Recap / History of Power Rangers Turbo

Continuing through the series, Linkara comes face to face with Power Rangers Turbo, his least favorite season (at the time he first watched it) of the franchise.

Tropes featured in this review:

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Goes on a massive rant about every problem Turbo has at the mid-point; the experienced rangers giving their morphers to untested rookies (though arguably the Millennium Message is more the cause of this), Divatox's complete failure as a villain, and the cars coming out of nowhere, he finishes with "and we have a police lieutenant running a frigging juice bar!"
    Rita Repulsa: I HAVE A HEADACHE!
  • Also, the reasons why he doesn't consider "Scorpion Rain" as canon: "1. The movie was never completed. 2. It wouldn't have answered all of the questions raised. 3. It was not conceived by the at-the-time production team. And 4. It probably wouldn't have been that good anyway."
• Angrish: He was forced to take a brief break to scream in anger when the Rangers were cooked into a pizza. While we never actually see him, a Skyward Scream seems likely.
  Linkara: So after a filler episode where they get baked into a giant pizza... (Beat) ...Excuse me for a moment. (walks away from the mic) AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
• The Bad Guy Wins: Admits that while he's annoyed that Divatox is the one that defeats the Power Rangers, and the contradiction with how early shows implied that villains couldn't just break into the Command Center like in the finale, he does admit that in the overall atmosphere, the finale is still pretty good.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • While perhaps not intentional, the way the clips are edited in the original teaser, along with the music, makes Turbo seems like a maelstrom of epicness capable of curing world hunger, only for Linkara to chime in when it's done:
    Linkara: Welcome, one and all, to Power Rangers Turbo... the season that almost ended the franchise.
  • Normally, the teaser takes a silly scene from the season being reviewed and Linkara will riff on it, but after that point, he goes on to be very fair and overall positive towards the season. The fact that the first and so far only time Linkara has opened the episode with a teaser that makes the season look totally awesome (in contrast to established expectations) winds up being for the first season that Linkara openly dislikes makes it stand out even more.
• Cathartic Scream: He lets one out after mentioning the infamous Ranger pizza episode.
• Characterization Marches On: He doesn't have any real problem with the new Rangers once they take over, and his In Space and Lost Galaxy reviews show that he does grow to like the four new characters and how they evolve to become worthy Rangers who take their duties and responsibility seriously, but he outright states that they did not get good introductory episodes, and their initial incarnations don't befit the characters they become, especially Cassie.
• Evil Is Petty: Is not fond of the fact that Divatox is this.
• Follow the Leaderinvoked: In the updated review, Linkara notes with Irony that Saban used the pre-teen turned ranger idea based on their other show Big Bad Beetleborgs, which was beating Turbo in ratings. It failed because Beetleborgs established themselves from the start that these are pre-teen children that become superheroes, while Power Rangers started with teenagers. So the addition of having a child superhero with young adults just seemed odd and stupid.
• Idiot Ball: Contrasts Divatox's pettiness and incompetence (such as always setting her bombs to go off in an hour and that for the first half of the series, almost all her plans involved bombs) against the Machine Empire and Rita & Zedd, who even if they started that way, learned from their mistakes and became more effective. Especially emphasized with a plan that involved her robbing a bank, when she's a space pirate. Earth currency is worthless off-world, so what was the point of that?
• Lighter and Softer: Linkara admits in the updated review that this is one of the reasons he hates this season. After four seasons of escalating the fight, villains, and powers, we get a tamer season with car powers and more comic relief villains that feels like it's pandering to younger kids.
• Madden Into Misanthropy: His angsty scream after the "cooked into the pizza" incident.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Notes that the pilot suffered from this; Zordon leaving the rangers happens in the same episode where we have a fight with giant cars ramming each other.
  • In terms of villains, he considers Divatox one of these. He explains that, well... the first villain was Rita Repulsa, an Empress of Evil. The next Big Bad to show up was Lord Zedd, who was even more powerful, and was the "Emperor of Evil." The next villains after that were the Machine Empire, which was implied to be on a massive rampage throughout the cosmos, conquering star system after star system... and they were so powerful that the previous Big Bads were sent running to the M51 Galaxy. And then the new villain, Divatox came along, and... she's a space pirate in a submarine. It's a bit of a letdown from "Interstellar Empire".
  • In terms of the powers themselves, we went from ancient animals to the abilities of the ninja, to a crystal explicitly stated to be growing more powerful over time... to some sort of car-based powers with no explanation.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Notes this about Divatox. She's supposed to be a pirate and she keeps saying she's trying to Take Over the World, as opposed to "stealing things" like a pirate is supposed to.
• Poor Man's Substituteinvoked: Invokes this trope when he refers to Divatox as "Rita-lite".
• Rage Breaking Point: Throughout the first half of the review, Linkara is mostly annoyed at certain replacements (such as Dimitria and Alpha 6) but otherwise never exactly yells out these changes (aside from the unexplained reason why the Zeo Powers were pushed aside for the Turbo Powers). It's only when the four veteran rangers decide to give their powers to four new people that he has enough and breaks into a rant-inducing slight.
• Replacement Scrappyinvoked: Except for T.J., he feels that none of the new Rangers are worthy to become Power Rangers, as T.J. is the only one who really embodies what a Ranger should be. Cassie was kind of selfish in the beginning, while Ashley and Carlos had little to no interaction with their predecessors to justify why they were chosen to be Rangers. It doesn't help that in his introductory episode, Carlos showed that he had problems with teamwork. That said, he does warm up to them over time, as mentioned in Characterization Marches On.
• The Scrappyinvoked:
  • He acknowledges the problems inherent with Justin but finds the character himself well-written: observant, enthusiastic, and overall a valuable member of the team. What he takes issue with is the premise itself: that young fans need a kid their own age, because boys can't relate to people who aren't their age. This, of course, ignores the fact that fans never seemed to have any problem relating to the "teenagers with attitude" from the first three seasons. He does however agree that plots revolving around Justin aren't very good, but that's not the same thing as him being a bad character, and is also amused to note that Justin seems like a Marty Stu simply because he was the only character who was actually written competently.
  • On the other hand, he seems to harbor particular dislike towards Alpha 5's replacement, Alpha 6. He also finds Dimitria annoying for her schtick of presenting questions rather than answers but admits she got better later on, and he doesn't seem to have as much of a problem with Alpha 6 once In Space starts... though it probably helped that they removed the Jive-Talk voice.
  • Likewise hates Divatox, calling her "Rita-lite", not liking the theme of her being a space pirate as he feels it wasn't as threatening as the previous villains and doesn't even find her antics amusing.
  • Elgar, Divatox's Dragon. At one point he says that he "hates him more than he hates Divatox", which is really saying something. At no other point in the series (as of the production of Operation Overdrive) has he ever sounded so happy that a bad guy got killed as when the Z-Wave turned him to dust.
• Screwed by the Networkinvoked: In the updated version of the review, he suggests that Saban should have used footage of an earlier Sentai series such as Choujin Sentai Jetman. While Jetman^note or Maskman, Changeman or any other post-Bioman series written by Hirohisa Soda, for that matter - ironically, one of those seasons would've been the (at the time) other car-themed Sentai, Kousoku Sentai Turboranger definitely would have been practical for the Darker and Edgier plot they were trying to go for with Turbo^note this is mainly due to the fact that it wasn't until Zyuranger that the franchise tried an outright Lighter and Softer tone; prior to that, most Sentai were either Darker and Edgier or middle of the road, the problem is that Saban was contractually prevented from doing so - Saban was not allowed to skip a Sentai series as a result of their deal with Toei, and the contract was for Zyuranger onwards^note and even if Saban had convinced Toei to let them skip Carranger right away, they would've simply been delaying adapting it, meaning that if it wasn't adapted for Turbo, they would've had to adapt Carranger for In Space.
• Seasonal Rotinvoked: The prior Ranger seasons had fairly strong themes regarding change, evolution, and victory, but almost from the beginning this season was plagued with a lack of explanation for the new powers, radical changes of characters, a step backward in villain quality, and overall no real theme or direction that the other seasons had.
  Linkara: [...] But this season?! It's... cars versus a space pirate in a submarine, and then later a giant rubber band ball! I don't get it!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Characterinvoked:
  • Linkara considers General Havoc this. He points out that General Havoc is competent, calculating, and took his defeats without whining about them, unlike Divatox, and states that he believes Havoc would've made for a far better Big Bad than her.
  • He also expresses disappointment that Divatox's other general, Rygog, wasn't her primary henchman over the far more annoying comedic villain, Elgar. While he does admit that due to Rygog's bulky costume he probably couldn't move around and fight as easily as Elgar, he stands firm that at least Rygog had a legitimately intimidating design.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plotinvoked:
  • While he hates the Turbo powers and suits by concept, he feels that the season should have at least given some form of reasoning for switching out the Zeo powers for the Turbo powers to justify the power change like in past seasons. Since there was no reason given, this is in full effect for him.
  • Ultimately, Linkara believes that Turbo should have been the season that introduced the cast to newer struggles, higher stakes, and the rangers growing as young adults now that they graduated high school. Instead, it became the opposite, much to his frustration.
  • In his updated review, he considers the decision to adapt Carranger into a dark series to be this, pointing out that most of the moments that should be tense are ruined by the more comedic footage from Carranger, pointing out that they could have just as easily adapted a series such as Choujin Sentai Jetman instead since both Carranger and Jetman were shot on film. As noted above, however, that couldn't have happened even if Saban wanted to.
• Vindicated by Historyinvoked: Zigzagged trope. While he still isn't all that fond of Turbo, he admits when he finally comes upon his actual least favorite season of the show (Operation Overdrive), that Turbo did have parts that he liked, such as the season finale, the music and the fight scenes.
  • The season finale, in particular, is one that Linkara now considers to be one of the best endings to a Power Rangers season. Back when he first watched it, he was incredibly divided on it since of all the people who finally could have done the rangers in, it had to be Divatox.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Heroic example. When Storm Blaster and Lightning Cruiser show up to help the rangers when the Power Chamber is attacked in the finale. He notes that they could easily stop the army of Piranatrons by keeping their distance and shooting them, especially since Lightning Cruiser can fly, and questions why they don't just RUN THEM OVER.^note That would’ve been too brutal for a kid’s show especially with Moral Guardians breathing down Saban's necks since day one.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Linkara makes it clear that he really hates the Turbo suits and the entire car theme they have, such as the chrome lining on the visors (especially in Tommy's case as his helmet has two smaller areas under his visor that bug Linkara to no end).invoked