Alternate Character Interpretation: Johnny Yong Bosch has said that he personally played Adam in "Once A Ranger" as someone who had grown into a lone warrior and traveled the world using his Ranger powers to help people, and that his remark about going back to his dojo in Angel Grove at the end of "Once a Ranger" was a lie.
Anti-Climax Boss: Flurious, despite having the Corona Aurora and the jewels gets beaten fairly easily by Mack with the battlizer.
Among fans of the entire franchise, this set of rangers is among the most divisive. To be more specific:
Ronny is well liked for being more of a badass than her Sentai counterpart and not having as much negative baggage compared to the other Rangers but ignoring the jerk moments she shares with the other Rangers, is disliked for being flat compared to everyone else and not having any Character Development.
Tyzonn. His backstory is well received and he is shown to be one of the most moral Rangers because he was a rescue worker and reminded the team that being a Power Ranger means helping others is appreciated. However, he has his annoying moments (albeit for different reasons than the rest of the Rangers) and like Ronny, doesn’t have much for Character Development, especially since he didn't do anything to reunite with his lover.
Mack has one of the best story arcs in the season or even the entire franchise with many agreeing that he earned his humanity at the end of the season and some people like that he's living his dream as an adventurer. However, many feel that his story arc overshadows the rest of the team not to mention sharing the unsympathetic moments with the rest of the team as well as jerkass moments of his own after the reveal of him being an android.
Norg gets this reception as of late. He's either hated for being an incompetent Villainy-Free Villain or loved for his comical antics and being a Nice Guy.
The brothers are considered to be highly annoying to some fans, though you will find some who actually felt sorry for Moltor when he was killed by his brother, Florious.
As this was the last "bad" season (As seen by most of the fans) before Samurai, fans are divided as to which is worse (Turbo and Wild Force being largely Vindicated by History thanks to the two newer seasons) between the two.
Either the theme song eventually grows on you or it's among the worst in the entire franchise. There seems to be absolutely no middle ground.
Designated Hero: Some feel that the team's 10-Minute Retirement after losing their powers in the "Once A Ranger" anniversary special runs entirely opposite to the idea that even without powers, a Ranger never gives up, and that the Overdrive Rangers aren't worthy of being Rangers as a result. Although for what it's worth, none of the past teams who endeavored to keep fighting without their powers had backup; Previous Rangers had to decide between 'keep fighting or let the bad guys go unopposed'. The Overdrive Rangers' options were 'Be the Red Shirts or let the veteran Rangers who have everything perfectly under control handle it'.
Spencer, the Hartfords' snarky butler who makes the best jokes this season as well as mentoring the rangers. Even those who can't stand the season agree he's one of the few redeeming qualities.
As far as the villains go, Kamdor and Miratrix were pretty well-received; some go as far as to state that they should've been the season's main villains instead of the brothers.
Badass Bookworm Rose is considered by many to be the most entertaining of the season's Rangers and is probably better liked than Pink Rangers from several better-received seasons.
Epileptic Trees: Due to Kamdor and Miratrix's rather shallow motivations, many fans have made up their own interpretations of the characters.
"Bentass" in regards to Samuel Benta's "Banner incident."
He Really Can Act: While Overdrive is regarded by many as one of the worst, even detractors said that James Maclurcan was fantastic when it was revealed that Mack was a robot. His shock, sadness and anger came off as genuine.
Tyzonn's actor played a bully in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. Guess which yellow ranger his team fights with in "Once a Ranger"?
It seems that the Magi Yellow/Mystic Yellow outfits leads to wearing gold- Chip's actor, Nic Sampson voices Sentinel Knight in this season, while in Tokumei Sentai Go Busters, Magi Yellow's actor, Hiroya Matsumoto, plays Beet Buster, their Gold Ranger.
Speaking of Chip, he wanted to train to become a knight during Power Rangers Mystic Force, which makes it even more ironic that Sampson voices the Sentinel Knight.
This was a Disney-owned superhero franchise with an episode featuring Thor and Loki, and since then, Disney's given up Power Rangers for a different superhero franchise featuring Thor and Loki.
Iron Woobie: Norg. He's constantly treated by crap by Flurious and suffers a lot of abuse from him, which includes getting zapped by him as a result of his incompetence. Despite all of this, Norg always comes out mostly unharmed and can maintain his playful mood.
Just Here for Godzilla: For people who dislike this season and the team-up episode in particular, the return of the veteran Rangers is the only reason to watch it.
Quite a few people view the Sentinel Knight's CG head bursting out of the Battlizer's chest to be this.
Retroactive Recognition: Jessica Jeffries, the news anchor who appeared in one episode ("Behind the Scenes") is played by Nathalie Boltt, who would go on to play Penelope Blossom in Riverdale.
The Scrappy: Dax. The show tried to give him quirks like Bridge from SPD, but he came across as more annoying than funny both in and out of universe. He's also supposed to seem like he's underappreciated due to being just the stuntman, but he doesn't give any reasons to make himself endearing or anything to appreciate. His only real jokes too are when he mentions that a situation is like a movie he worked on, which got stale fast, and the Miratrix ex-girlfriend joke, which got super frustrating. While episodes that highlight him as The Everyman rather than a Plucky Comic Relief make him more sympathetic and likeable, they are few and far between compared to his more annoying behavior.
Seasonal Rot: Operation Overdrive has a massive negative reputation among the fans, even among the Disney Era seasons. The shift in the overarching plot was a large departure from traditional Power Rangers fare (which naturally caused some negative feelings due to it being different), the acting was a far cry from the quality set by SPD and Dino Thunder (though it wasn't as bad as some past and future seasons), the late-season Jerkass qualities by Mack due to The Reveal were rather inconsistent and unfounded, and the explosion count became insane, topping in at over 250 in the entire show. Thanks to all of this, this commonly is on the top of many "Worst Season" lists.
The year before, Super Sentai had gone HD. Power Rangers was still SD. The solution? Squeeze the 16:9 Boukenger footage, specifically the Zord battles, into 4:3. The result wasn't pretty. Power Rangers Jungle Fury and Power Rangers RPM simply took the 16:9 footage and cropped it.
A building hallway was badly disguised as an Egyptian tomb corridor in one episode.
Stock Footage Failure: During roll call, Ronny was given a new, tougher pose compared to her Sentai counterpart Natsuki's more cutesy pose, to better fit her character. However, whenever they do a group shot of the team, they would use stock footage from the Sentai, thus having Ronny do Natsuki's pose.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Alpha 6's new voice in "Once a Ranger" was not liked, with many fans finding it to be even more annoying than when he was first introduced in Turbo.
Mack got the most development during the last few episodes of the season due to learning he was an android, so the other rangers received little. The ones that needed it the most were Ronny, Rose and Tyzonn. The latter especially, since his backstory featured his quest to avenge his friends by destroying the Fear Cats and reunite with his girlfriend, but was resolved in the last episode before he even has a chance to start looking.
Dax. One of the reasons he's rather unpopular (asides from people finding him annoying) is because of how undeveloped he is. They could've explored more on his stuntman career and him being The Everyman rather than being a Plucky Comic Relief.
Of the series' main villains, Kamdor & Miratrix were the most well-received - though not quite Knight of Cerebus level, they were played a fair bit more seriously than either Moltor or Flurious, with a higher success rate to boot. Conversely, however, they were also the least-developed, receiving only the bare minimum for backstory and not having much motive for even wanting the Corona Aurora beyond simple greed and hunger for power.
Thrax being the long lost son of Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa had much potential as a character. Unfortunately, said character, despite successfully cutting the Overdrive rangers from the morphing grid for most of "Once A Ranger", ended up becoming rather inept, getting angered easily and making several mistakes during his plans.
Tyzonn's backstory was pretty tragic with losing his friends in a cave-in and vowing to avenge them by defeating the Fear Cats. However, he learns his girlfriend survived the cave-in and decides to go searching for her. This is resolved... by Norg bringing her to Tyzonn at the mansion after the rangers defeated Flurious. So Tyzonn didn't even get a chance to even officially start his new quest.
"Once A Ranger" had the potential to be a great team-up and anniversary, but extremely botched. It's the first time Angel Grove is in Power Rangers since the Zordon Era, but is set in a warehouse and none of the familiar locales are seen (Probably because of a low budget, recreating them would've been too expensive). The son of Rita and Zedd is introduced, and then ended up being extremely underwhelming. Five past rangers return, though mostly favoring the Disney Era and Alpha 6's return meant Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force and Wild Force were not referenced at all, along with the veteran team being shown more effective than the Overdrive team.
Tough Act to Follow: Once A Ranger got this since Forever Red, the tenth anniversary special, was pretty well received.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Thrax, though it doesn't do him much good. Considering that, from his perspective, his parents left one day and came back looking completely different, and having given up on their goals of universal domination for seemingly no reason, adding on that (logically) he'd only be a few years old at most, and his anger at their "Succumbing to good" makes a lot more sense.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Overdrive Rangers are meant to come off as sympathetic in "Once A Ranger" when they lose their powers and feel useless enough that they quit. However: 1) They still have their civilian powers, 2) Their mission was not to be just Power Rangers, but to find the jewels, which they could still do while the veteran rangers dealt with the monsters, 3) All of them, save for Tyzonn, were gloating about how awesome it is to be Power Rangers before being reminded it's about saving lives, and 4) Mack, unmorphed, uses Excelsior to slash through a giant monster in half. While Excelsior's power is hyped up this episode, the fact remains that Mack had to jump several hundred feet in the air, and perform a slash powerful enough to one shot the monster. With civilian powers this strong, why complain about not having Ranger powers.
When you stop and think about the finale too, it gets worse in hindsight because everyone, save for Mack but he's the only one with an excuse, go back to their normal lives anyway once the mission is over.
In later years, after everything cooled down, some fans have admitted there were some good ideas and, compared to SPD and Mystic Force, at least managed its characters better (actually focusing on the rangers this time and distributing equal time to the villains—especially since there are four factions this time). The serialized nature of the season in contrast to others meant that the plot was always moving forward- finding this MacGuffin to find the other, which leads to the next Jewel, which starts the hunt for the next MacGuffin, etc. It's also clear that the budget cuts really hampered the series and brought down what otherwise is a pretty decent globe-trotting adventure story. The general opinion on Overdrive these days is "Interesting premise, lackluster execution."
To a lesser extent people have compared it favorably to the newerseasons following Saban’s buyback. Though you're as likely to find people who despise Overdrive just as much.
