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Ranger Ranker! #14 – Power Rangers S.P.D.

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Ranger Ranker

The One With The Spacecops (and Spacedog)!

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow! It’s the far-off future year of 2025, and it’s time for another installment of Ranger Ranker!

Let’s Talk About the Future

As you may have gleaned, Power Rangers S.P.D. is set in the far-off future year of 2025. At the time, this was 20 years in the future from when it was airing, but in the way that time happens, we have now arrived in that supposed future year. That is just wild. Where are my alien-filled cities protected by spacecops, I ask you! All things considered though, apart from Space Patrol Delta itself, there’s not a lot that makes the world of S.P.D. particularly futuristic. Aliens have settled on Earth,1Later, in 2023, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury would establish that this is a result of Lord Zedd’s reign of terror causing alien refugees across the galaxy to settle on Earth in Newtech City, which only kind of fits with the backstory of S.P.D. of course, so that’s new, but we already have had aliens in Power Rangers. We’ve had spaceships and aquabases and everything and you’re trying to tell me that now all the weird technology is futuristic? So we have S.P.D. now, and they have advanced tech, but how much more advanced is it than your basic near-future sci-fi? And then, someone apparently decided that it’s not futuristic enough anyway, because we have a Ranger come back from the future future of 2040, and you can tell that he’s from the future because he comes with a cool one-wheeled motorcycle. Now that’s future-y. The future is in one-wheeled devices, you can quote me on that.

Going into the future is an interesting choice for a piece of fiction. It lets you explore a more complicated sci-fi setting while still remaining theoretically grounded in the “real world” and staying in the same continuity as other seasons. It gets a little unnecessary when you already have futuristic super-science – how different is the technology of S.P.D. really when compared to the advanced supertech of Lightspeed Rescue – but it does let you get a little bit more “out there.” So here we are in 2025, where the tech isn’t quite up to the level of the year 3000 from Time Force with its cryogenic shrinky containment, but still quite advanced, with a holodeck2Technically In Space also had a holodeck on the Astro Megaship, but it only used it like once or twice and containment cards and a whole building that turns into a Megazord. It’s a big departure from the more traditional/grounded high school setting of Dino Thunder.

Now, as far as the actual far-off future year of 2025, the one that we’re in now, we don’t have a hyper-militarized space police force with unnecessary amounts of unchecked power and technology. That would be ridiculous. I mean come one, it would have to be in space. Not that the Power Rangers of S.P.D. go into space all that often. As far as the Power Rangers franchise goes, the future is pretty up in the air. A deal was just announced between Hasbro and Paramount for a new film, which is promising, but no plans are in place for a proper Power Rangers series, which I feel is the place that the Power Rangers franchise belongs. I’m hopeful though that the film does well and can maybe lead to more Power Rangers media to follow. We’ll see, I guess. For now, let’s get into:

[radical futuristic guitar riff]

Adaptation

After Dino Thunder, producers Doug Sloan and Ann Austen left the series, to be replaced by Greg Aronowitz and Bruce Kalish, who brought a whole new feel to the series. S.P.D. is action-packed and sleek and futuristic, leaning more into genre than the previous few seasons and adopting a comic-book-y feel, complete with comic panel overlays flying around the screen like Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk film. The series struggled a little with Sentai footage, as at the start of the season, the production was only provided with the first quarter of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger on which it was to be based, when normally they would have had about half of the series. This made it difficult to plot out the series, and lead to what some fans would consider to be more filler-y episodes while the producers were trying to make plans based on the footage that they had available. In the end though, the series would use more Sentai footage overall than previous seasons had, but would put the budget saved by doing that into effects and stunts. Still though, budget constraints would make things difficult – the biggest consequence was that they couldn’t afford a real actor for the sixth Ranger, Omega Ranger, leading him to only appear in suit footage and as a CGI ball of light, then appearing unmorphed for about 5 seconds in the finale episode played3uncredited by one of the show’s makeup artists.

Plot

The Troobian Empire, led by Emperor Grumm, is cutting a swath of destruction across the galaxy, and Earth is the next planet in their sights. Space Patrol Delta sends its best squad of Power Rangers, the A-Squad, but when they vanish without a trace, Earth is left defended by the B-Squad, composed of three experienced S.P.D. recruits and two new recruits, Jack and Z, who until recently were Robin Hood-type criminals on the streets. The B-Squad is granted their Ranger powers in the A-Squad’s absence and must learn how to be Rangers on the fly. As Grumm advances on Earth, he sends alien criminals, mercenaries, and robots to attack Earth and the B-Squad Rangers and their Commander, Anubis “Doggie” Cruger, the lone survivor4Or is he? of one of Grumm’s past conquests, the planet Sirius.5Whether this is related to the star Sirius is up to interpretation. Cruger eventually steps into the fight and becomes the Shadow Ranger, though he only is able to help out in dire circumstances, with the B-Squad still serving as the primary defenders of Earth.

With Grumm’s threat growing, things look bleak for S.P.D., who discover a transmission from the future that seemingly foretells their downfall. However, they are aided in their darkest hour by help from the future that also received that message and came back in time to change the past and save the future, a plan that totally holds up to scrutiny and doesn’t serve as evidence that time travel plots ruin everything. This Force From the Future, Omega Ranger, turns out to be Sam, a young boy who the Rangers saved from Grumm in the present-day6(Our future), now7in the future-future grown up and somehow having acquired Ranger powers.

Ultimately, Grumm is revealed to have a secret master, Omni, who had been backing him the whole time. All of Grumm’s plans up until now had been in service of a secret agenda – to build Omni a new body, The Magnificence, which Omni would use to attack Earth and conquer it once and for all. The Rangers fight him off, defeating Grumm in the process, saving Earth and ending the Troobian threat once and for all. With Earth saved, Omega Ranger returns to the future with his partner, Nova, who comes back from the future as well in search of Omega, but she barely gets any screen time and doesn’t matter at all. Jack, the Red Ranger, also leaves S.P.D., choosing to go back to a civilian life where he can help people more directly through charity work. The remaining Rangers continue on as S.P.D. officers, with the Blue Ranger, Sky, getting promoted to Red Ranger, in another of the series’s acknowledgements that Red Rangers are just special and better than any other color.

+3025 pts

Music

With the shift into a more hard-hitting, action-packed, sci-fi genre, we get a shift towards more X-treme, rockin’ music, featuring more electric guitar and a generally edgier sound. The theme song reflects this, opening with shouts of “S.P.D. Emergency!” and a siren and some explosions as the series logo crashes to the ground around the camera. It’s honestly pretty rad. Unfortunately, there aren’t any fun musical sequences this season as we’ve seen in the past couple, despite the fact that Pink Ranger Syd is, among other things, a singer in her civilian life.8There’s a snippet of one of her songs used during an interrogation scene, but it’s pretty backgrounded and you don’t really get a good listen. Disappointing.

+6 pts

Fights

The fights, on the other hand, are even more action-packed than in past seasons. The camerawork is extremely dynamic, often speeding up and slowing down and spinning around the actors during their action sequences. Civilian superpowers are back again, though less focus is put on them than in the prior two seasons. In Ranger form, only Jack gets his own specialty weapon, because he’s the Red Ranger and he’s special. Everyone else gets these baton things that also transform into guns or knuckles or whatever. I’m not a huge fan of these to be honest – they’re kind of generic. Bring back weird animal-themed swords and stuff. Not the Armadillo Puck though, that sucked. Then there’s the major power-up of the season, S.W.A.T. Mode, which adds extra armor and gives everyone guns. Lots of guns. Just an overwhelming amount of guns. And while gunfights do give the opportunity for lots of big explosions and whatnot, they do not really make for dynamic action sequences, especially when all that extra armor really limits the amount of stunt work that can be done.

The Megazord fights are interesting this season in that most of the monsters don’t “grow” like in past seasons. Instead, the majority of the monsters fight in piloted robots provided by Broodwing which don’t necessarily match the aesthetic of the monster itself. This kind of breaks the formula of the fight escalation in the series, as the Megazord fight doesn’t really connect to the ground-level Ranger fight – it ends up feeling like part of an entirely different plotline. Plus, the giant enemy robot designs just don’t have as much character as the standard Power Rangers villain monster. It’s an interesting change-up, but ultimately one that I don’t feel contributes positively to the season.

+1020 pts

Miscellany

So, they’re cops. That’s… not great. In the first episode, Cruger adamantly insists that they are “not cops,” but they kind of are cops. Spacecops, to be sure, and they kind of function more as an Earth Defence Force type thing most of the time, but still… cops. On top of that, there’s this pseudo-military vibe that they’ve got going, which makes sense for the Earth Defense Force genre conventions, but not if they’re just Newtech City’s police force, which it seems like… they are? Sometimes? It’s actually really unclear what Space Patrol Delta’s purpose is. The opening narration states that they’re just supposed to be going after aliens, which is its whole own can of worms, but B-Squad’s first mission is just to bring in two human street thieves9who turn out to be part of a whole secret conspiracy and are destined to be Power Rangers, but still? At least when Time Force did it, they seemed to be somewhat aware that the whole Mutant Criminals thing had some weird implications, and you could kind of elide the whole thing by saying that they’re focused on Time-Travel-related crimes, which falls squarely within a sci-fi umbrella. I don’t know, it’s just a little disconcerting if you think about it too hard. Or at all.

Cumulative Score: 3561 pts!

The Good Guys

Say hello to the B-Squad. It is revealed that the B-Squad, including Sam, are the children of the scientists who originally worked on the S.P.D. morpher technology. The energy or radiation or whatever from the morpher research altered their DNA or whatever and resulted in their children, the future B-Squad, gaining their superhuman abilities. Nova is also somehow involved probably. Or maybe not, she doesn’t really get any explanation or justification for existing.

The Rangers

Jack Landors (Brandon Jay McLaren)  

The Lover. Power: Intangibility.

Jack is a kid from the streets. His parents were missionaries and he grew up poor on the streets, not even knowing when his birthday was. As a result, he has an interest in helping the poor and unfortunate. He starts the series as a Robin Hood-style thief along with Z, who steals clothes and supplies to redistribute to the needy. He’s brash and impulsive and a little bit full of himself, often letting the power and prestige of being Red Ranger go to his head. In the end, he retires from S.P.D. after defeating Grumm, choosing instead to go into charity work providing clothes to the needy. Full circle!

Sky Tate (Chris Violette)  

The Sharpshooter. Power: Shields.

Sky’s father was a Red Ranger in some unseen future-past. Or should that be past-future? Some time between the present10The 2005 present, not the 2025 present and the future11The 2025 future, not the present 2025 where S.P.D. exists but is using Time Force suits and tech somehow. In any case, Sky is afflicted with feelings of inadequacy, wanting to live up to his Father’s legacy as a Ranger, but not being given the chance, as Cruger overlooks him for the Red Ranger position in favor of Jack. Sky’s father also died in the line of duty, so he’s got that whole tragic backstory thing going for him. Sky is the by-the-book, super-serious, drill-sergeant type, who doesn’t know how to loosen up or have any fun. He’s also cyborg-racist, so that’s nice for him too I guess.

Bridge Carson (Matt Austin-Sadowski)  

The Weirdo. Power: Aura Reading.

Bridge is weird. In his own words, he “thinks his own thoughts in his own way.” In that way, he’s what one would now probably consider to be autistic-coded, in the way you would get a lot of in the mid-2000s with Numb3rs and Psych and whatnot. Your intuitive weirdos who do wacky things but also can figure things out before the “normies.” Honestly though, apart from the “isn’t he just so zany?” business they keep pulling with him, he’s actually a nice break from the otherwise stoic and serious S.P.D. organization. That’s kind of the problem with the seasons based around paramilitary organizations – you need outsiders who aren’t just stock military types who follow orders and do their job. Lost Galaxy lets half of the team be outside of the organization and Lightspeed Rescue accomplishes this by making all of the Rangers be new recruits. In S.P.D. you pretty much just have Bridge and his weird thing with buttery toast.

Z Delgado (Monica May)  

The Big Sister. Power: Duplication

Elizabeth, nicknamed “Z”, is the grounded cool one of the group. She starts the season on the streets with Jack, but wants to be a part of something “bigger” than just stealing clothes for the poor. She pretty much immediately joins in with S.P.D. when given the opportunity, in contrast to Jack who refused the call at first and only joins when Z and the others are in trouble. In her backstory, she was ostracized at school due to her superhuman special power, and ended up running away and being attacked by an alien monster. She was saved by a mysterious cloaked figure, who ends up being Cruger in hiding, watching over her due to his past relationship with her parents.12 Interestingly, there were aliens at the school with her, implying a past where aliens and humans live together that is not supported by the future retcon of aliens arriving on Earth in 2024 during Cosmic Fury, but could potentially be explained (along with other inconsistencies) by taking place on a human space colony like KO-35 and Z later moving to Earth.

Syd Drew (Alycia Armstrong)13née Purrott)  

The Rich Girl. Power: Self-Transmutation

Syd is spoiled and rich. But also somehow famous? It’s never really explained. Anyway, Syd fills the “girly-girl” Pink Ranger archetype in the team. Her special power is much more complicated compared to the other Rangers’ more straightforward powers – she can absorb a material’s properties into her fist, giving her increased strength and durability. It’s actually pretty intriguing, and could make for interesting utility in a series that was more inclined to do anything fun with it instead of just being a more complicated version of super-strength.

Doggie Cruger (John Tui)  

Spacedog! Power: Swordsmanship

Doggie Cruger is the last14OR IS HE? surviving Sirian after Grumm and General Benang wiped out his entire planet in the backstory. He’s so tormented and tragic! But also noble and commanding! As the Commander of S.P.D. on Earth, he reports to the Supreme Commander of S.P.D., Fowler Birdie15Who is a bird. Get it?. He is incredibly skilled with a sword, morphed and unmorphed, and he becomes the Shadow Ranger in order to better protect Earth alongside B-Squad. He doesn’t want B-Squad to rely too much on him, however, and only steps in when absolutely necessary. Also, he’s soooooooooooo cooooooooool.

Sam (Brett Stewart16Voice-only. Played unmorphed onscreen for like 3 seconds by Kevin Dufty, a makeup artist on the show.)  

Force from the Future. Power: Is a ball of light.17Also teleportation I guess

Sam is a child during the time of S.P.D., orphaned at a young age and rescued by Z from the monster Bugglesworth and brought in to live at S.P.D. In the future, he somehow becomes a Ranger and somehow travels back in time through a time portal to aid the Rangers, averting his dark future where the Rangers fall in battle. Due to… time… stuff… he isn’t able to unmorph and sometimes turns into a ball of light. He never interacts with his past self because time travel rules and also working with child actors is sooooooo complicated. Also he basically gets no development or interesting character traits.

Nova (Antonia Prebble18Voice-only. Played unmorphed onscreen for like 3 seconds by Naomi Alice Marsh, the show’s script supervisor.)  

Also Appears. Power: ???

She’s Sam’s teammate and she comes back from the future to help him in the finale and that’s literally everything about her.

The Team

I really like the suits this season. They’re futuristic-looking, and the sirens and lights in the helmet are a nice touch for a police-themed team. The number motifs are unique and stylish, too. I like the asymmetry of the numbers on the one side, and Cruger’s number being 100 is a really clever twist. That said, Sam’s switch to the roman numeral “VI” is kind of lame and his suit doesn’t really stylistically match as well as I would like, and the less said about Nova is probably for the better. The S.W.A.T. Mode suits are also kind of a let-down. It’s just a bunch of techy junk pasted on top of the suit and it gives up the stylized numbers in favor of just blocky plain versions of the number.

Team chemistry is at an all-time high this season. The team fits really well together and what conflict they do have, mainly between Jack and Sky, makes sense for the characters and works within the story. Plus, when it really comes down to it, everyone has each others’ backs. There’s a professionalism to the team that comes with the setting – everyone works together like a well-oiled machine because it’s their job, unlike teams that are put together by circumstance. As much as I have against the paramilitary organization conceit of the season, it really does a lot of good for the team dynamic.

Ranger Ranker:

  1. Cruger– Sooooooooooooo coooooooooooooool. +3100 pts
  2. Bridge – I like a weirdo, what can I say. He’s the one who stands out against the otherwise straight-laced professionalism of the season. +2903 pts
  3. Z – She hits all the right notes of being cool, caring, and competent. And probably other words that also begin with C, what can I say? +2004 pts
  4. Syd– What is she even doing in S.P.D.? How did she get here in the first place? It’s a mystery that the show is not at all interested in exploring. +1505 pts
  5. Sky– Sky needs to chill out, but at least he gets some development over the course of the series. He goes from straight-laced woman-hater to straight-laced acceptor of whatever Cruger tells him to do. +1202 pts
  6. Jack – He’s not an idiot, but you wouldn’t know that from… anything about him. +1001 pts
  7. Sam – He basically doesn’t have a personality. He barely has a face. +6 pts.
  8. Nova – Somehow even less developed than Sam. +0 pts

The team is a lot of fun, but I have so many questions about everyone. Well, except Sky, he’s basically an open book. But how did Bridge and Syd end up at S.P.D.? Why doesn’t Jack know his birthday? How did Jack and Z end up on the streets? What’s the deal with everyone’s parents being part of a secret program? Has Cruger really just been keeping tabs on everyone since before they were born? That seems like a lot of effort to just go and not intervene ever19Except the one time with Z The season opens up so many potentially interesting avenues and hooks and then does absolutely nothing with any of them.

“S.P.D. Emergency!”

For some reason the morph sequence this season involves each ranger being flung backwards as their suits materialize around them. I feel like this throws off the momentum of the morph sequence somehow. Things should always be moving forward! Forward! Forward is the direction of excitement! I do like the way that Cruger’s morph sequence starts with him dramatically flinging away his coat though. That’s how you create excitement and momentum. Also for obvious reasons, Sam and Nova don’t get a morph sequence and thats… fine. Just… fine. *sigh*

Overall Team Score: 4193 pts!

With Special Guest Rangers…

Dino Thunder Rangers

Time travel! For unclear reasons, Broodwing seems to think that bringing the three main Dino Thunder Rangers into the future and turning them evil is a good plan. This immediately fails, to no one’s surprise. We already did the Evil Brainwashed Rangers Fight Then Team Up thing last season, after all. The Rangers all get to team up and fight a bunch of Krybots before getting sent back to the past with their memories wiped. Then later, a Time Wormhole opens up to the past, but earlier in the past than when the Rangers got pulled from the other time, so it’s before they went to the future and had their memories wiped. Time Travel logic is very messy. Anyway, the S.P.D. Rangers go to the past and stop a team up between Grumm and Zeltrax with the help of all five of the Dino Thunder Rangers this time.20Tommy is there, but only appears morphed and isn’t voiced by Jason David Frank due to budget cuts. Instead Jeffrey Parazzo (Trent’s actor) is doing his best JDF impression Then literally everybody’s memory gets wiped. Except, weirdly, Tommy.21Due to those budget cuts, he’s not in the scene at the time of the memory wipe. Sam isn’t either (due to the same budget cuts), but who cares about him anyway.

Gear

R.I.C

R.I.C. stands for “Robotic Interactive Canine” and starts out the series as a weird buggy robot dog that makes random animal noises, but is soon upgraded to make proper doggy noises and also be a cannon. R.I.C. functions as the team-up cannon for most of the season and is able to combine with the Rangers’ containment cards to trap monsters after being judged “guilty” by the Rangers’ Patrol Morphers. He is also the goodest boy.

+500 pts

One-Hour Morpher

When Kat’s old colleague goes rogue, it’s up to her to stop him using a special One-Hour Morpher given to her by Supreme Commander Birdy. With it, she becomes the S.P.D. Kat Ranger for, you guessed it, One Hour. Fun Fact, in the Japanese Sentai footage, the character is swan-themed and gets Swan Powers instead of Cat Powers, but honestly the suit looks catlike enough that it all just kind of works out anyway.

+600 pts

S.P.D. Battlizer

Because, once again, Red Rangers Are Special, there is of course a special upgrade that only works with the Red Ranger powers. This time, the battlizer has two modes – the first that just has a sword and some cool boots and shoulderpads, and the full armored mode that for some reason also incorporates R.I.C. and is used for the big finishing move.

+10 pts

S.W.A.T. Mode

In S.W.A.T. Mode, the Rangers get chest armor and earpieces and big big guns. Like, unnecessarily big guns. I hope you like guns because now that’s all they do.

-50 pts

Uniforce Cycle

Futuristic One-Wheeled Device! It’s like a motorcycle, but from the future, so it only has one big wheel and is actually pretty cool. Too bad it’s wasted on Sam.

+555 pts

Zords

Delta Runners

Finally we’re back to a five-Zord Megazord after these seasons of three-Zord formations. And it’s a stand-alone formation too, no mini-Zords or Auxiliary Zords or swapping out arms and legs and whatnot. A classic. The Delta Megazord is more maneuverable than most Zords we’ve seen. Its signature move is a leaping diveroll while shooting its gun that would make any action movie director happy. It also has a sword, but really the gun is what we’re all here for. In keeping with the police theme, it’s got lights and sirens all over its body. It’s even got cool gadgets, like Shrink Cuffs that it can use to shrink monsters, although most of the monsters this season are in giant robots instead of being Made Grow, so those don’t come in as handy as you might think.

This is a great Megazord. It’s just so athletic and jumpy without being Too Much. You still have a sense of weight to it when it does that diveroll. I also love that the weapons are built into the Zords that make it up, launching from holsters on its feet. It’s just all around a fun design with a great silhouette.

Coolness of Vehicle

  1. Delta Runner 5 (Sign)– A big sign comes out of it and tells you which way to go! Great power, no notes. +500 pts
  2. Delta Runner 2 (Gyrocopter) – It’s the only one of the runners that really has a unique look to it. + 482 pts
  3. Delta Runner 3 (Trailer Truck) – It’s got the Super Crime Scene Tape that it uses to tie up monsters, just like real life crime scene tape. +454 pts
  4. Delta Runner 1 (Car) – It’s just a car. I do like its grabby hands though. And it can attach a big sword to its side and do side wheelies at monsters, so that’s fun. +398 pts
  5. Delta Runner 4 (Armored Car) – I dunno, it’s got big lights on it? +10 pts.

Delta Squad Megazord

Primary Weapon: Delta Blaster/Delta Sword

Finishing Move: Delta Blaster Fire – The Megazord shoots them with the Delta Blaster. A lot.

Total (group) score: +755 pts

Omegamax Cycle

You know what’s great? When giant robots get to RIDE SOMETHING. We’ve had Surfing Megazord, which was fine and all, but we really really needed Megazord on Motorbike and now here it is. Sure, the Omegamax Cycle can turn into its own stand-alone Megazord, but who cares about that when you instead could have Giant Motorcycle for no reason.

Coolness of Giant Motorcycle

So. Cool. Yes. Giant Robots Riding Things Forever. +1000 pts

Omegamax Megazord

This is the Omegamax Megazord’s standalone mode, and it’s got a big wheel in its chest because motorcycles I guess. It’s got cool wrist blades and it spins real fast.

Score: +250 pts

Delta Max Megazord

Can I just say that the helmet is stupid looking? That’s all, I’m too distracted by that helmet.

Score: +103 pts

Total Score:

S.W.A.T. Fliers

With the S.W.A.T. Fliers, like the Time Fliers, we’re back to another Generic Plane (Plain) Megazord. Pretty boring to be honest. Ok, this one does have an alt mode where it turns into a giant gun, so that’s new and fun and different at least. There’s no real reason for it to be a gun – no one ever holds it like one, so it’s just gun shaped for the aesthetic I guess. But I bet it made a really cool toy.

Coolness of Flier

1-5. The S.W.A.T. Fliers are all exactly the same and you cannot convince me otherwise. +5 pts

S.W.A.T. Megazord

Primary Weapon: S.W.A.T. Blasters

Finishing Move: Confinement Blast – The S.W.A.T. Megazord flies the enemy into space, then turns into a giant gun and uses the S.W.A.T. Enforcers’ confinement mode to blow them up (into a confinement card)

Total (group) score: +534 pts

Delta Command Crawler

The Delta Command Crawler is the Megazord formed by the transformation of the S.P.D. Delta Base. That’s right, the whole building becomes a Megazord, with people inside and everything. And it’s not just a regular Megazord, it’s HUGE. We haven’t had a giant Megazord since Lightspeed Rescue’s Supertrain Megazord and I am Here For It. Is it a massive logistical hazard to send your base of operations with all your human and other resources inside of it into battle? Yes. Is it totally freaking cool? Also yes. Overridingly so.

Coolness of Building

Yessssssss, more buildings that turn into giant robots please. I don’t care how much of a safety hazard this is. Strap all your personal belongings into your desk because that building is becoming a robot right now.

Delta Command Megazord

Primary Weapon: Finger Guns

Finishing Move: Full Power – The chestplate of the Megazord fires a giant laser that obliterates the enemy.

Total (group) score: +808 pts

Mentors/Allies

Anubis “Doggie” Cruger

Commander Anubis Cruger, nicknamed “Doggie”, is the head of S.P.D. on Earth and is the Rangers’ immediate superior officer. He survived Grumm’s attack on his home planet Sirius and is believed to be the last surviving Sirian in the galaxy, which is pretty heavy to be honest. In case it wasn’t obvious, he’s a dog alien. He’s noble and stoic, and everybody respects him because he’s so cool and dark and tragic. He’s basically the platonic ideal of a mentor.

+100,000 pts

Kat Manx

Kat is the head of the science division and Cruger’s de facto second-in-command. She and Cruger have a history and she’s one of the few people that Cruger respects unconditionally. Oh, and she’s a cat alien. Get it? Cats and dogs? Whatever. As an alien, she also ages slowly and is actually 147 (Earth) years old. A brilliant technologist, she’s the creator of most of the Ranger’s gear and special power-ups, having worked with the Rangers’ parents to create the original S.P.D. Morpher technology.

+6000 pts

Random Citizens Lightning Round!

Piggy

Piggy is a slimy,22Often literally underhanded lowlife from the streets that Jack and Z know. He wins the lottery and starts an alien café frequented by criminals and is S.P.D.’s go-to informant despite being incredibly unreliable and betraying them on multiple occasions. He may or may not have a heart of gold underneath it all though? But if he did, he’d probably sell it for cash.

+1 pt

Baskin the Keeper

He’s the ancient guardian of The Evil, an evil Rock that is said to have been a piece of Hades itself. He hides in plain sight in Ye Olde Bookstore keeping the rock safe from any who would use its powers for Evil. After he inevitably fails at this, he moves to New Zealand.23*wink* Also, he knows Bonetti’s Defense, which I’m pretty sure is a Princess Bride reference.

+500 pts

Professor Cerebros

We never actually meet Professor Cerebros because he’s been replaced by a monster that wants to use Cerebros’s position to crash an asteroid into Earth. The Rangers demand answers as to what happened to Cerebros once, but never follow up on it. Where’s Professor Cerebros? The people24Me, I’m the people demand answers!

+25 pts

Felix

Felix is the S.P.D. Medical Officer and he’s also a cat alien. A cat! Named Felix! Get it???? When the B-Squad is injured, he tries to keep them from running off and getting into fights, but no one listens to Felix.

+65 pts

The Baddies

Nominally, the villains of the season are the Troobian Empire. However, we only ever actually see one Troobian: Emperor Grumm himself. The rest of the villains we see are all aliens and mercenaries. I don’t have a particular problem or point here, it’s just pretty weird, right?

The Big Bad: Emperor Grumm – Troobian Emperor

Emperor Grumm, who visually reminds me of the bonehead minions from the new MST3K, is a conqueror. He is first seen destroying an entire planet, having drained it of all useful resources and value. And it’s implied that he’s done this to countless galaxies and planets across the universe. He made it personal when he attacked the planet Sirius, home to Commander Anubis Cruger, who opposed him with a team of his own. Cruger made a brave go of it, even facing Grumm, himself, in battle and breaking off one of Grumm’s horns. Ultimately though, Cruger fell and lost everything to Grumm. Now, Grumm is set to attack Earth next, defended by Cruger as Commander of S.P.D.’s Earth base. Grumm is willing to take out all the stops in his conquest of Earth, paying huge sums of whatever space-money he has to Broodwing to hire monsters and robots to attack Earth and its Ranger defenders. However, Grumm secretly serves a hidden master, and all of his plans ultimately converge on accomplishing that master’s true goals.

Grumm comes into the series with a massive reputation. He’s evil among evil, he’s powerful, he destroys worlds, and he’s tied into Cruger’s backstory for that additional, personal touch. The trouble is, he doesn’t exactly live up to that reputation. He’s angry all the time, which detracts from his screen presence and makes him feel ineffectual, and the few times he’s drawn into combat, his bark is a lot worse than his bite. On top of all of that, he keeps getting into these psychic screaming matches with Omni berating him for all of his failures, which just puts more emphasis on how much he’s failing. He doesn’t even get to be shown as a great leader because there aren’t ever any Troobians around for him to be leading. He’s an emperor of, effectively, nobody.

Score: +1000 pts

The Bigger Bad: Omni – The Magnificence

Omni is a big creepy brain thing. He’s super gross! He has a big eye on a stalk and is legitimately a very disturbing design. And it turns out that all of Grumm’s work up until now has been to bring about “The Magnificence,” the building of a huge body to house Omni. This giant monstrosity dwarfs the Megazord in a manner never seen before, and it’s honestly quite impressive. Ultimately though, Omni’s true purpose remains kind of a mystery – he’s never given any real characterization or motivation past “is spooky and mysterious” but maybe when you’re a big creepy brain, that’s enough.

Score: +500 pts

Henches

Mora/Morgana

We first see Mora as a young girl playing tea with her dolls, but she’s clearly shown to be evil beyond her years. It’s implied that something strange is going on with her, but it’s not until well into the season that it’s revealed that Grumm has done something to her to give her that innocent, youthful appearance. Grumm revokes his gift and Mora is turned back into her original form of Morgana, an adult woman who is disgusted by her fully-grown form and wishes only to be turned back into a child. In either form, she has the ability to create monsters by drawing them on a sketchpad and then releasing them from the page to cause havoc. 

+2000 pts

Broodwing

Broodwing is a bat alien with a giant fishbowl on his head for some reason. He’s a mercenary and arms-dealer working with Grumm for his money, providing robots and monsters for low, low prices. Ultimately, Grumm tires of paying good money for monsters who inevitably get defeated by the Rangers and stops paying Broodwing, who turns on Grumm and decides to go it alone, trying to defeat the Rangers himself and take out Grumm in the process. Villain treachery! Sudden but inevitable betrayals! You love to see it.

+450 pts

Fodder

Krybots

The Krybots are some of Broodwing’s minions, and they come in three varieties – regular, blue-head, and orange-head. As minions go, the regular variety is your standard robot, complete with silly repetitive robot movements. The blue- and orange-headed varieties though, are very interesting for minions in that they are much stronger and act more like proper monsters in their own rights – they’re more fluid and lifelike in their movements, and they even talk sometimes. These are minions with some pep to them, that’s for sure.

+500 pts

Monsters

The monsters of this season are pretty much all alien criminals. Some are recruited by Grumm directly, and some are hired out by Broodwing. A bunch of them are drawings brought to life by Mora/Morgana, which is a fun dynamic that’s definitely not done better in Saban’s other Americanized tokusatsu show, Big Bad Beetleborgs.

Monsters That Are Good (According to Me)

Mysticon

Mysticon is a terrible street magician, but Morgana gifts him a real wand that can do actual magic and sends him off to wreak havoc. He even manages to hypnotize Syd, although for some reason the hypnosis breaks when she morphs.

Mirloc

Unusually for this show, Mirloc has actually killed people. Notably among his victims is Sky’s father, who was a Ranger before him. Mirloc has the ability to travel through reflections and capture people in infinite mirror traps. He’s also extremely hard core.

Katana

Katana isn’t really a villain, per se – he’s manipulated into fighting the Rangers by Broodwing under false pretenses. He’s actually the first alien samurai from Kyoto, having crash-landed there in the past and learning the way of the samurai, then being sent into the future by a time wormhole. There’s a lot of time travel in this season, it turns out.

Icthior

Icthior is a fish alien and was once a comrade of Commander Cruger in his days as an S.P.D. recruit. He’s a master swordsman like Cruger and wields the Ocean Saber, a counterpart to Cruger’s own Shadow Saber. He ends up getting expelled from S.P.D. Academy for being a bad guy and swears his eternal revenge on Cruger. As one does.

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.

Sudden Dramatic Points Right At The End:

This season really feels like it introduces a lot of interesting concepts and questions and mysteries and then does absolutely nothing with them. I can picture a better version of this season that’s more tightly written and plotted and plays with S.P.D.’s secret history and the origin of the Rangers in a more interesting way and gives the villains a little more toothsome characterization other than just being in Cruger’s tragic backstory. I love Cruger and everything, but Grumm should be more than Cruger’s nemesis. Mora’s creepy child thing is great, and I’d love to see more of that, but instead she gets brainwashed by Omni and is basically bland-ified for the latter part of the season. I think this is a really strong season that just needed a little more “oomph” to push it over the edge into a great season. 

+25 pts

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 S.P.D.: 17999 Power Points!

Let’s see the rankings!

Power Rangers Seasons, Ranked

  1. Power Rangers in Space2525,000 PPs
  2. Power Rangers Dino Thunder2624,952 PPs
  3. Power Rangers Time Force2724,859 PPs
  4. Power Rangers Zeo2819,096 PPs
  5. Power Rangers S.P.D.: 17,999 PPs!
  6. Power Rangers Ninja Storm2917,207 PPs
  7. Power Rangers Lost Galaxy3014,212 PPs
  8. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 33113,097 PPs
  9. Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers3213,001 PPs
  10. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 23312,198 PPs
  11. Power Rangers Turbo3410,519 PPs
  12. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Season 13510,518 PPs
  13. Power Rangers Wild Force3610,377 PPs!
  14. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue3710,248 PPs

S.P.D. is definitely in the upper tier of seasons, but only barely. I’d love for it to have done better, but it just felt like something essential was missing. But as always, it’s time to keep moving on, as things do in the world of Power Rangers. Things are looking a little bit up for the future, as we’ve got talks of a new movie in the works. Personally, I’d prefer a new tv season to a new movie, but I’ll take what I can get with the state that Hasbro’s entertainment arm is in these days. Meanwhile, I’ll be watching the next season of Power Rangers and ranking it, so be sure to come back next time for: The One With the Capes!

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