Awesome / Power Rangers: Dino Thunder

• In the first episode, a hungry T-Rex is staring Tommy (who, remember, at this point in time, has no Dino powers yet) in the face. Tommy's reaction? Do a spinning kick into its face before running for it. Let's say that again. He did a spinning kick into the face of a T-Rex.
  • Tommy Oliver: Green Ranger. White Ranger. Red Zeo Ranger. Red Turbo Ranger. Kicks Dinosaurs in the face. Is there any wonder why people consider him one of the greatest rangers?
• Leading up to "Back In Black", when he morphs for the first time (in this series):
  Tommy: There's two things you need to know about Dino Gems — one: you can't choose them - they choose you.
  Elsa: What's the other?
  Tommy (flicks wrist to reveal a Brachio Morpher): They go real well with Dino Morphers. (integrates the Gem, with a slam, into the new Morpher)
  Elsa: Hmph. Aren't you a little old for this, Tommy?
  Tommy: I may be old, but I can still pull it off. (fires up Morpher via a special power-accessing key included as a part of the Morpher) DINO THUNDER, POWER UP!
• The episode "Fighting Spirit," where Tommy is left comatose as an entire episode of CMOA for Tommy Oliver. Having beaten three previous incarnations of himself, he wakes up, heads for the battle, unlocks his Super Dino Mode and proceeds to utterly own the bad guy single-handedly.
  • Let's not forget that he beats his three previous incarnations WITHOUT morphing!
    • Not quite. Watch again, he doesn't actually beat any of them. He scores a few hits on the first two, impressing the Red Zeo and White Rangers enough to let him move on to the next challenge. And he actually loses the fight to the Green Ranger pretty handily, never once scoring even a single hit. When the Green Ranger holds him at daggerpoint, it's Tommy's willingness to go on anyway, knowing full well he's probably about to die, that allows him to pass "the test". Moment of Awesome indeed, but for a whole other reason.
    • The awesomeness gets cranked up a notch when the Wasserman factor is applied.
  • To add to this episode, Conner, Ethan, and Kira showed what they had by going Super Dino Mode while in the Thundersaurus Megazord, giving it a major power boost to slay the MOTW.
  • Also, Devin pulling off a "This is wrong" moment on Cassidy for focusing on the top story of the Power Rangers abandoning Reefside instead of putting her full belief in them.
    Devin: If you do this story, I'm afraid you'll do it without me.
  • Later on, Cassidy realizes her mistake and tells the audience during the news report the opposite of what her boss wants her to tell everyone, and puts her full belief in the Power Rangers, not caring about the risk of losing her job.
  • Conner, Ethan, Kira, and Trent standing up and being willing to fight without their powers. In that one gesture, they accomplished a level of awesome that a season full of repeatedly shouting 'Never give up!' couldn't match. And why do they do it? Because Tommy would.
• Anton Mercer regaining control of his body from Mesogog when he tries to kill Trent. In doing so, he is also able to destroy the evil encoding on the White Dino Gem allowing Trent to pull a Heel–Face Turn for good.
• After being unbrainwashed in "The Missing Bone", Kira rides into battle on the Pterozord. Unmorphed. Badass.
• Trent vs. the White Ranger clone in "Strange Relations." An epic battle in which both are equally matched and Trent isn't using his Super Dino Mode while his clone does. The two decide to end their epic fight with a Single-Stroke Battle. The winner, Trent, who watches his evil counterpart go down with honor.
  "I guess you wanted it more. Goodbye, White Ranger."
• The first part of "Thunder Struck" was pretty much a Crowning Moment of Awesome for just about everyone.
  • Not least of which is Trent, who has just spent the past couple of episodes receiving flak from his teammates for not telling them that his father was the Big Bad of the season, single-handedly infiltrating Mesogog's lair and then proceeds to trick him to get the others onto the island. (Bonus points for the Ironic Echo: "You should know by now you can't trust me.") He then proceeds to grab the Dino Gems, run through a self-destructing building simultaneously dodging electric sparks and fighting Mooks to get his father and himself out safely. Made even better by Ethan's lines while waiting for the two of them to come out.
    Ethan: "It's not like they're going to fall out of the sky and land in front of us." He then not-so-subtly checks the sky for Trent and Anton.
    Kira: Were you knocked on the head or something?
    Ethan: What? Last time I did that it worked! (Fridge Brilliance here: The "last time (Ethan) did that"? Kira was the one who fell out of the sky.)
  • And of course, Trent and Anton pick that moment to come tumbling out of the sky. AWESOME.
• Conner climbed onto a moving truck to fight Tyrannodrones while Hayley, the normal one of the team, powered up a laser to destroy Mesogog's fortress and then jumped off the moving truck just as the laser fired.
  • And Hayley ends up being the one to destroy Mesogog's fortress despite being the only Muggle on the mission.
• The first appearance of the Thundersaurus Megazord. When facing an enormous airship, the newly-minted Rangers grab the ship's cable, swings Tarzan-style to get above it, then promptly displays proper drilling technique to tear through its body and shred its engines. Entirely deserved dramatic explosions ensue.
  • When this is the first Megazord battle of a season, you know you've got something good.
  • Even better when you realize that it's almost identical to a Giga Drill Breaker, three or so years before Gurren Lagann first aired. Now if only their drill grew in size before they applied it...
• Devin and Krista get one in "The Passion Of Conner". Devin straps himself to a tree so that it could be protected, and escapes a revived Zeltrax to indirectly warn the Power Rangers of his return.
  • Then there's Krista, calling out Zeltrax for taking away the tree. She didn't even hesitate to run, like, at all.
    • In the same episode, Conner gains his Battlizer Armor, giving both Krista and Zeltrax a run for their money. Here it is in all its glory.
• Mesogog kicking Lothor's ass in the Ninja Storm crossover. Hell, the entire two-parter was awesome. From Lothor kidnapping Sensei and tricking the Wind Rangers into giving them evil Wind Morphers, to them kicking the Dino Rangers asses, to the two teams fighting each others UNMORPHED, Cam and the Thunder Rangers going into the Abyss of Evil, AND ALL 11 RANGERS IN THEIR BADASS EXPLOSION MORPH.
  • We then have Cam and Trent annihilating the Triptoids.
  • Tommy, Hunter, and Blake curbstomping Zeltrax.
  • Kira and Tori vs Elsa.
  • Ethan and Dustin on each of their Cool Bikes. And then Ethan breaks out his second one.
  • Topped off by the two protagonists Shane and Conner unleashing their Super Modes/Battlizers on Lothor's new friends and finishing them off with a dual Finishing Move combination.
  • And pre-Lothor vs Mesogog, turns out that Marah and Kapri — as in, the Plucky Comic Relief of Ninja Storm — betrayed their own uncle and rescued both Cam's father and the kidnapped Ninja Academy students. Now that's taking a level in bad-ass. And what's especially great about this is it wasn't a desperate, last minute decision on their part. They came up with the plan on their own, and their rescue of Sensei made it possible for him to help save Hunter and Blake. Basically, all the Rangers would've lost if it hadn't been for Kapri and Marah.
  • Some badass points go to Lothor — it was demonstrated in the Ninja Storm finale that he was a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass and mopped the floor with the unmorphed Wind Rangers before the three used their ninja powers to banish him into the Abyss of Evil. When his alliance with Mesogog falls apart, he holds his own against the latter, being very quick and agile; Mesogog resorts to using his telepathy to deal with Lothor.
• "Lost and Found in Translation". They actually went and made a nod to Super Sentai AND made a Take That! at both the Power Ranger and Sentai purists while making an absolutely hilarious yet fairly decent dub at the same time. They even included Abaranger's theme song.
• A giant-sized MOTW tries to stomp Conner in Triassic mode, and Conner stops the stomp one handed (his off hand, mind; he was still holding the Shield in the other) a la Cyborg Ninja against Metal Gear Rex, then goes one better and launches the thing about 30 feet feet into the air. There aren't many instances of Rangers displaying such levels of strength.
• Tommy soloing a fully grown Goldenrod, Zeltrax's "son" — after Goldenrod had defeated the Megazord. Tommy just uses the Brachio Staff's various powers and wrecks him. This is the legendary reminder for why we love Tommy Oliver.
• Tommy Oliver gets two big awesome moments that have nothing to do with him being a Ranger and everything to do with who he is. One, he's the team mentor, which means that we get Papa Wolf Tommy Oliver, with every single skill he has at his disposal going towards protecting those kids. Two, Tommy manages to defeat his own insecurities about the past he regrets and is able to come to the realization that he matters not because he's [Ranger Color] Tommy Oliver but because he's Tommy Oliver. "Fighting Spirit" demonstrated it in full; there was an implication that after 11 years of being a Ranger, empowered or not, he was worried he had no idea who he was apart from the morphers. That episode demonstrated that his will, his fighting spirit, was stronger than a morpher.
  • There's more Awesome just by his personality. In the past, Tommy's explicitly said to have a bad memory, which means he's worked hard to overcome his mental handicap and earn his degree. Now, he has a PhD. That's right; DOCTOR Tommy Oliver. (However, he does forget to mention something very important in his video diary: that the villainess Astronema from In Space was in fact Andros's long-lost sister, Karone, who also became a Pink Ranger herself.)
    • Not to mention, he got his PhD in a heck of a lot less time than it usually takes. A degree in paleontology normally takes 8-11 years to get. Tommy gets his in five and a half years. If that's not a CMOA, I don't know what is.