The sixth season of Power Rangers, adapted from Denji Sentai Megaranger. Managing to save the series from cancellation, this is frequently cited as one of the best, if not the best, seasons of the franchise. For the first time, the series introduced a heavily serialized plot that built from episode to episode, featuring strong themes, characterizations and coming to an epic climax that gives a degree of finality to the previous six seasons. It also eschewed the Black and White Morality that was prominent in previous seasons by featuring morally conflicted heroes and sympathetic villains, also including three reunion episodes and plenty of cameos that kept the continuity extremely tight.At the end of Power Rangers Turbo, the Power Rangers were defeated and Zordon captured by the United Alliance of Evil. However, following one of the contingency plans set down by Zordon before his capture, the Rangers make their way into space and (by chance) meet up with Andros, a lone Red Ranger determined to stop the U.A.E and rescue his missing sister. The former Rangers convince him of their worth and join forces as the new Space Rangers.Standing against them is Astronema, a Dark Action Girl agent of the U.A.E. sent to Earth to finish the job that Divatox started. With her is her Noble Demonsecond-in-command Ecliptor, the titularPsycho Rangers and Card-Carrying Villain Darkonda. Meanwhile, the supreme leader of the U.A.E. and Big Bad of the Power Rangers universe, Dark Specter, is plotting to siphon Zordon's power to stage his final conquest on the galaxy, making it a race against time to rescue him before the universe is doomed.The climax of six years' worth of plot and villains, the series was a phenomenal hit and restored faith in Power Rangers. With the resolution of the ongoing plot, the slate had to be wiped clean for Power Rangers Lost Galaxy as the staff and viewers went on to a new adventure for the most part unrelated to the events of the prior series.
Chest Insignia: Team logos - three triangles arranged as a rectangle - on the belts. There were also personal symbols on the helmet forehead, but they were only visible when they lit up.
The helmet insignias tended not to be shown, as they were pieces of technology like computers or phones, an Artifact left over from the tech-based Megaranger.
City of Adventure: Angel Grove, though the Rangers also traveled all over the galaxy.
Law of Chromatic Superiority: Aside from the usual "Red Ranger gets everything" factor, this was the show that introduced the Battlizer and all other subsequent powered-up Red Rangers.
Monster of the Week: Vaguely defined "aliens" that don't seem to share any singular origin. In fact, it's rarely even mentioned where they come from, simply appearing when the plot calls for it, and only occasionally being interviewed by Astronema before being sent. This is especially jarring, given how many of said monsters are based on Earth animals.
Never Say "Die": Subverted and/or averted depending on the episode. Specifically, see Infant Immortality. And while the word was never stated, there is no question what happened to Zordon.
Actually, in the Infant Immortality subversion, the doctor Carlos and Ashely meet explicitly says that Silvy's brother "died a couple months ago". So it's actually averted in this particular case.
Recycled IN SPACE!: Subverted quite a bit despite the title; as the move to outer space brought a number of format changes.
Super Mode: This season was the first to introduce the "Battlizer" Red Ranger upgrade, which has continued to almost all following seasons (surprisingly this is an American creation, Megaranger had the Battlizer gadget, but it didn't have a Super Mode function). Interestingly, Megaranger actually had a team Super Mode in the Non-Serial Movie, where the core five donned golden torso armor, but this was not brought over to Power Rangers.
Added Alliterative Appeal: The Rangers' weapons: Lunar Lance, Spiral Saber, Astro Axe, Satellite Stunner, Star Slinger and Super Silverizer.
Also the Galaxy Gliders.
Anti-Villain: Ecliptor is quite possibly the most likeable villain in the history of Power Rangers. As it turns out he's noble and only does what he does because he's incredibly loyal to Astronema (almost like a father to her). When Astronema breaks out of her initial brainwashing and tries to become good, Ecliptor tries to join her, but they're both put under heavier brainwashing afterwards, but he remains as loyal as ever to her.
Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: The Turbo Rangers get ready to return to Earth, but fail to realize that they left Alpha on the Astro Megaship.
The Artifact: Two are carried over from Megaranger: logos with the acronym I.N.E.T. show up in episode 2 and in the hangar for the Mega V zords. It stands for "International Network of Excel-Science and Technology" who were the organization behind the creation of the Rangers' suits, weapons and mecha in Megaranger. It is subverted however: where NASADA in Megaranger was only the name of the base INET used to build and launch the Mega Shuttle; it was converted in PR to serve as a full NASA expy.
Baby Carriage: in "Silence Is Golden", with the added complication of the Psychos tracking the Rangers by their voices. Cassie can't shout a warning without endangering herself, but can't get to the carriage on foot in time either.
The Beard: "Grandma Matchmaker" in which Ashley asks Carlos to pretend to be her boyfriend in order to get her granny to stop smothering her.
Big Damn Heroes: Justin and Storm Blaster drive through the door of a warehouse to free the Rangers, who are seconds from eating the business end of the Monster of the Week's cannon.
Bulk and Skull of all people do this in the finale.
Bittersweet Ending: In the end, almost every villain has been eradicated or purged of evil, and Karone is back to normal, this time for good, and reunited with her brother. It seems that for the first time, the galaxy may have earned a respite from evil. Sadly... As great a victory as this was, it cost Zordon his life.
Adam Park, briefly, in the episode "Always A Chance." He becomes the Black Power Ranger one last time, using his original Power Morpher (the one damaged when Rito destroyed the Thunderzords) in spite of Alpha 6's warning that morphing could kill him. To fans' delight, he first declares that it's Morphing Time, morpher in hand, and then calls out "MASTODON!"
Justin Stewart, as well, in "True Blue to the Rescue." Storm Blaster had a morpher in his glove compartment. Although, unlike Adam, he wasn't actually seen morphing.
Cerebus Syndrome: The premise of the season is that Zordon has been captured by the Legion of Doom and is slowly dying, with the Rangers desperately trying to rescue him before it's too late. Not only do the Rangers utterly fail to save him, the Red Ranger is actually forced to kill him in the Grand Finale. Yikes.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Happens to Lt. Stone and the Juice Bar; replaced by Adelle and the Surf Spot
Color-Coded Characters: Defied during the Story Arc with the Psycho Rangers, T.J. figured that by homogenizing all their colors and uniforms they could confuse the Psycho Rangers enough to get an advantage (the Psychos had developed themselves to be the rival to their color counterpart, while individually they are pretty powerful their obsession with their counterpart made the costume/color switch unbearable).
This specific color combination (red/black/blue/yellow/pink) won't appear again until Operation Overdrive.
And the Delta. And the Mega Winger. Lots of cool ships to go around.
Covers Always Lie: The cover◊ for the VHS release of the Psycho Rangers arc is only titled by the season name, and it claims to be "An All-New Feature-Length Movie!", when in reality they're just 5 individual episodes that cover one story arc. Nowhere else is it advertised as a movie.
Crash into Hello: Astronema and Zhane have one on Earth. It's unusual because it's not their first meeting but Zhane doesn't know recognize her becsause is in normal clothes with her natural hair.
Crisis Crossover: when the very first episode involves a meeting between every major villain from the past five seasons (plus more!), you know this trope is in play.
Cute Mute: "Silence is Golden" basically turned Cassie into this.
Darker and Edgier: While the season in general was darker because of the whole Legion of Doom rising, the more mundane Earth-bound stories were also more mature and adult. In an early episode, Andros "befriended" a criminal and naively helped him with a car theft, where no prior season had set up an outright bad human character.
This series was a trendsetter where the darker, less kid-friendly mood/themes are concerned. The trend has endured in nearly every season afterward...even after Disney took over the franchise.
Death Glare: Astronema gives Elgar this when, after she takes credit for the destruction of the Psycho Rangers and stopping them from draining Dark Specter's power ( in reality having created the Psychos specifically to do exactly that), he points out that technically the Power Rangers were responsible for destroying the Psychos.
End of an Age: To the Zordon-era. "Countdown to Destruction" shows us why.
Establishing Character Moment: Andros infiltrated an Alliance meeting in the first episode, was discovered and had to fight his way out. That's how you introduce a character. It also serves as an effective introduction to the new tone of the series.
Flatline: In "Survival of the Silver", the EKG attached to Zhane's cryogenic chamber flatlines while the Rangers are battling a group of hooded aliens. It's subverted as shortly afterwards, not only do the jagged lines restart, but the cryogenic chamber also opens and Zhane turns out to be alive and well.
Foreshadowing: While introducing himself to Astronema, Darkonda mentions that he met her once, but Astronema doesn't remember meeting him. Darkonda "met" Karone/Astronema when he kidnapped her.
Gondor Calls for Aid: Not technically, but in the Grand Finale, it shows all previous (still operating) Rangers and groups trying to resist the Alliance of Evil.
Gone Horribly Right: Dark Specter had Astronema brainwashed back to evil after her first Heel Face Turn. It worked a little too well and she became The Starscream, plotting to destroy him.
Go Out with a Smile: In "Countdown to Destruction," Bulk and Skull led the civilians into the fray alongside the Power Rangers knowing full well that this might be the end for the both of them.
Grand Finale: Countdown to Destruction, just Countdown to Destruction. Originally meant to be the end of the franchise, but perfectly brings the Zordon Era to a close.
Heel Face Turn:Astronema, aka Andros' sister Karone. If Dark Specter hadn't intervened, pretty much everything bad that happened in the second half of the series would have been avoided, due to the Big Bad having switched sides. Well, maybe. See Nice Job Fixing It, Villain, below.
Heroic BSOD: Carlos had one after accidentally injuring Cassie when fighting a monster.
Heroic Bystander: the civilians in the "I am Spartacus" scene (below)
Heroic Sacrifice: Zordon. When he saw that the Alliance was going to overwhelm every Power Ranger team and force for good in the galaxy, he had Andros shatter his time warp tube. The resulting energy pulse (Fan Nickname is the "Z-Wave") neutralized all of the Big Bads and turned their mooks into dust. Deus ex Machina, sure, but damn if it wasn't amazing.
I Am Spartacus: Possibly the best scene in all of Power Rangers history. Astronoma delivers an ultimatum to the people of Angel Grove: surrender the Power Rangers or everyone dies. Suddenly Bulk, Skull, Professor Phenomenus, Adelle, and everyone else say that they're the Rangers. Just before Astronema kills everyone, the real Rangers reveal themselves (morphing in full view of the public, something Zordon specifically told them not to do) and attack, with Bulk and Skull leading the civilians into the fray.
I Cannot Self-Terminate: Zordon. It doesn't matter how powerful your magic is or how great your wisdom, if you lack any means of physical interaction with the world around you, you need help to commit suicide.
Infant Immortality: Believe it or not, subverted. True, it happens offscreen, to a character whom we never meet, but that doesn't change the fact that a girl who appears in Carlos on Call is stated to have had a twelve year old brother who died just recently. Hell, we even see the girl kneeling in front of his grave at one point! Of course, the episode was a straight adaptation from Megaranger.
Ahem, "Countdown to Destruction Part 2" anyone? There's a reason the I Am Spartacus scene is not only the Crowning Momentof Awesome for Bulk and Skull, but for the entire series in general.
Love Redeems: Especially in the familial sense, serves as a major theme. It's explicitly stated that Dark Spector and Darkonda worry that Astronema might defect to good because Ecliptor showed her caring as a father figure, and that caring is completely at odds with being evil.
She does.
Love Triangle: Zhane becomes fairly friendly with Ashley, which causes some jealousy from Andros.
Lucky Translation: The use of "Megazord" as the name for the franchise's Humongous Mecha really pays off here, thanks to the source series being called Megaranger. This meant that most of the mecha weren't renamed at all for In Space, because there was no need.
Renaming Mega Voyager would've actually caused problems, as the name was written in the cockpit in plain sight. Likewise, Mega Winger's cockpit had "Mega W" written on it. Delta Mega simply had Zord added to the end of the name, while Galaxy Mega was renamed Astro Megazord, but the name Galaxy Megazord was used next season instead.
Magic Countdown: Draining Zordon of energy, the visual effect is visibly moving in every episode he is in, yet it should overtake him before the end of the next commercial break.
Mistaken for Dying: Zhane, when the other Rangers hear his time is limited, but don't catch it only applies to his Hour of Power.
Morality Dial: Used on the Delta Megazord in "The Great Evilizer".
Morality Pet: Inverted between Ecliptor and Karone. She was his boss but when she did a Heel Face Turn, he couldn't find it in him to fight against her.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ironically, if Dark Specter had just let Astronema go and not brainwashed her, things might have turned out better for him. Seriously, the brainwashing made her far more evil - so much that she wanted tobe in charge. As a result, she used the Psycho Rangers to fight the Rangers - their real purpose being to weaken him - and this left him vulnerable to Darkonda's attack, ultimately leading to his demise.
Of course, it might have also avoided the Bittersweet Ending too and led the Rangers to an even greater victory, so it's really hard to tell just who would have been better off if he hadn't taken that route.
Nigh Invulnerable: Dark Specter. In the finale Darkonda steals two planet-destroying weapons. One he plans to use on Dark Specter and the other on the Dark Fortress (where Astronema and Ecliptor are). He fires one at Dark Specter who goes down... and then promptly gets back up. It takes wasting the one intended for the Dark Fortress, fired directly down Specter's throat, to put him down for good, and he still manages to hang on long enough to eat the aforementioned Darkonda alive.
No Ontological Inertia: A shape-shifting monster makes Astronema look like Ashley, after which the real Ashley is kidnapped. To escape, she tricks the monster into giving her Astronema's body, and then returns to help the other Rangers destroy it. Luckily, when she takes her helmet off she's back to normal, the monster's spells having been broken by its death.
Nonindicative Name: Sure they're in space, but they tend to fight on earth an awful lot about 90 percent of their fights take place on earth.
One-Hit Kill: After getting a serious power upgrade, Ecliptor destroys the Delta Megazord with a single slash of his sword.
Opponent Switch: Against the Psycho Rangers. Surprisingly, it doesn't work. The Psycho Rangers merely defeat the Ranger they're currently fighting, and then go and wipe the floor with their actual opponent. The Rangers only pull this off after making their uniforms all the same color, and even then, it barely works.
Parental Abandonment: The Rangers, despite still being high school students (early episodes of this season even go by showing the five, except Andros, still attending Angel Grove High), apparently lived on board the Megaship. One would have to wonder about their parents and/or guardians thinking where EXACTLY they were the whole time.
Which leads nicely into making you wonder just how much of space could they explore looking for Zordon if they had to be within reach of Earth for school 5 days a week?
Presumably the astro megaship keeps on going with Alpha operating it when the the Rangers are gone and the rangers can teleport in and out of it.
It's also possible that they graduated offscreen at some point early in the season, especially considering that they're only shown to be in high school in a couple of early episodes. The latter half of the series completely drops that aspect of the story.
Pragmatic Adaptation: The themes of the source footage, Denji Sentai Megaranger, revolved around high (at the time) technology and gadgets. The story was more akin to The Last Starfighter with regards to the plot, and while there were space vehicles there wasn't much actual space travel involved. Liberties were taken, to say the least.
Word Of God says that the space theme was chosen because the early footage they had of Megaranger had them think it was a space based season, when they got the truth and the filming had already begun all the space surfing scenes had to be added in to make it work.
The Psycho Rangers: While the idea had been used before, In Space's Psycho Rangers were the first characters to really do justice to the concept of a team of evil power rangers. Thus, they became the Trope Namer.
Shout Out: A few to Star Trek and Star Wars, including a holodeck and numerous random lines, such as T.J. saying that they're going down to a planet on the Dagobah system to search for Zordon.
The Quantrons are armed with Bat'leths.
One early episode had a pair of characters called George and Lennie.
Space Opera: The first season where the series went in this direction. Compared to earlier seasons, this one was Darker and Edgier, there was more drama, the conflicts were on a much larger scale, the stakes were higher, and the story was less episodic and more arc-based. Probably one of the reasons it was such a success.
Spoiler Opening: Averted for the two-part premiere "From Out of Nowhere. In order to hide their identities, the first episode's opening omits Andros and has Divatox as the villain instead of Astronema, implying that she would be returning as the season's villain. For part 2, Astronema was put in the opening credits while still omitting Andros.
The Starscream: Two of 'em. First, Darkonda establishes the oft-repeated "one loyal henchman, one treacherous henchman" dynamic between himself and Ecliptor. Then, Astronema plots to overthrow Dark Specter (an ambition she'd never had before reforming and then being reprogrammed. Apparently, you can brainwash someone too well.) That's actually what the Psycho Rangers were really for.
Though in the end, Darkonda was the successful one. After all, he's the one who destroys Dark Specter - albeit at a cost..
Human Aliens: Andros, Zhane, and Karone, though pretty much every non-Rubber Forehead Alien from the last five seasons who occasionally show up count too.
Lampshaded by the Earth Rangers when they first meet Andros, who handwaves it with "Humans live more places than just Earth, you know."
Vague Age: Started to creep into the show by this season. Four of the five Rangers are presumably high school students, since they stepped in when four of the previous Rangers graduated, and we even see them attending school in a few early episodes. But there is never any mention of their parents (not even when Astronema's forces occupy Angel Grove), and they are able to leave Earth for extended periods of time without any mention of them missing school or having to cover up their absences at home.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Countdown to Destruction", most villains in the series either perished or were purged of evil, but many were not there, and what ultimately happened to them remains unknown. Goldar is the best example. Rito Revolto and Master Vile were absent too, as were many minor villains.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Enforced by virtue of Executive Meddling. Initially, Karone would have been the only villain to have survived the Z-Wave by virtue of only being under mind control, but the show was forbidden to destroy human-looking villains. Divatox, Rita and Zedd all get turned good at the end, but robots, mooks and "monsters" are turned to dust, regardless of whether they might have had redeeming qualities or been capable of good in the past.
Word Salad Lyrics: The onscreen text in the morphing sequence. Something about the puppy canoe of hope.
Xanatos Roulette: Technically Zordon didn't plan for every possible event, he was just Crazy-Prepared enough and hoped the Rangers used it to their advantage.
You Look Familiar: A costume version. Dark Specter was a reuse of the elaborate Maligore costume from Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. Acknowledged by Divatox in the season premiere.
All the stranger when you consider Maligore was a demon the size of a Megazord at his biggest and Dark Specter is the size of an entire PLANET. He's also seen to shapeshift, which makes you wonder why he picked someone so many magnitudes of power weaker than himself to impersonate.
Because Maligore looks scary. Besides, maybe they're related.
Maligore is probably Dark Specter's long lost sister. This hasn't been done, right?
In an early draft of "Forever Red," Amit Bhaumik had proposed the idea that Maligore was an infantile version of the species that Dark Specter was a part of. Since this never made it to the final draft, it's anyone's guess how canon that idea is.
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