The Power Ranger Team of the Millennium Aren’t Quite Fast Enough
Rangers Revisited is a feature where I, an adult, decide to sit down and watch a season of Power Rangers, a franchise which formed a significant part of my childhood. I’ll be reviewing each one in no particular order (other than the initial seven seasons) and finding both the positives and negatives, whilst being painfully aware of the fact that I am dedicating so much time and energy to what are basically extended advertisements for toys.
For the purposes of these reviews, I will be trying to avoid mentioning Super Sentai and instead focusing on Power Rangers on its own merits. Aspects such as costumes and most fight footage do come from the Sentai, so opinions related to those are technically geared towards the Japanese show rather than PR. I’ll still mention them though, since they are important parts of each season.
This review contains story spoilers.
Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue is the 8th season of the Power Rangers franchise, airing in 2000. It is an adaptation of the 23rd Super Sentai series, Kyukyu Sentai GoGoFive. It’s definitely the season that young me had the biggest connection to. By that I mean it’s the season from which I had the most toys. I had both Megazord and the Solar Zord, the figures that came with the big guns (that I used to bury in my sand pit) and a VHS tape of the first few episodes. I never did actually finish the entire show back then, though.
Those first few episodes were basically all I saw of it, so finally going back and finishing it has been a fresh experience. Revisiting what was, by default, my favourite childhood season as an adult has been an interesting time. Lightspeed Rescue has plenty to like about it, but also plenty of aspects that drag it down to a final result that doesn’t quite live up to the potential it sets itself up for.
The Premise
The premise of Lightspeed Rescue is certainly intriguing. For the past seven seasons, the villains have all been either aliens or robots, but this time around, they’re demons. Like, actual demonic demons. From hell. Who are this year’s heroes who stand against such a daunting foe? Emergency services. Yes, the forces of evil from the depths of hell itself are countered by a firefighter, a paramedic, a pilot, an extreme sports athlete and a lifeguard.
State Issued Morphers
Lightspeed Rescue was the first season to feature a team gaining their powers from a dedicated, state-funded organisation rather than some mystical or alien source. The Morphin Grid has always been something of an enigma that didn’t have many clearly defined rules. It’s a power system vague enough to just do whatever each season needed it to do, and Lightspeed Rescue was the first to delve further into that concept. This was proof that you didn’t need a space wizard or a sword pulled from a stone to be granted Ranger powers, an idea that would be further explored in later seasons with more home-grown teams.
These are the first Rangers to have helmets with a full-face visor without the mouthpieces, and it’s a sensible change given the context in-universe. These helmets are designed to be functional. Why would they need fake mouths on the front? The seasons after would go back to the mouth plates, making these ones seem even more unique in retrospect. The pattern on the torso reminds me of the Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil, which isn’t really a good or bad thing, but it’s just what comes to mind.
The Good Guys
The main team is comprised of Carter Grayson, Dana Mitchell, Joel Rawlings, Kelsey Winslow and Chad Lee as the red, pink, green, yellow, and blue Rangers, respectively. They’re a likeable enough bunch, but not the most developed characters. Each of them gets at least one episode to flesh them out a bit, to varying degrees of success.
Carter is the heroic leader who will not hesitate to leap into action regardless of his own safety. His predisposition towards putting himself at immediate risk to take out the bad guy is both inspirational and endearing, with examples such as:
- Simply running over a demon with the jeep before he’s even morphed
- Opting to use his blaster at most given opportunities, including at close range, at great risk of killing himself too
- Being immediately willing to seal himself in hell with the demons to save the rest of the world
Not Carter
Dana is the daughter of the team’s leader, Captain Mitchell. One episode sees her swept up in the world of fashion modelling, and she gets so caught up in it that her priorities get muddled up. The decision to have this episode take place so late in the season was an incredibly baffling one, to say the least.
Joel is a wisecracking cowboy who spends most of the show trying to seduce the team’s attractive tech expert. This could come across as annoying to some viewers due to how persistent he is, but personally, I thought it was serviceable and brought some fun comedic moments to the season.
Kelsey is energetic and sometimes clumsy. She has an episode where she bonds with her aloof grandmother, but unfortunately, there isn’t much to say about her.
Chad is a Zen master, disciplined and fully in tune with himself. One memorable episode sees a bully attempting to antagonise him to impress his girlfriend, and Chad simply takes the insults and feels nothing. When the bully tries to get physical, Chad embarrasses him so hard that they end up basically selling their soul to the demons to gain power and get revenge.
They all have their moments, but each practically end the season in the same place that they began it, minus Joel actually getting the girl. Unfortunately, only the male members of the team get power-ups while the females don’t get anything beyond their initial Morphers and Zords. Because boys won’t want to buy the toys of the girl Rangers, of course!
The Sixth Ranger
Later on, the team is joined by Ryan Mitchell, the Titanium Ranger. This marked the first-ever original Ranger that had no basis whatsoever in the Sentai season, and he makes a great first impression. His suit looks similar enough to the others, but with enough added bits to make him stand out more, as a Sixth Ranger should. He utterly demolishes the heroes in their first encounter.
Unfortunately, he falls victim to the ever-present “bad guy gets weaker when he joins the good guys” formula. This isn’t helped by the lack of footage of him fighting, since there was none to adapt, and the Power Rangers team could only film so much of their own original footage. The result was a good chunk of Ryan’s time spent just bumbling around in the desert and ancient ruins.
Supporting Cast
The heroic side of the cast is backed up by two members of Lightspeed Rescue: Captain Mitchell, who leads the team, and Miss Fairweather, the lead researcher developing all the tech. Captain Mitchell is the father of Dana and Ryan, and his relationship with the two is the source of some drama throughout the season. He’s a flawed character who fumbles a bit throughout the show, but this works well to humanise him. Though the mentor character typically exists to set a good example for the main team, it’s good to show that they are just as capable of making mistakes and aren’t just some advice and order-giving robot.
Miss Fairweather is the typical techie who makes and explains everything, and the ongoing ‘will they won’t they?’ between her and Joel is the source of some fun comedic moments. She’s clearly aware that he likes her because he has all the subtlety of a rhinoceros, and she spends the season toying with him. It does come across as quite mean-spirited at times, and you’d think that a person in such a professional position would be a bit firmer with her answers for him.
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