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| PRBM "Intruder Alert!" |
In the latest episode of Beast Morphers, Earth is host to two visitors from SPAAACE. One is the notorious criminal Ryjack, he of the Cockney accent and technology able to clone someone from an object they owned. Cue Ryjack cloning fallen villain Vargoyle, in a long tradition of the Power Rangers/Super Sentai trope where dead villains are brought back as clones - just look at the robot Blaze and Roxy.
The other is the VR Trooper-looking space cop Captain Chaku, who teams up with the Rangers after a misunderstanding. Chaku's role as interstellar law enforcement and unofficial sixth Ranger gives major Turbo Blue Senturion vibes. Chaku's sense of justice is pretty space cadet: his idea of resolution is to "destroy" Ryjack. But hey, it's Power Rangers, where monsters are rubber-suit monsters.
Ryjack wants to burgle the newly introduced past Ranger tech vault, in a neat nod to continuity. Another one is Ryjack summoning Putties and Viviks to fight the Rangers! The unmorphed fight against the Putties, taking place as it does in a construction site full of parkour opportunities, strongly recalls similar fights in the Mighty Morphin days.
If there's any higher messaging at work, it's that of a parable about communication. At first the Rangers arrest Chaku because he's an unknown quantity and they can't understand what he's saying. But it doesn't take too long for the good guys to all coalesce, and Chaku looks to be sticking around for a bit. And he must partake in the one, singularly important initiation ritual at Grid Battleforce: chuckling at Ben and Betty hijinks.
That's right, Ben and Betty are given their usual slapstick pratfalls, because of course they are. Their main setpiece involves slipping on a bunch of marbles. That's fine, but it's the CGI triple flip that's objectionable.
Benefitting from decently intriguing new characters and a soupçon of the same fanservice from last week, "Intruder Alert!" is an above average entry. 6/10.
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