Season 9 of Power Rangers, adapted from Mirai Sentai Timeranger. In the year 3000, crime is almost a memory, as Time Force has captured almost every criminal. The only one left is the mutant Ransik. Time Force Red Ranger Alex and his squad finally manage to capture him, and Alex takes the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend and subordinate, Jen. Before they can fully realize their dreams of wedded bliss, however, Ransik's spoiled daughter, Nadira, breaks him out and Alex is apparently killed in the crossfire. Ransik and Nadira go on to take the cryogenically frozen mutants from prison and hightail it back to the year 2001, before there was a Time Force to stop them.Taking responsibility for the fact that they got away on her watch, a brokenhearted Jen collects the morphers and her squad, and journeys a thousand years into the past to avenge her fiance. Unfortunately, Alex's DNA is needed to unlock the morphers, but there just so happens to be a doppelganger of him living in Silver Hills, Washington at the turn of the millennium. What are the odds?Wes Collins, once convinced they're not crazy, joins the Time Force Rangers, helping them in their fight and to adjust to being so far from home. Eventually, it turns out that the future in Millennium City isn't as rosy as one would expect, and either destiny will be screwed, or Wes will.Easily one of the darkest seasons of Power Rangers, very popular and takes a lot from its Super Sentai counterpart. Of particular note is being the first Power Rangers series to actually acknowledgethe death of a character, though Alex gets better towards the end of the series. Also of note is the fact that the leader of the team is the Pink Ranger, Action Girl Jen (although because of the source footage Red is still in the forefront, with him and the Sixth Ranger getting nearly every Limit Break and Super Mode through the season).And while the acting in Power Rangers has never been any more than serviceable, the performances from the two leads Jason Faunt and Erin Cahill (as well as several others) were actually quite strong. And the darker nature of the season helps to highlight that talent with lost loved ones, prejudice, revenge, new love and redemption. This is also the only Power Rangers series, to date, to be nominated for an Emmy. It was for sound editing, but still...a nomination is a nomination.Succeeded by Power Rangers Wild Force. Also, Time Force was the last season to be aired in full by Fox Kids, which would be turning into the all-animation FOX Box, the following year.
Advertising Only Continuity: The Big Bad, Ransik, searching for them with a Time Machine when it was the opposite way around, and the rangers constantly mentioning the evil Cyclobots as the reason they went back in time.
Broken Faceplate: How Wes's father finds out that his son is a Ranger.
It's somewhat strange that he could tell it was Wes, considering the damage to Wes' helmet was only enough to show his eyes, not to mention Mr Collins was well over twenty feet away! Though, Eric, the future Quantum Ranger, was closer and shouted "Wes!?!". That's when Mr Collins realized.
Also, how many parents wouldn't recognize their child just by his or her eyes?
Chest Insignia: Time Force emblems (badges?) on the belts (in the sentai, they were the power sources for the Ranger's suits, here they do nothing), personal geometric shapes on the helmet visor and chest.
Actor Allusion: Ransik (played by Vernon Wells) gets one in "Movie Madness" - in the episode's Chase Scene, he goes head-to-head with the Rangers on a desert road, driving a vehicle similar to the one Wez (also Wells) drove in Mad Max 2, and wearing a similar costume.
And I Must Scream: The frozen mutants, because their minds are still active while frozen
And Starring: "And Edward Laurence Albert as Mr. Collins"
The Artifact: Trip being an alien. In Timeranger, the main villain and Monsters Of The Week were also aliens instead of mutants (which would explain some of the more outlandish designs on some mutants). Since they were changed to mutants, thus making the series Earth-based, Trip stands out a bit more.
This is a result of Pragmatic Adaptation - originally the writers planned to do at least some time travel arcs, using Sentai footage in remote woods like they'd used to represent alien worlds in season six... then they realized that all the Megazord fights were in modern Tokyo. Every. Single. One.
Dating Catwoman: Lucas and Nadira. Subverted in that Lucas does everything he can to get out of it, but they're apparently seeing each other again after her Heel Face Turn.
Subverted in the episode where a very peaceful mutant was placed in cryogenic stasis for petty theft.
Designer Babies: Every human from the future is one, with Katie having the most prominent improvements. The Mutants are failures of the genetic engineering process, or, alternatively, the result of natural births in an environmentally-wrecked future, while the genetic-screening/modification program was formed to prevent this.
Emmy Bait: Jen's "I am taking you in!" speech to Ransik in the finale.
As well as Ransik's My God, What Have I Done? moment and "I'm ready to pay for what I've done." It's probably the best performance Vernon Wells as ever turned in.
Many fans point to The Reveal in the second part of "Force From the Future" where Wes takes his helmet off, showing his face for the first time, and a teary-eyed Jen is stunned silent as the prime demonstration of the superior acting in this season.
Jen's crying and desperate attempt to tell Wes that she loves him, just before the Rangers are sucked back through time, in The End Of Time, or when she actually tells him - just before she has to leave him for the future.
Everyone Can See It: Jen and Wes, to the point of annoying Lucas in Undercover Rangers.
For the men, Jen's miniskirt, and a training scene in "Jen's Revenge" where she works out her frustration wearing jogging pants and an athletic top.
Trip also looked pretty damn sexy working out in "Uniquely Trip".
Fate Worse Than Death: The frozen mutants are still conscious and some have life sentences.
Implied to have been changed in Reinforcements From The Future, as Ransik is in a standard prison cell when the Rangers visit him to seek out his help.
Head Bob: Justified in this clip. Here, it's made clear that it's the chin of the person inside the suit that pushes down on the helmet as he/she speaks, giving off the illusion of a Head Bob.
Humans Are Bastards: According to Ransik, although he's really in no position to judge.
Identical Grandson: This is what Alex seems to be to Wes at first. Word Of God says Alex is a descendant, but not necessarily a direct one. Word Of God (the writer) added that she hates time travel logic.
In Memoriam: "Circuit Unsure" was dedicated to original Yellow Ranger Thuy Trang after her death.
Ironic Echo: The two morphing calls. Usually they mean two different types of Ranger against a small force but in the finale they mean two rangers against a million.
Justified Criminal: Played with, in that Fantastic Racism drove the mutants to crime, but with the exception of Notacon they tend to go above and beyond what's necessary.
Fantastic Racism drove a few mutants to crime, but most of them just seem to enjoy their villainy and don't care about justification, much less try to give one.
Although mutants are apparently judged in a Kangaroo Court, with at least one of the prisoners guilty of no greater crime than (essentially) being a mutant.
The CryoPrison has no human inmates whatsoever, so despite the fact that there have to be humans in the year 3000 that commit equal crimes to those of mutants they apparently receive different (and presumably less harsh) sentencing.
It could be there were no non-mutant prisoners because mutants are considered more dangerous (with good reason) and held in facilities with tighter security, or because Ransik just didn't take any non-mutant prisoners during his breakout.
Last Villain Stand: After his Mecha-Mooks have been taken down, Nadira has abandoned him, Gluto has pulled a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, and Frax has been destroyed, Ransik pulls this trope and inverted it since he managed to defeat the rangers one by one. He only surrendered when he hurt Nadira.
Monumental Theft: Ransik didn't just stage a prison breakout, he stole the whole prison!
Morality Pet: As bad as he can be Ransik genuinely loves Nadira, also Eric keeps pet birds and makes friends with a little girl at the trailer park he lives in, even Frax has his robots.
Multiform Balance: Time Force Megazord has a close combat oriented Mode Red and an agile ranged Mode Blue.
Specifically the movie in question seems to be a Shout Out to Rumble In The Bronx.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ransik takes on the entire team during the finale and beats the tar out of them all. It makes you wonder why he bothered using monsters of the week, especially considering they were using things they didn't even have at the start of the season and he still won.
There are two possible stipulations: The Rangers were already exhausted from the previous fight, and Ransik's infection that was slowly killing him keeps him at a weaker level; by the end he's "cured" and nothing is holding him back. In "Lovestruck Rangers", Ransik got himself in a position to fight the girl Rangers without interference from the boys. The infection prevented him from defeating them and the girls destroyed the vial of medicine he brought with him, forcing him to flee.
No Hugging, No Kissing: You would think we'd get a kiss between Wes & Jen in the finale, but nope, standard embrace.
Although the trade-off is that to this day, they're still the only two Rangers to say "I love you" to each other.
Official Couple: Alex/Jen in the premiere, Wes/Jen by the finale.
The first is from Jen in "Something To Fight For", when she rejects his overtures to join the team by chastising him for his Sheltered Aristocrat upbringing and saying that he wouldn't know what to do if he had to fight for something other than himself. That's not the real reason.
The second is from Eric in "The End of Time, Part 2", when he mocks Wes for thinking they could ever be friends and finally lets out his bitterness towards Wes for all the advantages he had growing up "with everything handed to him on a silver platter" while Eric had to work extra hard to get to where he was. Wes counters this one with a Dare to Be Badass speech of his own.
Timey Wimey Ball: The series never really establishes the exact nature of how time is shifting, including how Alex is alive and helping them from the future after being killed in the pilot. There are a lot of statements that the timeline was changing with technology showing up that shouldn't have existed in 2001 but nothing appears to be different in 3000.
You Can't Fight Fate: Wes was originally groomed to become a part of Bio-Lab - something he long since fought against, much to Mr. Collins' chagrin. In the storyline where Mr. Collins is dying, Alex explicitly says it is Wes' destiny to replace him at Bio-Lab. When Mr. Collins is saved (by Alex's intervention), much is made of the idea that Wes' destiny has effectively been changed. However, there is nothing to say that Wes won't one day takeover as head of Bio-Lab - just that the circumstances would be different. The fact that Wes becomes co-leader of Bio-Lab's Silver Guardians suggests his destiny hasn't changed at all. Arguably, Alex's actions (which made it possible for father and son to formally reconcile) inadvertently made it possible.
Possible, though as head of the Silver Guardians, it's quite possible that he would give up his position as head of Biolab, opting instead to stay as team leader under a new head. On the other hand, given that he'd want to protect the guardians from improper use, perhaps circumstances would force him to take over anyways. It's very much left up in the air, but the Character Development is that all of this happening under his own rules and not just because his father said so.
, but still...a nomination is a nomination.Succeeded by Power Rangers Wild Force. Also, Time Force was the last season to be aired in full by Fox Kids, which would be turning into the all-animation FOX Box, the following year.
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