Series / Power Rangers S.P.D.

Heroes on your side, Heroes for all time, Out to save the universe.

"S.P.D. Emergency!"

— Morphing call, Power Rangers S.P.D.

Power Rangers, 20 Minutes into the Future. Power Rangers S.P.D. is the thirteenth season of the franchise, based on Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. The Earth of 2025 is a very different place, where humans and alien immigrants live in relative peace. There's always a few bad eggs, though, and that's where S.P.D. (short for Space Patrol Delta) comes in. Started on the planet Sirius, it's now a galaxy-wide police organization. The Earth branch is based in Newtech City, headed by Anubis "Doggie" Cruger.

The series focuses on S.P.D.'s B-Squad. As their name indicates, they're backup to the elite A-Squad. At first, B-Squad consists of the serious Sky (who wants nothing more than to be a Red Ranger just like his father), Cloudcuckoolander Bridge, and the rich former model and pop idol Syd. When A-Squad is forced to leave the planet on business, they're promoted to Ranger status, and given morphers. Sky is not pleased to learn that he's only a Blue Ranger. Their first mission is to track down a pair of metahuman Robin Hoods, Z and Jack. They were probably chosen for the task because they're metahumans, too. Much to the dismay of B-Squad, Cruger decides that the best punishment for Jack and Z is to become the Red (especially to Sky's chagrin) and Yellow Rangers. It takes a while, and they often relapsed back to being bitter and angry at each other, but they eventually become a tight unit, and even tighter when they learn why they all have strange, genetic powers...

Unusually, rather than a two part with the previous season's cast, there were two separate episodes with the Dino Thunder Rangers, with each team getting a chance to enter the world of the other. For some reason, those specific episodes seem to flow better if you watch them in reverse order.

Succeeded by Power Rangers Mystic Force. Bridge would later appear in the Once a Ranger Milestone Celebration, being bumped up to Red Ranger status due to Xander from Mystic Force and Tori from Ninja Storm (Bridge had ended the series as the Blue Ranger).

Has a character sheet.

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Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:

• Action Girl: Z and Syd.
• All of Them: During the first Dino Thunder episode, Gruumm after having enough of Broodwing's attempts to outshine him orders Morgana to prepare for a full-scale ground attack with every robot in their arsenal sent out alongside himself and her. It actually does really well, as S.P.D. and even a Big Damn Heroes from Cruger are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers (and with Omega Ranger forced to deal with Broodwing's first Dragoul at the time, he can't offer reinforcements) and it takes the second Big Damn Heroes of the Dino Thunder Rangers to turn the tide.
• Aura Vision: This is the one that generally receives the most usage over the course of the series.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: The S.W.A.T. Truck.
• Barrier Warrior: Sky.
• Battle Cry: A Power Rangers standard, but S.P.D. parodies it at the same time it uses it in the episode "Shadow pt. 1", when the Rangers scream "BATTLE CRY" as they maneuver their Megazord towards the enemy.
• BFG: R.I.C. as the Canine Cannon and the S.W.A.T. Mode's Delta Enforcers.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Jack's Delta Blasters.
• Big Bad: Emperor Gruumm.
• Big Good: Supreme Commander Fowler/Doggie Cruger.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": PD
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "S.P.D., Emergency!" (We're not sure which; "Recognition" shows morphing without the phrase, but "Zapped" implies it's necessary.)
• Capture Balls: Unlike their Sentai counterparts who just execute their villains outright, the Rangers of Space Patrol Delta imprison them in Containment Cards after defeat.
• Chest Insignia: S.P.D. nameplates on the belt and right side of the chest, and police badges on the right shoulder and forehead of the helmet; plus a personal number taking up the entire left side of the chest.
• City of Adventure: Newtech City.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Had a run in the UK Jetix Magazine and Power Rangers Magazine.
• Compressed Adaptation: Was given 38 episodes to Dekaranger's 50. This included two original, single episode team-ups with Dino Thunder^note Dekaranger vs. Abaranger was a direct-to-video supplement to the series.
• Cool Bike: The boys' Patrol Cycles. Notably, Sky's is an older model with a different design, leading him to complain when Jack and Bridge get new bikes and he doesn't (Kat just points out that he already has a bike). Also Sam's Uniforce Cycle.
• Cool Car: The Delta Cruiser.
• Combining Mecha: The Rangers get two five-piece combinations, the Delta Squad and SWAT Megazords. The former can combine with the Omegamax Cycle to make the Deltamax Megazord.
• Degraded Boss: Blueheads and Orangeheads were monsters of the week in their first appearances; by the finale, they're getting beat up by unmorphed allies just like the regular Krybots.
• The Dragon: Morgana.
• Elite Mooks: Blueheads and Orangeheads.
• Evil Plan: Why Emperor Gruumm needs to be stopped.
• Evil Versus Evil: Seen a few times throughout the season:
  • Stench and Thresher decide to keep the stolen SPD technology for themselves instead of sharing it with Gruumm.
  • Bork, the Monster of the Week for Missing, is targeted by another alien criminal named Herock, who is vaporized by the former.
  • Towards the end of the season, Broodwing competes with Gruumm in conquering Earth.
• Family-Friendly Firearms:
  • As usual, but Dekaranger used actual bullets and some edits to hide this ended up kind of questionable. For one, in Omega Ranger's debut he catches lasers single-handedly, and then drops the "laser pellets" at his feet. You can also occasionally catch the Megazord ejecting used shells from its gun, even though it's now supposed to be a laser weapon.
  • In Dekaranger, "Deleting" an Alienizer meant having them Killed Off for Real, which was why they needed the Universal Ultimate Court's approval through Judgement Time to do so. Here, the criminals are all instead sealed in Containment Cards for imprisonment, while Judgement Mode acts more akin to a Lie Detector.
• Five-Token Band: The A-Squad Rangers. Hispanic Red Ranger, Caucasian Yellow Ranger, Asian Pink Ranger, African American Green Ranger and an alien as the Blue Ranger.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Big Bad Emperor Gruumm was the leader of the Troobian Empire, but was just collecting power for the Omni.
• Home Base: S.P.D. Command.
• Humongous Mecha: Used by both the Rangers and some of Grummm's generals.
• Impossibly Graceful Giant: The Delta Squad Megazord can move. Its most common Stock Footage is leaping and rolling while firing its gun.
• Intangible Man: Jack has the power to phase through walls.
• In the Name of the Moon:
  (B-Squad) "[Number]! S.P.D. [color]!"
  "Force from the future! Omega Ranger!"
  "Shadow Ranger! Defender of the galaxy!"
  "S.P.D.! Defenders of Earth!"
• Katanas Are Just Better: Cruger's Shadow Saber.
• Made of Explodium: The series that started the trend of "Kalishplosions".
• Make My Monster Grow: The only season that regularly averted it (with a few exceptions) until Power Rangers Beast Morphers - most of the baddies have giant robots instead. Some aren't even piloted by Monsters of the Week, but by Elite Mooks substituting for the MOTW.
• The Mentor: Cruger mostly serves in this role, as he’s the most immediately accessible authority for the Rangers to consult.
• Me's a Crowd: Z has the power to duplicate herself.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The B-Squad Rangers can later enter "SWAT Mode", and also gain the SWAT Megazord (which is both a Combining Mecha as well as a Transforming Mecha, though it coexists for a while with the earlier, purely Combining Mecha, Delta Squad Megazord).
• Mini Dress Of Power: Notably averted in the case of the female SPD Rangers, but the hem of their SPD uniforms while unmorphed are noticeably longer, giving this visual.
• Mission Control: Kat.
• Monowheel Mayhem: The Uniforce Cycle is just a seat on a big wheel.
• Mooks: Krybots.
  • Mecha-Mooks
• Mook Lieutenant: Orangehead Krybots, which are also Elite Mooks.
• Never Say "Die": And that's not the only taboo word. In "Badge", Gruumm steals "hemotech synthetic plasma", and the show's dialogue hides the fact that that's Techno Babble for artificial blood.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Although it's not as bad in this season since much of the talent was brought in from Canada, there are still a few instances — Bridge is the most likely one to suddenly slip in and out of a Canadian accent. Mora and Morgana are Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
• Power Copying: Syd can turn her hand into whatever material she touches.
• Power Fist: Sam's Omega Morpher gives his left hand and arm various boosts and strikes. Syd can also do a more crude version of this with her Power Copying genetic ability.
• Psychic Powers: Bridge.
• Psycho Rangers: The A-Squad, as the first rangers to willingly serve the Big Bad.
• Recycled IN SPACE!: Power Rangers as SPACE POLICE!
• Rookie Red Ranger: Jack.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The other B-Squad Ranger's Deltamax Strikers (composed of a knunckle weapon and a baton/blade weapon).
• Super Mode: the Battlizer 2 episodes after Omega debuted and S.W.A.T. Mode 3 episodes later.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Sam (not that he had much chance to use it, stuck as a ball of light).
• Thememobile: Cruger's Delta ATV.
• Transforming Mecha: The Delta Base and Omegamax Cycle, and later on, also the SWAT Megazord, which can transform into a giant gun.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: As is the norm for the franchise, we generally get a MOTW appearing with an Evil Plan Once an Episode, with our heroes then arriving on the scene to stop them. Justified as our Rangers for the year are a police force.

This subseries contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: Kat kicked Krybot butt in situations where Dekaranger's Swan didn't and gets to use the acrobatics that are expected from a feline character. Even in one episode where Swan fought as a Ranger, the PR version gives Kat an unmorphed battle before it. Also, that rock in "Abandoned" was considerably less apocalyptic in Dekaranger.
• Aerith and Bob: Bridge stands out next to names like Jack and Syd.
• Aliens Speaking English: Averted once in "Recognition" to facilitate a Curse of Babel plot.
• Alternate Continuity: In the Disney Adventures comics, the A-Squad are Brainwashed and Crazy instead of corrupt.
• Anachronic Order: A minor example occurred when the series was made available for instant streaming on Netflix due to "Wormhole" being moved three episode spots earlier in order to put the two Dino Thunder team-up episodes consecutively. The only part of it that's really noticeable though is with Morgana being changed back to Mora (Gruumm rewarding her by changing her back occurs in one of the three episodes originally aired between the team-ups).
• And the Adventure Continues: One of the few Power Rangers seasons where at the end of it all, the Rangers (barring only Jack) still have their powers and are carrying on with their duties. Which makes sense, considering that being Power Rangers is actually their job, rather than something they do in addition to their everyday lives.
• Anti-Climactic Parent: Boom's parents in, well, "Boom"
• Artistic License – Space: Apparently, Sirius is a planet now. Of course, they could have meant a planet in the Sirius system, as some planets are named "[Star name] [Distance from star]" so the third planet from Sirius would be Sirius 3, but... nothing of the sort is ever stated onscreen. It also happens with Alpha Centauri.
• As You Know: Used in "A-Bridged" when Bridge tells Kat a fact (relevant to his investigation) about humans breathing oxygen and plants breathing carbon dioxide. Lampshaded when Kat's reaction is "Duh. Second-grade science." and justified because, well, it's Bridge.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Subverted; it's the season where morphers were handed out like candy (even Dr. Manx got a limited-use one!) and fanboy Boom still didn't get one.
    Boom: I'd be psyched if I were Red Ranger!
    Jack: You'd be psyched if you were Pink Ranger.
    Boom: [beat] True.
  • Played straight with Sam/Omega Ranger.
• Author Appeal: Writer/Director Greg Aronowitz loves dogs, hence the emphasis on Doggie Cruger and R.I.C. He also had two bulldogs as a child, hence why Bridge mentions his childhood pet bulldog in "Shadow".
• Bad Guy Bar: Piggy's.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Broodwing, believe it or not, wears a tie.
• Ball of Light Transformation: Sam/S.P.D. Omega Ranger can turn into a ball of light from time travel changing his body into light energy.
• Base on Wheels: S.P.D. Command, though it only moves once (besides all its giant robot transformations).
• Bat Out of Hell: Broodwing’s main motif
• Beleaguered Childhood Friend: Sky's friend Dru in "Idol".
• Between My Legs: Shows up in a lot of battle scenes, for example, Syd in the episode "Walled".
• BFG: The SWAT Flier Cannon. As in, a cannon made out of zords.
• Bizarrchitecture: S.P.D. Command has some problems when it comes to Zord storage. Usually the Zords are seen in an underground hangar and the building opens a hatch to send them out; this is acceptable. But a few times the entire thing opens up and the Zords are shown taking up the whole interior! And just to add to the confusion, the SWAT Fliers also are seen in those same bays.
  • It's explained later that there's a secret underground Zord bay beneath the Delta Command Base, so presumably only one set of Zords is kept in the base itself at any given time. This likely explains how Bridge knew said secret underground Zord bay existed and Dr. Manx likely sent the SWAT flyers there.
  • Even outside of that, the base and its surroundings often vary (often when switching to Sentai footage), and some of the exterior shots when combined with human-scale surroundings lead to all kinds of size issues.
• Book Ends: In the first episode, Cruger asks Sky if he would follow Bridge or Syd if Cruger promoted either of them to Red Ranger, Sky scoffs at the idea, insisting that Bridge isn't leader material and Syd is a girl. This question is actually a Secret Test of Character, and because of Sky's comment, he ends up becoming the Blue Ranger instead of Red Ranger. In the final episode, after Gruumm and Omni have been defeated and Jack has left S.P.D., Cruger asks Sky this same question. Sky replies that he would gladly follow anyone Cruger considered worthy. His comment this time proves he's worthy of being Red Ranger.
• Bowdlerize: Like Time Force, the rangers imprison monsters instead of destroying them, but unlike Time Force, this was not something carried over from the Sentai.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Syd in "Zapped", courtesy of a magic spell.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When he's arrested, Bugglesworth is charged with "stealing buildings, turning people into dolls, and child endangerment."
• Brick Joke: In "History."
  Ethan: Weren't you guys taught to respect your elders?
  [...]
  Conner: It's obvious we should stay. We work great together.
  Syd: Nice try, but I don't date older guys.
• Broken Ace: Cruger has a hard time fighting Benaag, the general that destroyed his planet.
• Bullet Catch: Omega Ranger. Except they were laser pellets.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Bridge is probably the craziest Ranger, but he’s also the most competent detective.
• Butt-Monkey: Broodwing, to Gruumm and Mora. One wonders why he feels the need to antagonize the guy selling them, well, everything.
• The Cameo: Shades of the Onyx Tavern, many of Piggy's guests are monsters from past incarnations of Power Rangers, as are a few civilian aliens. There's also an Aquitian S.P.D. officer.
• Canon Immigrant: Jack's Battlizer appears in Magiranger vs Dekaranger. This is the first (and thus far only) appearance of an American power-up appearing in Sentai.
• Cat Girl: Kat Manx.
• Chilly Reception: Sky was not happy when Jack became the Red Ranger.
• Clip Show: "Insomnia".
• Cloudcuckoolander: Bridge, a space cadet who is a literal Space Cadet.
• Clueless Aesop: There was an anti-racism episode using discrimination against a Robot Girl as a metaphor. What's the problem? The fact that in the previous episode, she had done pretty much everything one possibly can to look suspicious, and put S.P.D. (and by extension, pretty much everything else) in serious danger by not telling anyone that it was her the bad guys wanted. So then we spend an episode where every single conversation or scene must have at least one line of Anvilicious hammering-in of the whole "We're racist bastards who distrusted her because she was a robot!" thing despite nothing of the sort having happened.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Subtly lampshaded in the final scene. Jack has left the squad and Sky and Bridge have been promoted to Red and Blue Rangers, respectively. When the Rangers visit Jack and Ally, Sky and Bridge donate handfuls of blue and green clothes.
• Comically Missing the Point: Z's attitude towards Bridge in "Zapped". She doesn't seem to understand how timezones work.
  Bridge: My mother went into labor on a transpacific airline, and when we landed, it was the day before. So I was actually born the day before I was born.
  Z (borrowing Syd's magazine to "read" Bridge's horoscope): Here, I'll read yours. It says, today, you're gonna be confused, and tomorrow, and the next day...
• Compressed Vice:
  • Many of the early focus episodes were less "focus on this character" and more "this character acts as we've never seen them behave before as everyone acts like it's normal, and then 'learns a lesson' about said out-of-nowhere flaw." It tapers off as the season goes on, thankfully. In general, an S.P.D. focus episode is much better for getting to know the character nearest the one being focused on, rather than the one whose sanity is taking the week off (for example, "Buttery" comes from a Syd episode, not a Bridge episode).
  • The team as a whole gets one featuring Sergeant Silverback.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Bridge wears gloves most of the time, only to take them off to use his powers (the real world reason is to cover up the actor's tattoos).
• Consulting a Convicted Killer: Sky's questioning of Mirloc in "Reflection Part 1". It doesn't go well, as Mirloc manipulates Sky and escapes.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: When interrogating one perp in "Zapped", the alien finally cracked after being exposed to Bridge's Talkative Looniness and Syd's hit single Me. And it was hilarious.
• Danger Takes a Backseat: Played with in "Reflection". While hunting for the escaped criminal, Mirloc, Bridge and Z spot him in the rear view mirror of their jeep and turn around to face him in the back seat, except he's not there. Mirloc reminds them that he has the power to travel through reflective surfaces, so he's only appearing to them through the mirror.
• Declining Promotion: In the Grand Finale, the B-Squad Rangers are offered a promotion to A-Squad. They collectively turn it down, saying that B-Squad is who they are.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • The Omega Ranger, Sam, was demoted compared to his counterpart DekaBreak from the source material. Disney forced a Fake Shemp situation that the writers didn't want to deal with, and they wouldn't have included Omega Ranger at all if they weren't stuck with so much DekaBreak Stock Footage.
  • While Broodwing still gets a notably amount of screentime, unlike his Dekaranger counterpart Agent Abrella who was the Big Bad, here he becomes The Starscream after Gruumm forces too many freebies out of him.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • After Bridge finishes off the monster in "Missing", he says, "Now that it's over... it's over."
  • Another Bridge example:
    Sky: Yeah, well, someday our lives may depend on that great guy. And then what?
    Bridge: I know! I know. Then our lives will depend on him.
• Dirty Cop: The A-Squad are revealed to be this near the finale.
  • Dru, Sky's former friend, and Icthior, Cruger's rival, are also this.
• Disney Villain Death: In the finale as Gruumm rejects Cruger's attempt to Save the Villain. Subverted when he shows up in the aftermath to pick one last fight.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Dogged", Cruger tells Syd that R.I.C.'s technology is practically obsolete, and that he will soon have to be deactivated, using the same tones one would use when talking of an old dog that will soon have to be put to sleep.
• Double Agent: Piggy is a triple agent who was supplying Emperor Gruumm, Broodwing and the Rangers with information.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sergeant Silverback
• Drunk with Power: Jack in "Confronted", as he realizes he can boss the others around.
• Dub Name Change: A rare aversion in that Doggie might just have the most similar name to a Ranger's Sentai counterpart ever (who knows why's that). The only differences between him and Dekaranger's Doggie (scales aside) are that S.P.D.'s is Anubis "Doggie" Cruger (Doggie being a nickname), and Dekaranger's is Doggie "Boss" Kruger (Doggie being his given name).
• Eldritch Abomination: Omni has serious shades of this. A massive, tentacled brain with telepathic powers whose minions worship it. And then it gets a body that dwarfs a Megazord.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Sam's teammate from his home era, the Nova Ranger, shows up in the middle of the finale and becomes a Guest-Star Party Member.
• Expy:
  • A few of the Rangers seem to be throwbacks to their counterparts in earlier seasons: laid-back but battle-serious Red Rangers (Jack and T.J.), serious, by-the-books Blue Rangers (Sky and Kai), Valley Girl Pink Rangers (Syd and Kim), and quirky, psychic Green Rangers (Bridge and Trip).
  • Perky brunette Z is reminiscent of nearly every female Yellow Ranger.
  • Sergeant Silverback IS R. Lee Ermey, just as an anthropomorphized gorilla with a robot bulldog.
• Face–Heel Turn: The A-Squad are bought out by Grumm offscreen, leading an attack on their comrades according to Word of God and then capturing Cruger..
• Fake Shemp:
  • As noted in the intro, Sam as the Omega Ranger.
  • Tommy in the second S.P.D./Dino Thunder team-up "Wormhole", where he never demorphs and was voiced by Jeffrey Parazzo, who plays Trent. This got backlash from many fans, as Jeffrey's imitation was so off, it was fairly obvious it wasn't really Jason.
• Family-Friendly Firearms: In Dekaranger, their guns fired actual Bullers. In SPD, they replaced them with lasers.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Discovering Sophie is an android, Sky kicks her out of the academy, defending it to Cruger as called for but Cruger bluntly tells Sky to get her back.
  • When the Rangers go to Piggy for information on Sophie, they scare off all his customers. When Sky asks why all the alien and mutant monsters are afraid of the humans, Piggy snaps "Don't you get that to them, you're the monsters?"
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Gruumm, after Cruger broke one horn in the Battle of Sirius. At least until the finale...
  Cruger: Now they match!
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Three rangers fits this trope with their genetic powers. Syd (The Fighter) haves an elemental-shifter Power Fist making her the physically strongest ranger (in their unmorphed form). Sky (The Mage) can create Force Fields. And Jack (The Thief) is a Intangible Man in addition of his robber past.
• Flung Clothing: Part of Cruger's Transformation Sequence.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Just before the A-Squad leave on their mission, Bridge uses his powers to read them, and notes that their energy and colors seem "off". Much later, we learn that the A-Squad are in league with Gruumm.
  • At the end of the "Sam" two-parter, the Rangers gave a bicycle as a gift to a kid they befriended. A nod to the fact that the kid, Sam, will be the Sixth Ranger, whose personal Humongous Mecha is a motorcycle.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: The S.P.D. Battlizer was totally forgotten after the two-parter where it debuted. (Likely for budget reasons, and the fact that the S.W.A.T. mode was introduced almost immediately after, rendering it somewhat pointless.)
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Sky and Wootox in "Recognition".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: A Product Placement for Honda appears very quickly in "A-Bridged", during the fight between Bridge and the Monster of the Week. It probably snuck by because it was too quick to be fully seen (note that Honda has sponsored^note read: provided vehicles for some of the Super Sentai seasons, Dekaranger included, so they can get away with it).
• Fun with Acronyms: In the "Wired" two-parter, the monster's looking for a Series One Processor/Hyper-Intelligent Encryptor. The Rangers realize too late he means expelled cadet Sophie.
• The Future: takes place in 2025.
• Generic Cop Badges: While the show is Sci-Fi, it's understandable that the badges are different from what we are accustomed to. The thing is that they are way simplistic, with a bulldog logo and an "S.P.D." on top of it.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Syd has a stuffed toy elephant named "Peanuts" that she's had since she was five, and still does close to twenty years later. Used to characterize her pampered upbringing.
• Give Me a Sign: In the finale, Piggy's guilty over betraying the Rangers and shouts this. His food cart is promptly struck by lightning, sent careening down a hill, and explodes.
• Government Agency of Fiction: S.P.D.
• Grand Theft Me: The episode "Recognition" is about the Monster of the Week Wootox forcefully switching bodies with Sky and trying to destroy S.P.D.
• The Gunslinger: Jack and the Delta Squad Megazord.
• Hannibal Lecture: Used on Sky in "Reflection".
• Have We Met Yet?: When the SPD Rangers meet the Dino Rangers, Bridge wrongfully believes Conner, Ethan and Kira don't remember their previous meeting in "History" because their memories of the meeting were erased. While the memories were erased, the Dino Rangers wouldn't remember it anyway because, from their perspective, it hasn't happened yet.
• Heads or Tails?: The monster Wootox does this a couple times in the episode "Recognition".
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: Cruger reminds the Rangers that they can't rely solely on him after he becomes the Shadow Ranger.
• He's Back!: Cruger in "Shadow".
• Holding Out for a Hero: How the Rangers react in "Abandoned" to Cruger becoming a Sixth Ranger in the previous episode.
• Hero Antagonist: Katana is a good monster from medieval Japan who is pulled through a time portal by Emperor Gruumm and tricked into fighting the rangers.
• Hour of Power: Kat's emergency morpher only has an hour of charge.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Syd gets to say "You do the crime, you do the time!" in the premiere.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: as Bruce Kalish's first season, every title had only one word.
• Informed Ability:
  • The MOTWs and their rap sheets; it gets kind of ridiculous as the season wears on, as bad guys with increasingly over-the-top histories of destroying fifty more planets than the last guy show about as much badassitude as... well, your average monster-of-the-week. Especially when the earlier ones were more reasonable, making Willing Suspension of Disbelief easier; Benaag destroyed nine planets, including Cruger's, but he was a commander of Gruumm's massive armies, and this made him a believable, hateable war criminal villain of a dark arc. When every total loser bad guy has destroyed a thousand you just said "yeah, whatever." This was presumably done for pragmatic reasons; a lot of crimes committed by the bad guys in Dekaranger probably wouldn't fly for a Disney program, so they had to resort to blowing up planets, and then just escalating how many were destroyed.
  • Gruumm's empire doesn't seem very... existent. All of his soldiers appear to be the robot grunts that Broodwing will sell to anyone. Monsters of the week don't even work for him - they're criminals who were already doing their thing, hired by him to keep doing it, just for him now. Often, it results in a ten-second scene on Gruumm's ship that could be skipped and you wouldn't notice. He very rarely thinks of a plan himself, and even his ongoing scheme turns out to be at the bidding of another. However, count on the characters to talk about him as if he's worse than ten Emperor Palpatines.
• Insult Backfire:
  • When Piggy wins the lottery in "Shadow", he's able to pay back his debt to Broodwing (with an extra $1000 to get his fishbowl winterized).
    Broodwing: You may be a millionaire, but you're still the same disgusting, filthy, wretched piece of worthless garbage to me!
    Piggy: (earnestly) Thank you! It's nice to know money hasn't changed me.
  • And later in the same episode:
    Syd: This place is a roach-infested germ farm.
    Piggy: Thanks. I've done my best.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Piggy.
  • Jack, Sky, Syd, and Cruger could be like this at times.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Averted. The B-Squad Rangers handle investigation and containment. At the time of judgment, the Rangers announce the accusations against a target with their morphers. Criminals are also not sentenced to death like in Dekaranger and are retained in electronic cards or prison cells.
• Ladies and Germs: In one episode, Bridge and Boom introduce the updated version of RIC to "ladies, gentlemen, [and] assorted extra-terrestrials."
• Lampshade Hanging: In "Missing", Piggy comments how distressing it is how he never sees Sam demorphed.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Dino Rangers had their memory wiped after both teamups. In "Wormhole", Cruger hit the SPD Rangers with it as well - himself included.
• Last Episode, New Character: Nova Ranger shows up in the last episode to join the final battle.
• Last of His Kind: After Gruumm's forces finished with Sirius, Cruger found himself completely alone. Though it is later revealed that his wife also survived, and is being held captive by Gruumm.
• Last Villain Stand: After the rest of his forces are beaten and Omni has fallen, Gruumm bursts from the rubble and challenges Doggie to one final duel.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Delta Squad Megazord, with prior ones being Mighty Glaciers in comparison. It's just as powerful as your typical Megazord, but is one of the most agile, being capable of feats of Matrix-esque acrobatics not seen in previous ones.
• Magic Feather: In "Samurai", Jack makes the classic mistake of thinking the power is in the sword (Cruger's Shadow Saber) and not the swordsman.
• Magic Tool: The SPD Morphers and its variants. The morphers have three modes; Change, which morphs the officer to their ranger form or their S.W.A.T. form while morphed, Phone, which allows them to communicate with the base or each other, and Judge, which enables the Judgement Scanner to asses their crime. Upon reaching a Guilty verdict, the same option will enable the morpher to confine the suspect into a confinement card for safe and easy transport.
• Manchild: Morgana. She doesn't show it much in this form, but keep in mind she made a deal with Gruumm in order to stay an actual child.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Doggie"'s real name is Anubis. Plus all of the other alien S.P.D. members: felines Kat Manx and Dr. Felix, simian Drill Sergeant Nasty Sgt. Silverback, and avian Fowler Birdie.
  • Sky's name borders on The Danza territory, even if it's not the literal definition of the trope: his actor's name is Chris Violette. Violette is French for "purple". Purple is a combination of blue and red. Sky wants nothing more than to be a Red Ranger like his father. He is eventually promoted to Red Ranger. Blue + Red = Purple —> Violette.
  • Boom, who gets blown up a lot.
  • Sirius is the name of Cruger's home planet. Sirius is sometimes known as the dog star.
• Men of Sherwood: The SPD cadets and support personal are always hovering around the SPD Rangers and their superiors but, aside from a guest character, don't really go into the field until the finale, where they provide some effective The Cavalry help.
• Mind Screwdriver: A lot of the things that were poorly handled by the series were explained in interviews.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Cruger hates Gruumm for razing his planet and taking his wife. Gruumm hates Cruger for... cutting off one of his horns.
• Mysterious Protector: Omega Ranger, at first.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The A-Squad wears modified Power Rangers in Space helmets, while Sky's dad is shown to have worn an unmodified Time Force suit (okay, they stuck an S.P.D. logo on it). For the Super Sentai fans, occasional pictures of pre-PR teams appear in place of the picture of Sky and his dad on his desk. Blue Senturion from Power Rangers Turbo shows up as a video game character (fighting a Monster of the Week from Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, no less.)
  • Doggie apparently owns Andros's cloak and Spiral Saber now (and fans were not amused at what they thought to be the return of Andros proving to be Doggie cosplaying him for no discernible reason. Kalish says that the Spiral Saber wasn't the original prop, but an identical one.) Also, the Z on Z's necklace is the same style as the one on Lord Zedd's staff.
  • On the note of Andros, one of the criminals escapes from a penal colony belonging to KO-35, Andros's home planet.
  • The Time Force suit caused even more of a stir than Andros's cloak and weapon, as when the flashback aired, people naturally assumed that meant Wes Collins was Sky's father, and that S.P.D. was an early iteration of Time Force. While that was never discussed, Jason Faunt himself disapproved of the use of the suit, as he felt the fans would make the obvious assumption, and be subsequently confused when they realized it wasn't him... which is precisely what happened.
  • Broodwing acquires the Dino Gems on Onyx - a planet featured on in Space and Lost Galaxy.
  • At one point, Kat notes she overhauled the Morphing Grid - that being the source of every Rangers' power in some form or another.
  • The idea that a giant brain is the Greater-Scope Villain and has been manipulating the other villains into working for him is oddly similar to the 1981 Super Sentai series Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan. Furthermore, the idea that the true villain was the ship all along is similar to the twist behind Zone and Vulgyre from Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman.
  • Both Omni and Mora/Morgana shares similarities as Abaranger villains Dezumozorlya and Rije/Rijewel.
• New Neo City: Newtech City.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Sergeant Silverback is a simian-fied R. Lee Ermey.
  • The Paris Hilton clone in "A-Bridged", complete with her pet dog.
• Non-Indicative Title: For a show called Power Rangers: Space Patrol Delta, they sure don't spend much time patrolling space...
• No Ontological Inertia: The episode "Dogged" features a monster who turns people into green slime. After he is captured all of his victims turn back into people.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Morgana is 'very' close to Z when the former pins the latter against a tree
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Unlike most Rangers, S.P.D. can't just destroy every evil alien they fight. While Dekaranger just went ahead after getting legal clearance, Power Rangers changed it so villains were captured in a giant explosion. Even Cruger's Shadow Saber merely captures the perps. Averted in Messenger, Part 2, though: Omega Ranger arrives in his Omegamax Megazord, where he beats Shorty with little difficulty, and proceeds to finish him off with the Omegamax Spin-Out, destroying him. This makes Shorty one of the only monsters in the season to be destroyed rather than captured. Funnily, none of the other characters comment on the fact that the Omega Ranger actually destroyed a monster instead of capturing it.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Cruger in "Insomnia":
  Kat: Still no word on A-Squad, and... and the Rangers have asked to wear clown suits while on patrol. I've approved them.
  Cruger: Fine.
• Obvious Trap: In "Shadow", when General Benaag sends a message that he has Kat, she warns Cruger that it's a trap. Gruumm then comes on saying that heck yeah, it's a trap, but S.P.D.'s not going to abandon her, are they? Because, as noted, Kat's life was on the line. Also discussed when A-Squad challenges them in the finale; the Rangers comment that it's likely a trap, but it's also noted that ignoring the challenge and doing nothing may also be a trap.
• One-Letter Name: "Z" (short for "Elizabeth").
• One-Liner Echo: In the "Wormhole" teamup: "No one gets inside our circle!"
• Out of Focus: As stated, Sam thanks to the awkwardness of Fake Shemping.
• Palette Swap: Make My Monster Grow mostly took the year off, in favor of each alien criminal of the week having his or her own Humongous Mecha. While the monster suits each looked original, the mecha started to repeat themselves, with minor details, and yes, colors, changed. (\A few times, there wasn't even a repaint! Two once-used monster suits per week was just not gonna happen.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: The entire A-Squad when they do their Face–Heel Turn and become the season's Psycho Rangers.
• The Peter Principle: Kat's promotion in "Katastrophe", where she's informed she's going from hands-on research to managing teams to do it for her. They even seem to have copied the "You won't have to get your hands dirty."/"But I like getting my hands dirty." exchange from when Damon faced this in Lost Galaxy.
• Pet Positive Identification: In "Recognition", R.I.C.'s the one who conclusively identifies Sky's and Wootox's body swap. (Interestingly, this is actually a solution specific to S.P.D. and doesn't originate from the episode's Dekaranger counterpart; while R.I.C.'s counterpart Murphy had started growling and barking at the fake, it was a minor detail compared to the team figuring it out via multiple counts of Out-of-Character Alert.)
• Phantom-Zone Picture: The criminals trapped in cards.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Mora becoming Morgana. Turns out it's just reversing a previous Plot Relevant Age Down.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: The Rangers are celebrating their victory in the finale when Gruumm comes back to challenge Cruger one last time.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Twice in the finale by Doggie.
  • First, after effortlessly cutting through Mora's monsters (taken from her picture book), she asks "What can you do to me? I'm just a kid!" His response prior to confining her: "Use your imagination."
  • Then, after having Gruumm at his mercy, he raises his sword to finish him... and then cuts off Gruumm's remaining horn, saying "Now they match!" prior to confining him.
• Put on a Bus: Gruumm, a villain who was not in its parent Super Sentai series, stepped aside to work on the project he'd spent most of the season acquiring materials for. This allowed cheaper-because-his-appearances-are-mostly-stock-footage villain Broodwing to be sole Big Bad for a significant number of episodes. Gruumm swept back in just in time for the Grand Finale.
• Putting On My Thinking Cap: Bridge does headstands, like Sen-chan did.
• Quickly-Demoted Leader: Sky, due to his rather entitled personality and Jack being considered a much better fit when screened.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Let's see, we have two former thieves that were hired to be part of a police force, and one of them is given the leadership role. Their teammates are a prideful By-the-Book Cop who looks to follow in his fathers legacy as the Red Ranger, a quirky smart guy who loves buttery toast, and a rich girl. And to tie that knot together, all five of them are considered the back up squad who are put in the front lines when the A-Team is M.I.A.
• Rank Up: Happens once in the premiere, once in the finale, and once offscreen between S.P.D. and Operation Overdrive.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: How the Deltamax Megazord finishes off an enemy; it activates its back boosters, speeds towards the target, then pummels it like crazy until it explodes.
• The Rashomon: Done very poorly in the episode "Perspective", with the same three minutes of Stock Footage shown six times with the ADR changed, the changes limited almost entirely to the name of the character everyone else was praising.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Cruger drafts Jack and Z in SPD as an alternative to arresting them.
• Refusal of the Call: Jack doesn’t become a Ranger until Boom urges him to help the others.
• The Resenter: Sky is unhappy with Jack being made Red Ranger over him.
• Running Gag: Whenever Piggy's restaurant has attracted a big lunchtime crowd, the Rangers always show up and drive off the clientele by asking Piggy questions about alien criminal activity. Which might actually be counter-productive for the Rangers, because (paraphrasing Piggy) his customers aren't causing any trouble... at least, not while they're eating.
• Samus Is a Girl: Charlie, the A-Squad Red Ranger, whose appearance isn't shown until the end of the penultimate episode. One guy on the Rangerboard forums guessed ahead of time, leading to a rather infamous case of I Knew It!: during Charlie's first pieces of dialogue, the voice was heavily distorted to make it appear male. The forum poster—who had a history of working with sound and sound manipulation—recognized some telltale signs that it was a female changed to a male and voiced his theory. He was immediately shouted down, mainly because there has never been a female Red Ranger in the history of the franchise. Thirty episodes later, Charlie is revealed to be a girl and the forum poster pens a meaningful discourse entitled, "I WAS RIGHT, BITCHES." Complete with flashing gifs and mockery of the people who thought he was wrong. He even got the phrase and a screencap of The Reveal printed on a t-shirt and got the cast members of S.P.D. to sign it. Hey, he deserved it.
• Scenery Censor: Non-naughty variant with Matt Austin (Bridge), who always wore gloves to cover a hand tattoo (justified in-universe; it's implied that Bridge focuses his psychic power through his hands and wears the gloves as a Power Limiter).
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Most of the individual monsters and main villains fit this trope, being alien criminals. They are trapped inside special cards when defeated.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • Cruger does this in the first episode, asking Sky his opinion on Bridge and Syd - his answer is the very thing that lands him in the Blue suit.
  • Receives a Call-Back in the finale, when Cruger asks Sky if he would follow Syd into battle, and Sky responds that he'd trust anyone Cruger chose.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Mostly in terms of naming. First, there's the true final enemy's name. First Gruumm talks to "The Magnificence". Then the creature called The Magnificence is being called Omni as if he had been all along, and "The Magnificence" is something else (the body for Omni, which many of the crimes were about completing, as it turns out near the end). Then the whole shebang is being called Omni.
  • "Troobian" refers to Gruumm's empire... but said "empire" seems to consist only of two or three guys of different races, and zillions of robots Broody sells to anyone who can pay. It is later used to mean "only" the robots, whether used by Gruumm-affiliated baddies or not. By the end, fans were still saying "and just what is a Troobian, anyway?"
  • And then there are a few instances of events or terms that happened in Deka but not S.P.D. being referred to as if they had. The online fandom got it, and may or may not have appreciated the moments as Shout Outs, but the kids were probably quite confused when Sky-as-the-criminal worried that he'd be "deleted on sight."
  • Isinia, Isinia, Isinia... what can be said about you? After an entire season of having it drilled into our heads that Doggie is The Last of His Kind, learning that There Is Another with no warning at the end suddenly throws open the question of whether more Sirians survived as Troobian slaves. Even worse, we learn that she is a captive of Omni, not Gruumm, as would be expected, considering the rivalry Gruumm and Doggie had that was equally drilled into our heads.
  • "Wormhole" doesn't precisely fit into the timeline. It's mostly OK, but involves Mora instead of Morgana, and after Mora returns in the final episodes she's almost immediately brainwashed by Omni. It may be possible to cram it in between the final scenes of "Badge".
• Shout-Out:
  • The "Reflection" two-parter. An investigator (Sky) seeking data on a criminal from another criminal (Mirloc) who torments him psychologically. The Silence of the Lambs much?
  • To Lethal Weapon in "Sam Pt. 2".
    Z: I'm getting too old for this!
  • The Delta Megazord is a giant law enforcing robot with a powerful three shot burstfire pistol that it twirls around on its index finger and stores in a compartment in its right leg. If that's not a Shout-Out to Robocop, I don't know what is.
• Sigil Spam: Your sigil is overused when you start sticking it on shovels and trash cans. The worst offender is probably Syd's CD player, which has the logo in three places.
• Space Police: It’s in the name.
• Spared by the Adaptation: All of the enemies from Dekaranger. Instead of being deleted if they were found guilty, they were stuck in containment cards.
• Spoiled Brat: Mora.
• Super Cop: The premise of this season.
• Supporting Protagonist: Jack maybe the Red Ranger, but Sky gets an extreme amount of force as well. Especially in the Mirloc arc where he is basically the main character of the Arc. This is lampshaded when Jack gives him the red Morpher to bring Mirloc in.
  • Cruger, the mentor figure is arguably the main character of the whole show considering his personal vendetta against the Big Bad Emperor Gruumm and the massive amount of development he gets. He even gets the final fight of the series against Emperor Gruumm.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • When Jack and Z join SPD and become Power Rangers, while Cruger is pleased with them, they still have to make up for stealing, so Cruger has them clean every window of the Delta Base.
  • The rangers suspect an alien bounty hunter named T-Top of being a wanted bank robber, he causes destruction throughout New Tech City. In the end, even though T-Top was not the bank robber, he was still punished for causing destruction around New Tech City, albeit being banned from going back to Earth instead of being confined in a card like Hydrax, the actual bank robber.
• Survivor Guilt: Cruger has this, as the (apparent) last of his species to escape Sirius.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Mirloc was imprisoned in one with no reflections at all, as he could escape through any reflective surface. He escapes by getting Sky to shed a tear which he escapes through. After being defeated, he's sent to another on planet called Verinox 12, which has no sunlight and thus no reflections for him to escape through.
• There Is Another: Turns out Cruger's wife, Isinia, is still alive.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: At the end of the second S.P.D./Dino Thunder team-up "Wormhole", when Bridge says this line: "I really wish I could stay. I was born last week, and I could meet myself and become my own best friend. (Beat) Wait. What if I met myself and didn't like me?"
• Toilet Humor: Anything and everything involving Piggy. "Dogged" also has R.I.C.'s faulty programming involve "peeing" coolant on Cruger.
• To the Batpole!: The jump tubes have returned. If you want a literal pole, though, you'll have to wait 'til Power Rangers Operation Overdrive.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Z and Syd.
• Tomboyish Name: All the girls: Z, Syd, and Charlie.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Bridge and "buttery" (wiggles fingers) toast.
• Traitor Shot: In "Resurrection", while Doggie is welcoming back the A-Squad, there's a closeup of Charlie looking to her side as if to signal the others. About a minute later, they hold Doggie at gunpoint and reveal that they were Evil All Along.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Averted in the finale. A-Squad Rangers morph first, but don't wait for B-Squad Rangers to do so, instead they just shoot at them during their morphing sequence. Unfortunately, it does nothing other than make them look cool.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Bridge in a couple episodes. Often Lampshaded as the others wonder what in the world he's doing, especially when he goes into a roll when there's no enemies around them yet. After which he immediately breaks into a Silly Walk.
• Unwinnable Training Simulation: Only because the opponent is a Four-Star Badass.
• Verbal Tic: Played with; while Bridge has no problem talking about what kind of toast he likes, one episode shows that he is in fact physically unable to say it without wiggling his fingers. It's infectious too.
• Walking Wasteland: Gruumm's visit to Earth in "Shadow" involved this.
• The Walls Are Closing In: Bridge is trapped in this in "Missing"; Jack pulls him out at the last possible instant.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sky.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Impact", an evil alien was pretending to be an astronomer called Professor Cerebros. Whatever happened to the real Cerebros is never addressed.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Jack gives one to Sky after Mirloc escapes and Sky says he should be demoted for it:
  Jack: You told me that your father fought to the end. And now you want to quit just because you messed up once? I guess you're not like your father after all.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Z asks this about Devastation in the "Messenger" two-parter.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
  • For one, the A-Squad does try to just shoot the B-Squad as they're morphing. It doesn't work. Grumm did the same to both the SPD Rangers and the Dino Rangers as they morphed in "History", which didn't work either.
  • The Containment Mode added to the S.P.D. Morphers is demonstrated in on Boom in episode one. It's an instantaneous, non-lethal, painless method of neutralizing and transporting suspect individuals. This would be a miraculous time-saving law enforcement miracle, but the Rangers still attack criminals they catch red-handed with explosive high-powered lasers and giant robots before using it.
    • The way the explanation is phrased implies that Containment Mode may only be used once the Rangers have sufficient evidence and/or weakened criminals. This is best demonstrated when Devastation saves Shorty and Morgana from capture. It's not an infallible capture device.
• Wild Card: Piggy.
• "With Our Swords" Scene: In "Reflection", Jack loans Sky the Red Ranger morpher for his fight with his father's killer.
• With Us or Against Us: Gruumm forces Piggy into one of these situations. Even after Piggy declares he'll aid him, Grumm still insists he go into a pit of agonizing pain for a day under threat of disintegration.
• Your Size May Vary: Thanks to trying to blend in the Sentai footage, original stuff and human-scale surroundings, the Delta Base's size seems to fluctuate wildly.

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