Power Rangers Dino Fury: Sporix Unleashed Review

PRDF "Sporix Unleashed"

The worldbuilding of Dino Fury steadily continues in "Sporix Unleashed", a meat and potatoes expository episode that nonetheless throws a few curveballs and, give or take a couple character hiccups, promises solid footing for the season going forward.

Like Beast Morphers before it, Dino Fury is showing that once you become a Ranger, skills don't magically manifest for you. We see the Rangers practicing their morphing motion (cannily giving the audience an opportunity to learn it too). Teleportation is seen to take a little getting used to, like going through the event horizon of a Stargate. There are also light touches of meta comedy, such as Amelia asking who names the zords when told of the T-Rex Champion Zord. Moments like these are welcome and realistic additions to the standard Power Rangers template.

Amelia's boss Jane unveils a robotic duplicate of herself (?), so that looks like a source of comic relief this season. At least when the robot bops all over the place like a cartoon whirlwind, that's because it's a robot - Victory, Monty, Ben, and Betty had no such excuse. (More on the robot in Stray Observation.)

The action quotient is heightened in this second episode. We get a full morphing sequence - which is pretty involved, taking in multiple phrases. Because we're still being introduced to everything, I'll say I really appreciate that Amelia as the Pink Ranger gets an ankylosaurus as her dinosaur, rather than something more "elegant". During the morphed fight, slow motion is liberally used - will that be this season's equivalent of "Kalishsplosions"?

There are more innovations in the zord fight. The monster is rendered in CGI in some shots, and that partial digitization makes for a surprisingly fast-paced zord fight. Usually the zord fights are characterized by lumbering suit performers hitting each other, which is great, but this is quite a change. Add to that Amelia and Ollie fighting a kaiju-size monster without zords, and you have some novel action beats.

As the title sequence telegraphs, Zayto can retract his antennae for public appearances. Which is a positive development, but his personality seems missing in action, retractable or no. Given his stone face and singular focus, I hope we're not in for a Troy-type Red Ranger this season.

The episode is also a little rough for Ollie. He skirts his secret identity in multiple ways, not least when he morphs right next to his mom (good thing she didn't... turn to the right) and then calls her "mom" when morphed. Worst of all for the rookie Ranger, he protests that he's sure his mom is fine, even knowing that she has technology that the villains are actively looking for! But to be fair to the good Dr. Akana, she kind of wipes the floor with new sporix monster Mucus!

With an effective opening up of the show's elements, and unique action moments, "Sporix Unleashed" is a solid second episode of Dino Fury. While I hope Zayto will develop more of a personality, it's nice to see everything set up. And that's one of the fastest-paced zord battles Power Rangers has given us. 7/10.

Stray observation:

-  Jane's robot comes from Hartford Robotics! A nifty easter egg reference to Andrew Hartford and his creations from Operation Overdrive, including his "son" Mack.