High, and we’ve even got a return to the Juice Bar in the modernized form of Hayley’s Cyberspace. We see a lot of character growth over the season both in and out of the main Ranger cast, and there are a bunch of running plots that cover more than just individual multiparters. It’s definitely interesting to see, especially coming from the adaptation of Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger, which definitely had a lot of comedic elements – not to the same degree as Turbo’s Carranger, but noticeably, especially with the monster designs this season. And that comedy is handled better than Turbo8, rolling with the punches and even making a unique filler episode satirizing the adaptational differences of the show it sourced its footage from.

Plot

“Some” years ago, we find Tommy Oliver, Action Paleontologist, in medias res on an exploding, sinking island. There are monsters, there’s karate, it’s all very Tommy. He escapes the island just as it explodes/sinks, and we flash forward to present day, where Tommy is starting his new job in Reefside as… a high school teacher? A notoriously thankless, low-paying job? With a doctorate in Paleontology? Sure, why not? So Tommy – Doctor Oliver if you’re nasty – meets the clearly evil principal Randall and is instantly given Detention. Administering detention, that is. The Detentionees… Detentes… Detention… havers… are our heroes, Conner, Kira, and Ethan, in trouble for skipping class, performing music without permission, and hacking the sprinkler system, respectively. They don’t want to be there any more than Doctor O, who calls off traditional detention in favor of a Field Trip! To the museum! Which is closed! Doctor O sends the kids into the woods to find something prehistoric, while in the meantime a Tyrannosaurus rex statue comes to life and Tommy kicks it in the teeth. The kids, meanwhile, actually have found something prehistoric, in the form of a mysterious random sinkhole leading to an old laboratory with a meteorite containing weird crystals. And as any protagonist knows, the first thing to do when encountering weird crystals is to grab and/or bond with them. Which they do. One fight scene and some exposition later, it turns out that the crystals are Dinogems from the meteor that killed the dinosaurs and they gave everyone their own superhuman superpowers. On top of that, they can be used with a Dino Morpher to make them *fanfare* Power Rangers! That’s the name of the show! Furthermore, it turns out that Doctor Oliver is really Tommy Oliver, who is really one of the greatest Power Rangers of all time! Who knew!9

Later on, we meet Trent, the new kid at school, who sparks a light romantic interest with Kira before accidentally becoming brainwashed and evil against his will and disabling the Rangers’ mentor, which sounds a bit familiar for those of us who are familiar with Tommy’s backstory. Unlike with Tommy however, the Rangers are unable to destroy Trent’s evil side on their own, and Trent remains evil throughout much of the series until a villainous betrayal by Zeltrax leads to Mesogog accidentally breaking the White Dinogem’s evil influence via an intervention by Mesogog’s alter ego, Anton Mercer. However, the evil White Ranger persists in the form of the White Ranger Clone, created by the Copyotter monster, who is an Otter with a copying machine for an arm, and also is a bell pepper. In yet another identity crisis turned literal, Trent eventually faces down his evil clone and at the same time, his evil deeds as the White Ranger, which stabilizes his powers and lets him finish the season as the series’s only Fifth Ranger who gets treated as a Sixth Ranger. 

Ultimately, Mesogog’s plans advance to the point where he is ready to fire a giant cannon and return the world to the age of the dinosaurs. In the process of this, he turns on all of his underlings, depowering and debrainwashing Elsa, abandoning and exiling Zeltrax, and even bodily separating himself from Anton Mercer. The Rangers explode/sink his island base and he is seemingly destroyed with it, but he survives and the Rangers are forced to face his ultimate form, in which he has a big long neck. It takes all of their powers to destroy him in this form, ultimately leaving them depowered and able to attend their high school prom simply as normal teenagers and their weird teacher mentor. The end dot dot dot question mark.

+5091 pts

Music

Unlike most of the recent seasons, Dino Thunder includes Kira, a real actual musician played by real actual musician Emma Lahana, which means: Diegetic musical numbers! Actual concerts! And she’s actually really good, too! I’m a huge fan of when actors have special extra talents that the show gets to show off, so this was a fun season in that regard. As for the theme song this season, we go back to a more traditional sounding theme after last season’s more skate-punky rock-style theme. And it’s great! Even if it refers to dino powers as the “force of ages, centuries gone by.” Centuries? Centuries!? Like… over half a million centuries, maybe?

+3498 pts

Fights

Last season introduced civilian superpowers in the form of Ninja Skillz, and this season continues the trend, giving each Ranger a superpower in their civilian form. You know, just like in Beetleborgs.10 Conner gets superspeed, Ethan gets superdurability, and Kira gets a Black Canary-style sonic scream. Also Tommy gets invisibility that he later gets stuck in for out-of-show reasons, and Trent gets super camouflage, which I’m not totally sure how that’s different or better/worse than invisibility, but those aren’t as interesting in a fighting context. In addition to the fun of the superpowers, the civilian fights this season are also just really well staged, with lots of interesting settings and stunts. Plus, with Jason David Frank back as Tommy,11 we get to see a lot of fights with him, a really talented martial artist that ties back to the history of the show and gives a great throwback feel to the season.

+1029 pts

Miscellany

The High School setting of this season is a really interesting choice considering the extremely genre-based settings of the past several seasons. We haven’t seen the inside of a high school since Turbo, when the main Turbo Rangers graduated and only Justin was still in school, and it wasn’t even a main focus in that season as much as it was in Zeo. It’s very much a return to “classic” Power Rangers in that way, but with the twist of Tommy coming back as a teacher that adds in an interesting shift in perspective for audience members who grew up with the original seasons and are now coming back from that same older perspective. It’s also, as I mentioned in the intro, a setting that feels very American. Obviously other cultures go to school, but the specific tropes, characters, and vibes of an American High School Experience are very distinctive. It really does make the season feel unique in a refreshing way that all of the previous seasons haven’t – especially in the several seasons where the main plot of the season was taken from the Japanese source material fairly untouched. Finally Power Rangers is back to doing its own thing, and I think that’s a great move on the writers’ part.

Cumulative Score: 4434 pts!

The Good Guys

There are only 5 Rangers this season, and in a sense, the main core group is made up of the three primary colors, with Tommy and Trent acting as auxiliary Rangers. They never even really get fully integrated, due to lack of footage on Trent’s part12 and a lack of the actor on Tommy’s part – Jason David Frank returned to America for the middle part of the season, resulting in him doing voice work over Tommy in morphed and invisible form. Plus, the mentor/teacher relationship makes the team dynamic a little strained if Conner is meant to be the team’s leader.

The Rangers

Conner McKnight (James Napier)  

The Jock. The Ladykiller. Super Fast.

  • Color: Red
  • Zord: Tyrannozord
  • Signature Weapon: Tyranno Staff
  • Strength: 10
  • Smarts: 1
  • Coolness factor: 5

Conner is a soccer player and he is very very very tall. Like crazy tall. Stupid tall. What is that about? He’s not the brightest guy and he’s very led by his emotions, for better or worse. He grows a bit over the course of the season, toning down his “ladies man” image when he meets Krista, a stereotypically perfect “good girl,” and learning to trust his team and not doubt himself so much, all of which leads to him gaining his Triassic Battleizer, because self-growth leads to superpowers every time.

Ethan James (Kevin Duhaney)  

The Nerd. The Gamer. Super Resilient.

  • Color: Blue
  • Zord: Tricerazord
  • Signature Weapon: Tricera Shield 
  • Strength: 8
  • Smarts: 11
  • Coolness factor: 5

Ethan is your classic 00’s nerd, into all the latest video games, tech, and, you know, general nerd media. Like superheroes.13 Interestingly for the nerd archetype, he’s not a genius – he’s pretty smart, but not unusually for a high schooler like we saw with Billy in Mighty Morphin’. He’s pretty average, and he can be wrong and he can fail, as he does in the Detonation Man tournament. It marks a shift, I think, in the archetype of The Nerd from the know-it-all to the enthusiast – a shift that we start seeing across all media in the mid-2000’s.

Kira Ford (Emma Lahana)  

The Musician. The Outsider. Super Vocal.

  • Color: Yellow
  • Zord: Pterazord
  • Signature Weapon: Ptera Grips 
  • Strength: 5
  • Smarts: 8
  • Coolness factor: 100

Kira is an aspiring pop star, much in the vein of Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson, placing her character archetype extremely squarely in the early-mid-2000’s production of the show. And it works, really well, speaking as someone who was in high school during that exact time frame. There’s a feeling of a crystallized moment in time with her that really speaks to me, the most important judge of character that has ever existed. She gets a lot of development over the season, too – she gets an vaguely-defined media internship, she almost gets a pop star deal but declines it because it conflicts with her identity14 and ultimately succeeds on her own merits, with her band headlining the prom dance in the season finale. Kira is great and that’s really all there is to say about that.

Tommy Oliver (Jason David Frank)  

The Teacher. The Old Guard. Super Absent.

  • Color: Black
  • Zord: Brachiozord
  • Signature Weapon: Brachio Staff 
  • Strength: 40
  • Smarts: 10
  • Coolness factor: 30

Tommy! Tommy’s back! And he’s a doctor! What more is there to say about this that I haven’t already been over and over to death so far? Well, there’s his weird relationships to all the villains of the season. He and Mercer were partners before the accident that led to him becoming Mesogog. He and Zeltrax were also partners before the accident that led to him becoming… Zeltrax. And he and Elsa have this weird vaguely flirty undercurrent to them that never gets resolved and ends up with the restored Elsa and purified Mercer sharing a dance at the school prom. And we all know that Tommy ends up with Kat in the end anyway due to that one Christmas flash-forward in Zeo, so we knew it didn’t matter in the first place. Honestly it’s kind of weird that Tommy is here anyway, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that in the original pitch, the character was original to this season and Tommy kind of got shoehorned in after the fact to build hype because the show was, as always, struggling.

Trent Fernandez-Mercer (Jeffery Parazzo)  

The Artist. The New Kid. Super Unseen.

  • Color: White
  • Zord: Dragozord
  • Signature Weapon: Drago Sword
  • Strength: 5
  • Smarts: 8
  • Coolness factor: 10

Trent is a really interesting character, because we really get to dwell in his evil ranger plot. Unlike Tommy’s plot, which was over in 5 episodes, Trent’s evil lasts throughout a lot of the season, and unlike with the Thunder Rangers, we really get a sense of who he is before becoming evil and can feel his struggle with his dark side as the evil in him builds up slowly. His relationship with Mercer and Mesogog is really interesting too, wanting to live up to what his father wants of him, but not really knowing exactly what that is and what that means due to Mesogog’s complicating influence.

The Team

This season’s suits feature a return to Mighty Morphin’s diamond motif, this time literalized as scales in the Super Dino Mode transformation. Mouth-shaped visors are back too, much to my delight. And the slight variations on the core theme for Tommy and Trent, with Tommy’s more armored solid diamonds and Trent’s more vicious, jagged pattern are really great characterizations, not to mention Trent’s evil-looking red visor. All in all, a really good suit design with just enough balance between throwback and novelty. And the Super Dino Mode does look really fun- it makes such good use of the diamond motifs and I love that Kira gets the arm-wings with hers.

As for the team dynamic, I love the Breakfast Club-style team of misfits this season. Back in the Mighty Morphin’ seasons, a lot of people felt like the teens were a little lacking in attitude, but here we have them feeling like real teenagers with mixed-up feelings, desires, and difficulty navigating the paths that life lays before them. The addition of Tommy as both a mentor and a team member is a little weird, but the fact that he’s so experienced as a Ranger and so familiar to the viewer is a big advantage in overcoming the weirdness.

Ranger Ranker:

  1. Kira– She’s just the best, hands down. The total package. She fights, she sings, and she dresses like such an exact moment in time that it makes me terribly, painfully nostalgic. +3982 pts
  2. Trent – Love a good evil Ranger, and Trent does a great job balancing the evil and the tormented parts of his character. You can really tell when he’s in control and not. +3031 pts
  3. Tommy – It’s so great to see Tommy back, honestly. It’s weird that he’s a Doctor now and it’s weird that he’s a teacher and really it’s just weird that he’s kind of an entirely new and different character than he ever was before, but hey, Tommy’s back! +2874 pts
  4. Ethan – I love how purely excited Ethan is to be a superhero. He’s so into it, for better or worse. +2457 pts
  5. Conner – Conner isn’t even that bad as a Red Ranger, all things considered. Someone just has to be last and it turns out that Conner is just enough of a stick in the mud just enough of the time to fall just enough short. +2025 pts

Ultimately, this is a really strong cast of Rangers. Everybody feels like a full person and gets growth and development over the season, and the characters, even though they are extremely archetypal, are still very human and relatable. And they still even manage to throw a few curveballs in there, like with the hidden personality episode and the short time that Ethan tries to date Cassidy because the internet told him to. The team has great chemistry too, with everybody feeling like real friends by the end of things. Again, Tommy’s mentor role while still being on the team is a little weird, but it kind of works, and the fact that he takes such a backseat in the middle of the season while dealing with being trapped in amber/morphed/invisible helps that a lot.

“Dino Thunder! Power Up!”

There’s not really much to the morph sequence this season. The morphing call actually resembles the one from Wild Force a lot, but without the cell phone morphers isn’t as compelling. Then the morph sequence, which involves a lot of rocky greenscreen background, is basically just a flip and a pose, with the Ranger’s respective Zord in the background. Honestly, the CGI Zord takes a bit away from the sequence. Trent’s sequence at least mixes things up with a kind of arctic background and a spinny morph, but I kind of wish the other Rangers had a bit more variety to them.

Overall Team Score: 4500 pts!

With Special Guest Rangers…

Ninja Storm Rangers

This one is an interesting team-up because it finds an excuse for the Ranger teams to fight each other. The three main Ninja Storm Rangers, Shane, Tori, and Dustin, immediately get brainwashed by a resurrected Lothor disguised as Sensei Watanabe and spend the first part of the crossover as evil jerks. And it’s effective too, because the Ninja Storm Rangers are basically an entirely different genre than the Dino Thunder team – they train at a secret ninja academy and after their season are basically ninja masters, having advanced to teaching at said secret ninja academy. It’s no surprise that our guys are completely outmatched until the season’s other three Rangers come to their aid with anti-brainwashing morph discs. Ultimately, the Rangers all team up and the day is saved, and we even get a little villain-on-villain fight with Lothor taking on Mesogog in the latter’s first real physical bout. Also, Marah15 and Kapri are back, which is kind of fun. They’re reformed now, training at the secret ninja academy, and they end up saving Sensei from Lothor’s clutches in a nice little betrayal scheme, because what would a Ninja Storm episode be without a little villain betrayal? And of course, it all wraps up with a big motocross race, because we didn’t get enough of motocross in the entire season all about motocross.

Gear

Dino Morphers

While Dinogems provide the power behind the Rangers, Dino Morphers are required to actually let them, you know, Morph. They also convert to fashionable bracelets that nobody seems to comment on. Also, Tommy’s Morpher requires a key to activate for some reason. Probably to unlock all his special powers.

+541 pts

Raptor Riders

The Rangers also have motorcycles this season, which are arguably faster than the Raptor Riders, but the Raptor Riders are just cooler, okay? And they hatch from eggs, so they’re at least partially alive and have feelings. You wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings, right?

+666 pts

Shield of Triumph

Normally, the Red Ranger is just special for no reason. And he is this time too, but he also has this shield that takes the powers of every other Ranger to activate and gives him all their special powers and even makes him a little bit multicolored in his Triassic Ranger form. Conner also gets an American-only Battlizer on top of the Triassic Form, but it has accordion stretchy arms and is very silly, so we’re not getting into that. Anyway, the Shield of Triumph’s Triassic Ranger form lets Conner warp the enemy into the Triassic Dimension or something and that’s pretty weird. Also this one time it’s Christmas inside the Triassic Dimension.16

-33 pts

Zords

Biozords

That’s right, these Zords are partly biological. Which I guess the Galactabeasts and Wildzords were also theoretically some kind of biological? But these specifically are Biozords, so it’s explicit here. They even hatch from eggs. Fun Fact: they were created by Tommy and Anton Mercer in the backstory, before Mercer turned all lizardy and evil. That never really becomes relevant, it’s just thrown in there so that Tommy and Mercer can have a history with each other that never really gets adequately explored.

The Biozords are fine. I wish there were more of them – I don’t think I’m ever going to be a fan of a three-part Megazord, especially with the mix-and-match auxiliary Zords. I just want my Megazords to be big and complicated, you know? Even if someone has to get stuck being one of the legs. The “biological” part is weird though, honestly. Especially considering that with the history of the series being that all of this is part of Tommy and Mercer’s experimentation. I have to assume that Mercer did a lot of the heavy lifting, because it’s not like Tommy ever really showed aptitude for any of the Zord-making that mostly fell to Alpha or Billy. I just prefer a more exceptional or fantastical origin to my Zords, you know?

Coolness of Dinosaur17

  1. Pteranodon – It flies, okay? I’m always going to pick the flying one. +381 pts
  2. Tyrannosaurus – Rar chomp chomp chomp +319 pts
  3. Triceratops – Is it weird to feel a little let down that these are all just the same dinosaurs from MMPR? +285 pts

Thundersaurus Megazord

Primary Weapon: Tyranno Tail/Pterarang/Tricera Fist

Finishing Move: Dino Drill – The Tyranno Tail becomes a huge spinning drill and… drills… the enemy! To death!

Total (group) score: +506 pts

Auxiliary Zords

Again with the auxiliary Zords that do a mix-and-match with the arms of the main Zords. I guess the Triceratops just goes off somewhere and chills while the Ankylosaurus comes in to save the day. Like I said, I’m not a fan of these kinds of Megazords. It just feels like a disappointment to have all of these other Zords hanging around, but they end up being “different kinds of arms” for the regular Megazord. The whole fun is the transforming and combining and you’re telling me that in this mode, the Megazord is basically the same configuration but now it doesn’t even have hands? Boo I say! Boo!

Coolness of Dinosaur

  1. Stegosaurus – You know the spiky tail thing Stegosauruses have is called the Thagomizer because of the Far Side comic? It’s not relevant to the show because the Stegozord becomes a surfboard for the Megazord. That’s cool too though. +612 pts
  2. Dimetrodon – Again with the not-a-dinosaur dinosaurs! They’re pretty cool though. And there’s a song about them! +586 pts
  3. Pachycephalosaurus – I don’t know about you, but their head-crown thing always kind of weirded me out. End of thought. +328 pts
  4. Parasaurolophus – For when you really need a giant pair of scissors I guess. +199 pts
  5. Ankylosaurus – It’s a drill! It’s a shield! It’s a drill and a shield! Which we already had both of in the regular Megazord but now it’s a combination, so… +58 pts

Score: +256 pts

Brachiozord

The Brachiozord doesn’t even participate in a Megazord! What is that even about! Anyway, it’s a Carrierzord, so all the other Zords get to live inside it or whatever. The one in the Japanese version could talk, so that’s what you’re missing out on.

Coolness of Dinosaur

Pretty darn cool!

Score: +515 pts

Dragozord

So despite being called the “Dragozord” which is confusingly similar to the Dragonzord, it’s actually based on the Tupuxuara, a large, crested, and toothless pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous period.18 Where does the “Drago” come from? Who knows? Nobody because it doesn’t come from anywhere as far as I can tell.

Coolness of Dinosaur

Ok look no one’s ever even heard of a Tupuxuara and you cannot convince me otherwise. And we already have a Pterosaur anyway!

DinoStegazord

Primary Weapon: Stego Stinger

Finishing Move: DinoStego Laser – It’s just a big ol’ laser fired from the DinoStegazord’s mouth.

The Dragozord can combine with the Stegozord to form a two-part Megazord just for Trent. Which technically means the Stegozord could be categorized separately from the other Auxiliary Zords, but there’s really no other place for it, so there you go.

Score: +762 pts

Valkasaurus Megazord

Primary Weapon: Mezodon Axes

Finishing Move: Surfing Axe Throw – The Megazord surfs down the tail and neck of the Brachiozord, then throws the Mezodon Megazord’s axes at the enemy to destroy it.

It really only happens once, but the Dragozord can latch onto the back of the regular Thundersaurus Megazord. Also the Stegozord is there as a surfboard.

Score: +808 pts

Mesodon & Triassic Megarover

Using the Shield of Triumph, Conner can pilot the Mezodon, a Zord based on the Styracosaurus, which also comes with the chariot-like Triassic Megarover. It’s all based on a Titanium Servo Mechanism, which is some kind of technobabble device that Hayley claims is a real thing. 

So it’s not enough for Conner to get two Special Red Ranger Power Ups this season, he also gets his own super-cool Megazord? I see what you’re doing, writers. I see it and I’ve got my eyes on you.

Coolness of Dinosaur & Chariot thing

  1. Styracosaurus – A whatosaurus? I mean, I guess I like that they’re bringing in some obscure dinosaurs this season, but… +102 pts
  2. Chariot Thing – Why is this even here? It’s not even a dinosaur! Dinosaurs didn’t have chariots! Except in my very specific alternate history fanfics! +3 pts

Mezodon Megazord

Primary Weapon: Rhamphorhynchus19 Hatchets

Finishing Move: Wheel Spin Attack -The Megazord spins its spiky shoulder wheel and shoulder rams the enemy. To death!

The Mezodon and its Chariot can combine up into its own little Megazord. I say “little” but it’s honestly pretty big and bulky looking. I’m just still salty that Conner gets a whole Megazord all to himself still.

Triceramax Megazord

Primary Weapon: Hatchet Staff 

Finishing Move: Turbo Fire – The Megazord fires cannon bolts from one hand while spinning the staff in the other hand and firing energy from that, too. It’s big and ‘splodey.

With all of the Auxiliary Zords, the Mezodon Megazord can transform into the Triceramax Megazord. Which is technically another Megazord, so actually Conner has two of his own Megazords! What!

Total (group) score: +105 pts

Total Score:

Mentors/Allies

Tommy Oliver

Tommy! Tommy’s back! As the mysterious new teacher at Reefside High, Doctor O, Tommy gets to mentor the new team of Rangers. But also he’s on the team as one of the Rangers. That’s kinda messed up, Tommy. What more is there to say about him that I haven’t already covered? Um… Oh! Fun Fact: Apparently along with creating the Zords, Tommy and Mercer also created the Tyrannodrones together. So that’s pretty wild, right?

+1437 pts!

Hayley Ziktor20

Hayley is Tommy’s assistant and confidant, as well as technical expert. While Tommy has a doctorate in Paleontology, Hayley is an expert in essentially everything else, from computers to engineering to Ranger Stuff. She developed the Rangers’ Morphers and Raptor Cycles, among other things. She also runs the local Cyber Juice Bar Equivalent, so she’s basically also like Ernie from Mighty Morphin’. Fun Fact: She was supposed to be revealed/implied to be a lesbian in the finale, but that didn’t actually happen because we can’t have anything nice.

+1000 pts!

Random Citizens Lightning Round!

Cassidy & Devin

Cassidy and Devin are the designated Civilian Comic Relief/Pathos characters, who are destined to always fail at everything. Cassidy wants to be a reporter and Devin is also there.

+200 pts

Kylee Styles

Kylee Styles is a famous pop star. You’ve heard of her, of course. She also used to be in a band with Kira, but she let fame get to her head and she sucks now.

+25 pts

Mr. Cormier

Mr Cormier is Kira’s boss at the TV station, who looks and acts a whole lot like Snapper Carr from the CBS/CW Supergirl show. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

+138 pts

Mr. O’Shaughnessy

Mr. O’Shaughnessy is a character on the Power Rangers TV Show. The fictional show-within-the-show, that is. He’s extremely Japanese-looking, but he has a comedy Irish accent for Reasons.21

+10000 pts

The Baddies

We actually have a refreshingly small villain team this season. After last season’s overwhelming plethora of villainy, it’s nice to have only three main villains for the majority of the season. 

The Big Bad: Mesogog – Mesozoic Menace

Ultimately, Mesogog is kind of a one-man show, villain-wise. Sure, he’s got minions, but they’re not exactly held highly in his respect, and they’re definitely not going to get much of a reward once his plans come to fruition. They get to live in Mesogog’s prehistoric wasteland! Hooray!…? Elsa at least has the excuse of being brainwashed, Zeltrax is just there because he’s got nowhere better to be after his horrifying accident. But for all that he doesn’t need his henchmen, Mesogog for sure earns his place at the top. He’s ruthless, and in contrast to Lothor from the previous season, there’s absolutely no comedy to him. Mesogog is driven and bloodthirsty and everyone is just trying to get by without invoking his ire. His relationship with Anton Mercer is an interesting one, too. We’re introduced to Mercer as this cold, uncaring, unfeeling businessman, but over time we start to see him through Trent’s eyes as this father figure who wants the best for his son but doesn’t understand Trent well enough to give that to him. Balanced against also wanting to protect his son from Mesogog and prepare him for when Mesogog overtakes him and Trent is left fatherless, we start to see the conflict between Mesogog and Mercer in a new light. Having Mercer as essentially a hostage in his own body adds a layer to this monstrous figure that really makes this season work. You know, Identity.

Mesogog is an incredible villain. He’s so unsettlingly menacing, so weirdly reptilian, so purely evil for the sake of enjoying being evil, it all just works. There is nothing funny or soft about him and he doesn’t care about anything other than his plan. There’s no ego to it, no grandiose posturing that isn’t backed up by sheer ruthlessness. The only mitigating factor to his evil ways is Mercer, quietly rebelling inside him and sabotaging him in the small ways that he is able. It’s a total turnaround in style of villain from what we’ve seen for a while and it’s fantastic.

Score: +8310 pts

Henches

Elsa

Elsa is the femme fatale of the season and she really pulls it off. She also moonlights as Principal Randall at Reefside High, because we needed an evil principal, I guess. Genre conventions, what can I say? She’s also somewhat of a scientist, running all sorts of plans and experiments for Mesogog. A real go-getter, if you ask me.

+500 pts

Zeltrax

Zeltrax, who used to be Tommy’s heretofore unseen friend Smitty before a horrible accident that led to Mesogog reconstructing him as Zeltrax, is the honorable knight style of villain. And boy, does he have a grudge against Tommy that he wants to settle in an honorable knight’s duel. He ultimately fails Mesogog and is nearly killeddestroyed, but comes back and rebels against Mesogog, returning a few times as an independent villain, and even destroying the main Zords in the finale.

+500 pts

White Ranger Clone

Once Trent turns good, Zeltrax uses Evil Science to create an evil clone of him, because we’re not out of Japanese evil Ranger footage to use yet. Ultimately though, having two entities using the White Ranger powers is too unstable22 and ultimately Trent and his clone are forced to face off in a battle to the destructiondeath to see who can wield the power.

+2 pts

Fodder

Tyrannodrones

Another American-only footsoldier monster, the Tyrannodrones are barely-altered Stingwingers who were supposedly created by Tommy and Mercer in part of their experimentation with dinosaur DNA. Seems kind of unethical honestly, but who am I to judge? I never got a doctorate in paleontology.

+104 pts

Triptoids

The Triptoids are enemies from Ethan’s video game Wizard Wood, brought to the real world by one of Mesogog’s monsters. They’re pretty classic Power Rangers monsters, running around and making bloobily noises. Which, of course, I love.

+596 pts

Monsters

Most of Mesogog’s monsters this season are created by the Geno-Randomizer, a machine that takes the DNA(?) of various things23 and randomizes24 them together to make weird mishmash combination creatures. And I love weird mishmash combination creatures.

Monsters That Are Good (According to Me)

Copyotter

Copyotter is a mix of a pepper, an otter, and a copying machine. Let that sink in. Okay, so Copyotter is able to use his copying machine arm to copy the Rangers’ weapons, which somehow makes him better than them. Also once he’s destroyed, Zeltrax uses his copy arm to copy Trent, creating the White Ranger clone.

Fridgia

Fridgia is a fictional ice queen in Trent’s favorite comic book artist’s new story, which he writes while possessed by an evil pen. The evil pen also sucks the Rangers into the story, where they have to fight Fridgia and lose, until Trent changes the ending using the magic evil pen.

Ruby Dragon

Ruby Dragon is the rarest, strongest card in a trading card game that Ethan and Devin become obsessed with. Elsa confiscates the card as Principal Randall and turns it into a monster, which is the kind of stupid, petty monster-making that I’ve been missing since Lord Zedd was still around.

Jupitor

Jupitor is a computer virus, but also he has Jupiter’s DNA or whatever. He’s supposed to infiltrate the TV station to use their transmitter to fire a beam that’s going to implode Jupiter, causing a chain reaction that somehow destroys(?) Earth. Amazing plan, no notes.

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:  1000 Pts 
    • Individual: I kind of love everybody this season. There really are no weak links. It probably helps that, you know, Tommy’s back! 800 tPts 
    • Together: The chemistry is great this season. Everyone just cares about each other so much, it’s touching. And the Breakfast Club parallels don’t hurt. 951 tPts 
    • Leader: Conner is actually surprisingly tolerable. Not the best Red Ranger, but certainly not the worst.25.450 tPts 
  • The Zords: 300 Pts
    • Individual: If this season has a weak point, it’s that the Zords are a little underwhelming. 250 zPts
    • Megazords: I have to say, Megazords are better when there are more Zords involved and this season just does not have that. 200 zPts
  • The Villains: 6700 Pts
    • Leader: Terrifying. Ruthless. Kind of elegant in his way. A fantastic villain. 8000 vPts
    • Henchmen: There aren’t many this time, but it works. 2000 vPts
    • Fodder: Kind of bland. Could have used the Triptoids more honestly. 100 vPts 
  • The Monsters: Weird mishmash combinations of things! 5000 Pts 
  • Story: Tommy’s back! And I guess other stuff is happening too. 4000 Pts 
Sudden Dramatic Points Right At The End: 

After a weak start with Ninja Storm, the Disney Era is finally firing on all cylinders this season. I really loved pretty much everything about this season. It’s an all-timer for sure. From the return of Tommy to an evil ranger plot that actually feels earned, to consistent theming – say it with me again: “Identity!” – it all just works really well. 

+2000 Pts!

After totaling 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 Dino Thunder: 24952 Power Points

Let’s see the rankings!

Power Rangers Seasons, Ranked

  1. Power Rangers in Space 26
  2. Power Rangers Dino Thunder: 24952 PPs!
  3. Power Rangers Time Force 27
  4. Power Rangers Zeo28
  5. Power Rangers Ninja Storm 29
  6. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy 30
  7. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 331
  8. Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers32
  9. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 233
  10. Power Rangers Turbo34
  11. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 135
  12. Power Rangers Wild Force36
  13. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue37

After a change in production that had the future of Power Rangers up in the air, Power Rangers Dino Thunder hits among the all-time greats. Whether it’s the nostalgia factor that Tommy brings or the return to form of the high school setting or just the general overall quality of everything it brought to the table, this is definitely a season worth watching. Which is bittersweet to note at a time when the future of the series is once again uncertain. Hasbro is currently auctioning off all of the warehoused Power Rangers props and costumes as I write this, and it’s a lot of stuff and a lot of feelings. Fortunately for you all, I’ve still got plenty more seasons of this show to get through, and the next one is going to take us all the way to the far-off future year of 2025! So be sure to come back next time for The One With The Spacecops (and Spacedog)!