Recap / History of Power Rangers Operation Overdrive

Linkara takes a look at Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, what he considers to be the worst season of Power Rangers he has ever seen.

Tropes:

• Alternate Character Interpretationinvoked: Theorizes that Doctor Hartford, due to his familiarity with Zord and Morphing technology, as well as his personal wealth, may have helped with the various ranger groups in Lightspeed Rescue and Time Force.
• Anti-Climax Bossinvoked: Among the many other problems with the season, Linkara states that Flurious was defeated too easily. This is especially disappointing since he gained the Corona Aurora's power and almost the entire season built up to its immense power. Yet the final fight amounts to Mack just hitting him really hard and nothing else.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Hates the Overdrive Rangers' insignia on their chests, noting it looks more like corporate branding than anything else.
• Bullying a Dragon: Points how stupid it is for Dax's film crew to treat him so poorly considering they should know how easily he could kick their asses if he felt like it.
• Calling Your Attacks: Perhaps the most confusing part of the series for him is that the Rangers do this with their blasters.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • Dissects how badly "Once A Ranger" distorted series continuity.
    • Thrax's existence is a big question mark. Though he offers the idea Zedd and Rita had and raised him during Turbo, that Thrax was sealed by the Sentinel Knight, who was sealed away centuries ago at least, ruins that idea.
    • Alpha 6 is boxed up in a warehouse in Angel Grove. Last we saw him, he was on Mirinoi at the end of Lost Galaxy.
    • Is utterly bewildered by the presence of the Veteran Rangers. Not only were several of them left without their powers at the end of their respective seasons, but Bridge is from S.P.D., meaning the Sentinel Knight pulled him through time to recruit him. And restoring the powers of past Rangers who lost them, and bending the space-time continuum to get one of them from the future, was easier than calling up any number of other past Rangers who still have their powers and live on Earth in the same time period?
  • Later, in part four, Linkara questions why the Rangers think Norg is Bigfoot and want to capture him so they'll be famous. Not only have they met Norg before and know who he is, but they've been on television by nature of being Power Rangers.
  • He also points out in Rose's character analysis section that the writers seemed to completely forget her personality and backstory and decided she only started to learn things to feel special (even though she was always a super genius), that being a super-genius apparently didn't make her feel special or gifted, and later that she was ashamed of being smart. Even though her job was being a super-smart college professor. Linkara figures the writers were paying zero attention to what they were doing by that point.
• Designated Monkeyinvoked: While Linkara is certainly not a fan of Dax, he is quite annoyed with how the movie crew treats him (giving him a condescendingly small actor's chair, leaving him strung up halfway through a stunt and abandoning him), pointing out that stuntmen are typically very physically fit and that their job description includes taking a punch or being lit on fire regularly; basically not the kind of person you dick with.
• Designated Heroinvoked: Points out early on that the Rangers had to actually be told to save people from an erupting volcano rather than go after a villain, and that throughout the season the Rangers come off poorly as they don't lose this trait as the season goes on. Lewis has a field day when he gets to the "Once A Ranger" anniversary special, as the Overdrive Rangers decide to go back to their normal lives when they lose their powers; he responds by showing clips of Rangers from nearly every prior season deciding to do the right thing even though they no longer had their powers or otherwise had the odds heavily stacked against them, and explaining that a real hero doesn't do noble things because they have powers but rather that the powers are merely a tool to assist them as they do noble things.
• Development Hellinvoked: 14 months and counting from the previous episode, although given his hatred for this season it is understandable why he would procrastinate. Having said that, he also had to wait until the DVDs came out due to being part of Saban's Power Force and them requesting that footage from legitimate sources be used for any future projects (i.e. no ABC Family or Jetix recordings). Also, he has other projects going on that keep him pretty busy as well; he's dedicated first and foremost to Atop The Fourth Wall.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Notes that it was a Zig-Zagged Trope for the season, as while Mack had earned his humanity through his Heroic Sacrifice in the final battle, Tyzonn doesn't have to do anything after finding out his long thought dead fiancée was still alive as she's rescued by the comic relief villain and just turns up at the Hartford Mansion.
• Ensemble Dark Horseinvoked: Spencer was the big saving grace of the series for him, with his (sometimes) clever disguises and genuinely witty lines.
• Fanservice: Considers "Once A Ranger" an example of this done wrong and an example of how fanservice alone isn't enough of a redeeming quality to save a bad episode or make it enjoyable. He even goes on to explain how this can hurt an episode, by introducing multiple continuity snarls, create massive plot holes, or make the characters look worse (either by comparison or by, say, showing that you left a fully-sentient and operational android trapped in a crate for years on end for literally no reason).
• Fan Wankinvoked:
  • Notes that if what is mentioned in Alternate Character Interpretation is true, then it's entirely possible that the robotics technology used to create Mack was descended from the "Robot Rangers" used in Lightspeed.
  • Due to the sirens of the Flashpoint Megazord and police motif of the Rescue Runners, Linkara theorizes that Hartford may have gone on to become a major funder and researcher for SPD in the future.
• Foreshadowing:
  • After noting the premise of the Power Rangers fighting an army of machines hellbent on humanity's extinction sounds interesting, Lewis tells the viewer to hold on to that idea for a few seasons.
  • Shows several of the moments foreshadowing Mack's true origins as they appeared in the season, to show it wasn't a twist the writers pulled out of nowhere.
• Franchise Original Sininvoked: Points out that Operation Overdrive established a lot of elements that the Neo Saban Era would get criticized for^note although it's possible that Dino Charge may have avoided these elements - most notably that Character Development is informed as opposed to shown.
• Head Desk: Lewis's reaction to Dax letting Miratrix get away with a scroll without even trying to stop her is to cut to footage of himself walking up to a wall and start banging his head against it. The footage of him banging his head against a wall is reused for the reaction to Alpha 6's recast.
• Humanoid Alien: He once again brings up how Power Rangers only has two different types of aliens: humanoid and "Oh God, Run away!"
• I Know Mortal Kombat: While he will admit that as far as Dax being a stunt man, stuntmen are known for being very fit and capable of performing a physically demanding job, he does point out that choreographed stunt fighting is very different from actual combat training that someone should have to justify them being drafted into the Power Rangers.
• The Load: As far as initial skills go, Linkara accuses Ronny of this. While the other Rangers were a thief, a super genius, and a stunt man (all arguably useful on their own, but that's beside the point) Ronny's 'skills' consist of "drive cars really, really fast."
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Finds it irritating that Hartford can just make new morphers and Zords out of nowhere, which further leads him back to Rose's point of "You're rich, buy an army!"
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Points out that Mack and Hartford aren't very good at hiding their accents.
• Pet the Dog: While Linkara really doesn't like Dax, he still passionately jumps to his defense when he gets mocked for being "just" a stuntman (getting a dinky children's chair next to the professional "Writer", "Director", and "Producer" chairs on set):
  Linkara: Stuntmen get set on fire, for cryin' out loud! You don't screw with them!
• Plot Coupon: Most of the plot of the show revolves around the Rangers collecting random items that will help them find the jewels of the Corona Aurora. Lewis is quite happy to skip over most of these episodes because few if any of them have any real impact on the overall story, and most of these finds serve no purpose except to lead to the next episode's Plot Coupon, and perhaps eventually a jewel, which are the only plot coupons that matter since they're the only ones the various factions have any real interest in.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The opening of his "The Reason You Suck" Speech mentioned below regarding "Once a Ranger":
  Linkara: Okay, if I haven't made it clear by now, allow me to do so: I. HATE. THIS. EPISODE!!
  • Also:
    Linkara: SHUT. UP. DAX!!
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: He's confused as to why Hartford recruits "a stuntman, a thief, an admittedly intelligent college professor and a racing driver" to be Power Rangers, noting that when Lightspeed Rescue recruited civilians, it made sense because they had the relevant skills.
• Questionable Castinginvoked: Brings this up in regards to the voices for Thrax & Alpha 6 in the "Once A Ranger" special - Lewis explicitly questions why they didn't bring back Robert Axelrod to voice Lord Zedd's son or any of the previous voice actors who voiced Alpha since they were already bringing back 5 former Rangers (Including flying Johnny Yong Bosch out to New Zealand) for the episode.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to the Overdrive Rangers on their decision to leave just because they lost their powers, even showing clips of the rangers before them continuing to fight despite the odds against them.
• Recycled Scriptinvoked:
  • Comments that the first episode is similar to the first episode of Lightspeed Rescue, but if it had been done wrong. The main point Lewis makes is that while the Lightspeed Rangers had skills that made them feel like they were suited to the job, the Rangers Hartford recruited didn't have such skills and thus they didn't feel like they belong on a superhero team.
  • Lewis also notes that Mack's relationship with Hartford is similar to the one between Wes and Mr. Collins in Time Force, but rather than handling it gradually over the season, it's done in one episode.
• Running Gag:
  • "You're rich, buy an army!"
  • "Shut up, [X]!" Mostly Dax though.
• The Scrappyinvoked:
  • Shares the fandom's dislike of Dax, noting that he is the character he hated the most from the season.
  • He overall considers the Overdrive team to be the worst Power Ranger team due to their incredibly selfish and moronic actions throughout the series. Most exemplified in "Once A Ranger". This factor is a big part as to why he considers Overdrive the worst series, even if he considers Megaforce pretty terrible: the characters in Megaforce may be bland and forgettable (except for Robo Knight, Orion, and Gia), but at least they're not unlikable like the Overdrive team was.
• invokedScrewed by the Network: Mentions at the start of his Jungle Fury review that this was a factor in how the season turned out as the showrunners really were trying to give their all for the adaptation. But Disney was less than supportive, giving the show half its budget to really bring out its potential, and thus forcing them to cut costs and juggle the story the best they could with what they had. Heck, one of the executives they pitched it to even suggested to just dub GoGo Sentai Boukenger and be done with it^note As noted above, this becomes somewhat Hilarious in Hindsight when the first 2 Neo Saban era shows end up being direct adaptations of the source material.
• Seasonal Rot: He considers Operation Overdrive to be the worst season of the show so far. He found a lot to enjoy in past seasons, such as certain story arcs, characterization, music, etc. Even Turbo, despite him having a strong bias against it, had plenty of qualities that he legitimately loved. Overdrive, on the other hand, has very little he considers enjoyable.invoked
• Senseless Sacrifice: His opinion of the episode where Dax runs away from a starring role in a film to help the Rangers. Besides the fact the idea an entire movie's film production would be done in one day just sounding shady, he points out Dax leaves the movie set 5 seconds before his final scene would have been finished anyway. Basically, instead of an Aesop of realizing his selfish ways to save the other Rangers, he just selfishly leaves the movie crew in the lurch after wasting their time when he could have, at that point, just finished the scene and left with about the same conclusion.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Points out that Mack was the Ranger who got the lion's share of the Character Development, consequentially leaving the rest of the cast without any solid individual character arcs or growth.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Linkara is very fond of Rose's statement to Mr. Hartford: "You're rich, buy an army!" This becomes especially obvious after it's revealed Mr. Hartford can upgrade human DNA (in his basement) to provide superpowers, can do so without limits, and can supposedly make as many morphers as he wants since he just so happens to build a new one for Tyzonn and can even make new Zords with seemingly no hassle.
• Stuff Blowing Up: He notes how the Kalishplosions reach their illogical extreme here, as they often have no source at all.
• Tempting Fate: After going through the numerous reasons why the Overdrive team failed to impress him before "Once a Ranger"...
  "But these are isolated incidents. It's not like the Rangers will be douchebags in this anniversary episode, will they?"
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:invoked
  • He notes the ideas behind Overdrive were solid; it was the execution that made it so awful.
  • Comes up while discussing "Once A Ranger" — Lewis notes that he felt that the idea of a team of veteran Rangers returning to duty would have been more interesting than the Overdrive Rangers, particularly since the latter had proven to be uninteresting Designated Heroes. Furthermore, while the episode is full of fanservice and could have been a great team-up, the fanservice is not done well and the two teams barely interact. He specifically cites the episode as an example of how to do a team-up episode wrong.
• This Is Gonna Suck: At the end of the Mystic Force video, Lewis notes that as many problems as he had with that season, he feels that Operation Overdrive is the worst that Power Rangers has to offer. He also expresses this at the beginning and end of the review.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While the team was generally selfish and jerkish most of the time, he does applaud their group reaction to Mack being an android. They are immediately supportive of him and tell Mack nothing is any different between them.
• Unfortunate Implicationsinvoked: Linkara mentions that, once again, the Black Ranger is portrayed by a black man:
  Linkara: Oh and once again the Black Ranger is black. I guess that was suddenly okay again back in 2007 but it wasn't okay for the Rangers to kick someone without a laser sound effect.
• Vindicated by Historyinvoked:
  • While he doesn't have much good to say about the season, Lewis praises the twist revealing that Mack was actually a machine instead of human, specifically noting that the arc plays out for several episodes in a season that rushed most plot developments, that the Rangers (who Lewis points to as being dicks for most of the season) were immediately accepting of Mack not being human, that the reveal was unnerving, and that the ultimate pay-off to the story was earned.
  • While Linkara still considers Overdrive to be the worst season of the show overall, he finds it baffling that the sheer incompetency and mismanagement of the grand finale and team-up episode of Super Megaforce makes "Once a Ranger" look competent by comparison.
    Linkara: Dear Lord, what is happening in this world when you make "Once a Ranger" look like the competently made anniversary episode by comparison?
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He considers Dax letting Miratrix walk away with a scroll while making absolutely no attempt to stop her absolutely mind-bogglingly idiotic, with footage of Linkara literally banging his head against the wall.
  • Calls the Overdrive Rangers out during "Once A Ranger" for quitting, citing numerous examples of when other Rangers had no powers or otherwise had the odds heavily stacked against them and kept fighting (with at least one from nearly every prior season).
  • Calls out the producers on the decision to have the Veteran Rangers retrieve Alpha from a crate in a warehouse in Angel Grove since it means that the Rangers had left Alpha to rot in a box for several years.
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!:
  • As of the Dino Fury review, Linkara considers this to be the worst season of Power Rangers he's ever seen, stating it during the stinger of Mystic Force and saying it in the beginning and ending of the review.
  • Before Megaforce's "Legendary Battle" came along, he considered "Once A Ranger" to be the worst team-up special ever, especially on the 15th anniversary season.
  • He also, in no small part because of their behaviour in "Once A Ranger", thinks that the Operation Overdrive Team is the worst group of Rangers in the franchise. Linkara even states that one of the few things that Megaforce did better in their season was make their Rangers likable which is more than can be said for Overdrive.
• WTH, Costuming Department?invoked: Absolutely hates the Overdrive Ranger's suits for several reasons, including the weird insignia on the chest that looks like corporate branding, the gaudy use of chrome, and the useless and oddly square-shaped shoulder pads. Tyzonn's Mercury Ranger suit is even worse, as Linkara says it took what was already wrong with the Overdrive Suits and turned it up to eleven with even more chrome, bigger shoulder pads, and the odd choice of orange and purple accents.
• Word of St. Paulinvoked: Notes Johnny Yong Bosch's own Alternate Character Interpretation regarding Adam's actions since his last appearance on the show (namely that Adam was travelling the world doing good deeds, instead of Adam running a dojo).