Sixth Ranger / Live-Action TV

• Richard Grieco's character, Dennis Booker, on the crime drama, 21 Jump Street. His character was then given his own short-lived spinoff.
• Kat of Alphas was introduced in the second season and spent the majority of the following episodes trying to officially join the team, which she eventually succeeded in doing.
• Arrow: Season 1 establishes 'Team Arrow', the Power Trio of Oliver, Diggle and Felicity and they gain more members and allies throughout the series.
  • Quentin Lance became the group's outsource and police intel starting Season 2 up until the mid-Season 3 due to a fallout. He resumes this position in Season 4.
  • Sara Lance comes on board as an on-off member in Season 2 and Roy Harper later joins in the same season on a permanent basis.
  • Lyla Michaels becomes a recurring ally starting the Season 2 finale.
  • Laurel Lance from the Season 2 finale onwards spends her time as an outsource and legal aid. Come mid-Season 3, she tires to take her sister's place against the rest of the team's objections. Oliver eventually takes her on board.
  • Thea Queen becomes an ally partway through Season 3 and officially a member during the Season Finale.
  • Season 3 also introduced recurring allies such as The Flash and his team, The Atom, and Katana. Malcolm Merlyn also allied with Oliver briefly, though the relationship was more antagonistic. Nyssa Al-Ghul, though helped Team Arrow in an Enemy Mine scenario at the previous Season Finale, also officially becomes a recurring Friendly Enemy during this season.
• Barney & Friends started off with just Barney and Baby Bop, and then added B.J. a short while afterwards. In 2006, the series introduced a fourth dinosaur, Riff.
• Done multiple times on Babylon 5.
  • Most of the time, it was to replace a departing character (Sheridan for Sinclair, Lochley for Ivanova), but Marcus Cole, introduced in the third season, is a straight example.
  • Bester during his brief Heel–Face Turn functioned as the Token Evil Teammate version.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • In season 4, Buffy herself becomes the Sixth Ranger to The Initiative, the newly-introduced organization staffed by guest-stars.
  • During season 5, the Knights of Byzantium start off as possibly ally or enemy (attack Buffy, but also beat up Glory's Mooks) before becoming full-on enemies due to their unwillingness to show mercy.
  • Spike started off as a Big Bad in Season 2, later performed a Heel–Face Turn, and did indeed end up as the protagonist's boyfriend.
  • Anya starts out bad, but performs a prolonged Heel–Face Turn, and ends up part of the group.
  • And finally Andrew, who spent most of season 6 fighting against Buffy, only to end up becoming one of the Scoobies the following season.
  • Inverted during Season 3. Faith starts out good and ends up good, so she is not only Inverted, but also a true Sixth Ranger, two different times. Three times if you include her short stint in the fourth season of Angel. Faith serves as a sort of wild card for either show when the dynamic needs a good shaking.
  • Lorne fits this trope in the Buffy spinoff Angel. While he debuts in season 2 as a neutral contact when the team has 4 members (Angel, Cordy, Wes, Gunn), he moves in with them and becomes far more involved with them in season 3 when they have 5 members (the previously mentioned, plus Fred) then joins the team officially in Season 4. But during season 3, while he is considered an ally, he isn't considered a core member. After Cordy departs, and Lorne makes up the fifth member, it could be said that Spike becomes the new sixth ranger.
• Jesse joins the Burn Notice Power Trio in Season Four. However, tensions are a bit high, given that he's yet to find out that he's the spy Michael (accidentally) got burned.
• Charmed has Leo, Cole, Chris, Billie, and Coop all acting as sixth rangers to varying degrees.
• Daniel Shaw from season 3 of NBC's Chuck. He occasionally joins the Power Trio of Chuck, Sarah, and Casey on missions but only those concerning his area of expertise, the evil organization known as the Ring.
• In the second season of Community, Chang attempts to join the study group.
• Hawkes in CSI: NY, who joined the team as a field investigator in season 2. He was coroner before.
• Disney Channel does this in some of their shows:
  • Chad Dylan Cooper in Sonny with a Chance, then became Sonny's replacement in So Random!.
  • Marcus Little in The Suite Life on Deck, although he left the series later on and Maya fills the role after he leaves.
  • Gunther and Tinka Hessenheffer in Shake it Up, despite the latter being billed as a recurring character.
  • Carrie in the 3rd season of Austin & Ally, combined with Official Couple to Dez.
  • Season 2 of Girl Meets World introduces Zay Babineaux, Lucas' old friend from Texas. He combines this trope with being an Audience Surrogate, especially as he has been present for episodes with a more serious plot. Isadora Smackle also fills this role before Zay came in the picture, but she's more of an "Extra Hero" kind of character at first.
  • Zane and Rodney from Bizaardvark is this in Season 3 combined with Four Plus Two. Amelia's little sister Willow acts as this too in that season, but most of the time is only seen with her sister.
  • Terry Perry in Lab Rats was mostly an antagonist to the main characters, but becomes a full-fledged ally late Season 3 onwards, even though she still antagonizes them every now and then.
• Doctor Who:
  • Jack Harkness fits this trope in Series 1, temporarily changing the Doctor and Rose's The Hero/Sidekick duo to a Power Trio (once he stops trying to con them). He shows up again two seasons later, just in time to help the Doctor and Martha against the Master.
  • Series 5 has Rory to Eleven and Amy. He's a bit character when he first appears, but eventually becomes a companion midway through it. And then he dies and is blinked out of existence a few episodes later, only to return for the finale. And then by Series 6 he becomes a full-time companion for the rest of Amy's tenure.
  • In Series 8, starring the duo of Twelve and Clara, Clara's Love Interest Danny and snarky student Courtney looked like they would become this, but it didn't happen.
  • Chris Chibnall's scripts generally tend to take this to an extreme by often introducing multiple one-shot companions at a time. "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" introduces Rory's dad Brian, the Great White Hunter John Riddell and the Egyptian queen Nefertiti to make a temporary TARDIS Team, and the trend continues into Series 11, for which he acted as showrunner.
• Double the Fist has Tina T, The Heart who replaced Mephisto after he was taken over by an Aztec Demigod. In Series Two we got Tara, a shapeshifting cyborg assassin who was on par with Steve in combat. Comically, she was mostly used for paperwork. Blue Womp would also technically count.
• Friends: Charlie Wheeler, who happened to be a Twofer Token Minority. Also Richard and Pete, two of Monica's early boyfriends that got their own arcs. Other examples include Mike Hannigan, who marries Phoebe in the end; Fun Bobby, Marcel the Monkey, and Gunther who appeared in the most episodes after the main six.
• Tina, Rob, Hector and Casey from Ghostwriter.
• On Glee, later additions to the club beyond the initial twelve have included Rachel's boyfriend Jesse from a rival glee club in the first season, new student Sam and Deadpan Snarker Lauren in the second, and Irish exchange student Rory, spoiled rich girl Sugar, Christian dreadlocked hippie Joe, and Kurt's boyfriend Blaine in the third. The fourth (after Rachel, Finn, Kurt, Mercedes, Puck, Quinn and Santana graduated) brings us Unique, Finn and Rachel clones Ryder and Marley, Puck's brother Jake, and Alpha Bitch Kitty. At the midway point of the fifth season, all the remaining original members graduated and the Glee club was disbanded, with the sixth and final season featuring an all-new Glee club lineup with the alumni as their mentors.
• Heroes - Sylar, by the season four finale. Doesn't look good for him though. Made worse in that he already tried it once a season before, and that didn't work out so well. The writers kept flip-flopping on what side they wanted him on, so he'd realize that being a good guy is more meaningful, and then realize that Evil Feels Good, over and over. He happened to be on the good side of the Heel–Face Revolving Door when the show was cancelled, but that doesn't mean he's a good guy.
• Lieutenant Bush is cast this way in Horatio Hornblower (since the adaptation gave Horatio a different Lancer in Archie). Bush comes aboard pleased to serve under the heroic Sawyer, gets irritated at the other lieutenants' criticisms of Sawyer's erratic behavior, and observes with an unreadable expression. So when he seeks out their mutinous assembly in the middle of the night, they're quite frozen, until he expresses his own opinion of Sawyer's unfitness and that if they're planning to do something, he'd like to join them.
• Jerome from House of Anubis who technically joins Sibuna for protection from his "boss" Rufus Zeno. Joins up with Sibuna again in Season 2 So they could rescue Trudy who had been kidnapped by Rufus.
  • Joy also counts as she was important to the mystery in the first season and was added into Sibuna by the end of season 2 after helping to rescue Nina from under the Senet board. In season 3 she is a full member of the team, but she quits after Fabian breaks her heart.
  • Eddie also joins Sibuna at the very end of season 2 when it turns out he's the Osirian. He didn't officially join until season 3, however.
  • Willow joins for a bit in the season 3 finale, but it's cut short when she becomes a Sinner.
  • The Movie adds Mara to the team, as well as the new students Dexter, Erin and Cassie. Sophia was also a member, but she was soon revealed to be the Big Bad of the movie.
• The then-love interests of anyone of the Five-Man Band sans Lily and Marshall fill the role on How I Met Your Mother. If the actual mother counts, she did so very late in the game, i.e. 11:58 pm.
• Oddly, Iron Chef has one of these: Kobe in the original series fits the trope almost perfectly (as he even has his own customised entrance).
• In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Frank appears and joins as the fifth member of "The Gang", which had previously consisted only of Dennis, Dee, Charlie and Mac. Frank has become a staple of the show.
  • Straighter examples would be characters like Artemis, Cricket, or Z, who are the few other people that can actually stand the Gang for any length of time and aren't against getting involved in a scheme.
• Bob Fossil of The Mighty Boosh is a sort-of Fifth Ranger to the main group of Howard, Vince, Bollo and Naboo. He was in the radio show and tv show from the beginning, but as an antagonist with not much focus. After series one ended, he vanished from the show, as the main characters no longer worked for him. He had a single cameo in series two, then in series three, he appeared in a neutral role in a few episodes, though the other characters still don't like him. In the live shows, however, he's updated to full group status, fights on the side of the heroes, and seems to be at least somewhat friendly with Vince and Howard.
• Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers, a UK fan-made series (that made its way to MTV) which parodies both the Power Rangers and "emo" culture, did this in its first season with the addition of Fai, the Purple Fashioncore Ranger.
• Misfits:
  • Played with on episode 2.4, which introduces a guy named Ollie with all the traits of a sixth ranger: he joins the community service with the main gang, starts to get along with them and even has a superpower like them... but he's killed ten minutes into the episode. Ironically, Ollie's heart is transplanted to Delicate and Sickly Nikki, who eventually becomes the sixth ranger for the rest of Season 2.
  • Seth becomes the sixth ranger in Season 3.
• The Muppet Show: The Electric Mayhem, the Muppets' in-house band, started with five members: Dr. Teeth, the frontman on keyboard, Janice, a Granola Girl on lead guitar, Floyd Pepper, the Team Dad on bass, Animal, the wild one on drums, and Zoot, the laid-back saxophone player. In the series' fifth season, they picked up a sixth member, this being a mostly-silent trumpet player named Lips. Lips was originally just a background performer for the band, but later installments established him as the wise one with a lot of inexplicable connections.
• The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg starts out with four heroes who have the power to command the elements of fire, air, water and earth. Around the middle of the series, they are joined by Prince Garret, who gains power over the element of forest.
• NCIS:
  • Jimmy Palmer jumped in for Gerald after he was shot in the first season, and became a member of the main cast in season ten. Unlike the substitutions of Ziva, Vance, and Bishop, he didn't fill an existing role as a cast regular, as Gerald was never a member of the main cast. McGee or Shepard might be considered Sixth Ranger material as well, although the creation of their roles was so early in the series and so ingrained into the show's early identity as a straight procedural that they could not be said to have really altered the show's character. Palmer's increasing relevance goes hand in hand with the development of NCIS as a misfit family series as much as a procedural.
  • After Ziva leaves in the tenth season, it is open if she'll be a recurring guest from time to time.
  • Tobias Fornell, Hollis Mann, Mike Franks, Abigail Borin, Diane Sterling, EJ Barrett, and Jake Malloy are/were notable recurring allies of the main cast.
• In Parks and Recreation, the titular small town government office starts off with the original group of Leslie, Ron, Tom, April, Jerry, and Donna. In the Season 6 episode "Doppelgangers", after Pawnee absorbs its neighboring rival town Eagleton to prevent its financial problems from dragging the whole county down, a new character in the form of Craig joins the Pawnee Parks and Rec Department office. He eventually takes over as Department Director after the Time Skip.
• Reno 911! gave us Deputy Kimball in season 3.
• Nasir silently joins the Merry Men at the end of the pilot episode of Robin of Sherwood after being set up as a minion of the bad guys. Yes, that's one episode in, but it's also a brand new Robin Hood character after about 600 years.
• Madan Senki Ryukendo starts off with two warriors; Ryukendo and Ryuguno. Around episode 14, a third warrior, Ryujinou appears, who first spends his time as an Anti-Hero, then as an Aloof Ally, before finally joining the others for real.
• Sherlock gives us Mary Morstan (who then becomes Mary Watson) in Series 3. Seems to be inverted/subverted in that she comes across as one of the good guys from the beginning; then it seems like she's secretly evil when we find out that she was formerly an assassin. Ultimately double-subverted, as she turns out to be an ultimately good woman with a dark past who truly loves John.
• Major Evan Lorne from Stargate Atlantis. He joins the Atlantis expedition in the second season, becoming a regular face on the show and a leading member of the expedition (he's the Number Two of Atlantis' military), and unlike other newcomers such as Ronon, Keller, Carter and Woolsey, he fills an entirely new role instead of being a replacement for a departing character.
• Vala Mal Doran in Stargate SG-1. In mid-season eight, she unsuccessfully hijacks the Prometheus. In Season nine, she gradually moves from minor villain to anti-hero, being partially responsible for bringing the Ori to the Milky Way among other things. In season ten, she becomes a full SG-1 member, though not after losing her memory once.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Pavel Chekov was introduced a a new member of the bridge crew in Season Two.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Seven of Nine joined the main cast in the fourth season premiere after the departure of Kes.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Worf joined the fairly tight-knit cast in season four after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
    • Ezri Dax could also count as this or possibly as the 11th-Hour Ranger, joining the cast for the final season. She is also The Nth Doctor, as she is also technically a continuation of Jadzia Dax, who was killed in the season six finale.
• Stranger Things:
  • In season 2, Steve and Max end up becoming this to the Party. The former spent the first season barely knowing them, while the latter starts out as the new kid in school. By the end, they're pretty much accepted into the fold after bonding with the Party and proving their skills. This gets lampshaded with Max, as most of the group except Lucas are initially wary of letting her in on the masquerade expressly because they feel they don't need a Sixth Ranger (that and, it's implied, Mike unconsciously seeing her as a Replacement Scrappy for Eleven). They only change their minds when Max saves Steve from Billy and helps out during the mission to distract the Mind Flayer.
  • Robin and Erica in season 3. Robin is a new girl introduced as Steve's coworker and former classmate, and Erica previously appeared as Lucas' little sister before joining the main cast. Dustin and Steve recruit them out of necessity but try to keep them out of the Masquerade. It doesn't stick. After the four of them discover what the Russians are really up to, the girls end up learning everything that's been going on in Hawkins for the last couple of years.
• Supernatural has seen several attempts at adding a Sixth Ranger to the Winchester brothers, with varying degrees of success. Ruby turned out to be a Sixth Ranger Traitor, but Castiel and Bobby seem to have well and truly worked their way into Team Free Will.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, a fifth, female turtle named Venus was introduced to the previously all-male quartet. (She could be a sixth ranger if you count Splinter, though.)
• Ted Lasso: In Season 2, Jan Maas, a sardonic Dutch midfielder joins Richmond, presumably as a replacement for Roy who retired due to injury. Lampshaded in a scene where the team yell at Jamie for everything he did to them and Jan Maas shouts "I don't know you, but I don't like you!"
• Derek Reese in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, who showed up late in the first season.
• Torchwood:
  • For the first half of Season 1 or so, this is Ianto, but by the end of the season he's just as much a part of the gang as the others. Season 2 has Martha and Season 3 has Lois.
  • Rhys is the recurring Sixth Ranger from the middle of Season 2 onwards.