The Demo Site

originally posted November 20, 2005

by NinjaJack

Right now I`m staring at a yet to be filled Christmas candy tin, this could only mean one of two things, it's time I stopped being such a pack rat or it's almost that time of year again when things tend to change or end.
To say that this season has piqued everyone's interests would be a terribly unjustified understatement.
The things that took place in this fandom over the course of a year has left this Ninja exhausted with intrigue and I think just a wee wee bit of envy.
After two conventions, a team up slip, a lady in red, Morphin Grid AND Onyx references on screen plus NINE Power Rangers this season was pretty exciting to watch.

You can /never/ say SPD was a boring season, they gave you 110% as far as crazy stunts and epic battles. There were many episodes I flat out hated, but gee whiz Wally, I loved the gunplay.

Watching the all those matrix moves may grow tiresome to some of you out there, but to me I like the quality of work the stunties put out for us. And whenever the actors shows enough gung ho to pull of a few stunts of their own then more power to you Brandon. That fight between you and the Krybot(I mean Troobian) in Stakeout still stands out as one of my favorite moments all year,
PR has always had stunt work above the usual network standard of one weak kick per episode.

This year we had enough pyrotechnics to declare SPD a war zone. Not to say I would ever want action to take precedence over story development, when lets face it, this year it has.

I`d like to think that when the series launched there was a clear point to all of the characters. That like previous years of PR, hold on wait, I mean as in previous seasons of television, there was a point to every plot or at least the blunt of the plot. That characters were not just created to fill up space for 38 episodes. That somewhere each meant more than just being a talking mannequin.

SPD gave us so many characters, so much heavy meat to bite into. The only problem is the meat was undercooked.
We have unexplained SPD history as far as Doggie and Birdie are concerned. Why isn't Cruger in command if he`s the last surviving member of the founders of SPD? How is it that Sam*cough OMEGA*cough* comes from the future but lands in a time whole stemming from past?

If Grumm had Cruger`s wife all this time what was the big payoff?
Things like this made up the backstories of SPD. Last season the fans helped influence the show, this year the fans are having to make up things as they go along.
"Cruger must have passed up the Supreme Commander title to Birdie" "Maybe Wes gave his morpher to Sky's dad" "Maybe Grumm's missing horn is like his manhood being removed"
As funny as that last quote might have been, I would rather the writers explain these things rather than speculate to this level. Speculation is fine and all, and I love it. But to speculate to SUCH an extent where you the fan are making a story more detailed than folks who are being /paid/ to write for this show, something has to be afoot. It. Just. Has to be.

Jackie Marchand is one of my favorite writers. She's also one of the PR main stays. Like Koichi Sakamoto(greatest stunt genius ever) she's been involved in many previous installments of this show. One half of PR's most dynamic duo "Judd & Jackie", she has provided many great, even breathtaking episodes over the course of the show`s history.
But alas, this season has been different.

I don't have any affiliations with Mrs. Marchand, I have no ties with her. I am just a guy whose noticed the incoherent writing pattern over the course of the last two seasons.
Knowing her style from previous years has caused me to consider someone has been editing her scripts. It could be Bruce Kalish, it could be Disney, I don't know who it is but her writings were NEVER this bad.
A few bad episodes I`ll give you, but something about this season Jackie episodes felt forced, rushed and honestly doctored to match the ideal of the season.

This is most obvious in the episodes that feel like true Jackie scripts amongst eps that don't. HIstory only suffered from time, but it sure made a heck of a lot more sense than Impact didn`t` it? Badge was quality. Now just tell me who really wrote Messenger part 2 and I`ll be happy.

Looking through the episodes this year I`ve come to the conclusion that there was one major plot that was never touched on. There was one consistent thing throughout the year. Space Patrol Delta has some dirty cops.

SPD has not only been the first to have good guys flat out turn on their friends, these were evil evil evil evil people who managed to get inside SPD. Heck five of them managed to pervert Rangerhood while they were at it. Dru was a dirty cop, Icthior was a dirty cop, I thought for a moment Birdie was a dirty cop but he was just fowl.

There was a whole underlining theme of Good Cop vs. Bad Cop. But like today's space program, there are things that are left unexplored.

When I saw Shadow I was pumping my fist in great passion, erm, I was overjoyed with emotion...no..Shadow left me feeling like I needed a cigarette and I don't even smoke. Then I decided that the best storyline in SPD, the one stroyline they'd be consistent with for the rest of the year would be Doggie's.





OK I needed that space to stop and think of something that wouldn`t come out as totally negative. Because basically I don`t see how you possibly can go so long without solving a character's mystery. Heck the payoff we get isn't really much to bark at anyway. Hasso might not be loved by a lot of folks but he once told me " SPD is good at everything but storylines"
But lets talk about the cast before we get back to the stories.

This cast was fantastic, they brought you into the shows world. What SPD lacked in the story department they made up with a cast with a huge on screen chemistry.
One of the best casts in years, and I don't just mean Rangers here. I`m talking the entire cast was awesome. Much like how I viewed the Time Force cast, I loved the supporting guys too. BoomKat forever!

The two casties closest to my heart will always be Monica May and Michelle Langstone. unfortunetly we didn't get much backstory on either of their roles. But I digress.
Monica May and Michelle Langstone are not only pretty faces, those faces saw some of the best emotions emulated on screen this year. Michelle is the best actress I`ve seen on PR period.

Greg did a superb job writing S.W.A.T and working on the sets and costumes, we will miss your work in the next series Greg...seriously come back!

If there was a single character that I hated in SPD, a single person that I think completely ruined the show for me, it would not be the EP. Oh sure he's on the top ten list but thats not the point I`m making. My most hated character, whom I WILL hate for the rest of PR's run, is Cruger complete opposite, Gruumm.

The this lamo is the poorest excuse for a villain I think I have seen. He RENTS his army and has the audacity to call himself Emperor when there's a guy right above him telepathicly pimp-slapping him on a daily basis. And then there's his strange, weird, disturbing relation to Mora. She's not his daughter, obviously, she's his highest ranking general of course. But what the fark is a ten year old doing with some grimey old man in a dark room?

Lets not forget his grudge against Cruger. Wait sorry, sorry the writers forgot his grudge against Cruger. Then again it`s more like Grumm forgot his grudge against Cruger and made up a reason on the fly "Cruger I hate you so much! I took over your planet, I committed genocide on your entire species, I kidnaped your wife, I'm not in prison, but heck I hate you for cutting off my horn." He's a crybaby. Gruumm sucks people.

He WON and still he's ally pissy at Cruger. Give me ONE reason why Grumm is hell bent on destroying Cruger. And don't give the horn answer because we all know thats a cop out.

What was the point of Morgana again?

I will say that this season has really been good for the fandom, it was exercise. Comic Con and PR would never had mixed years ago but somehow they did. Off screen I think this season was way way up there fantastico. But on screen this year was pretty and beautifully done, it just didn't seem to know how to execute and follow through.

Screw the over budgeting, thats been done to death. Please please screw the "It's a kid show" remark because I know, you know and everyone else whose a fanboy of any show that ever aired on Saturday morning knows that "Kid Show" just means you don't have to be sexy.

If Smallville focused more on their Super heroics rather than Lois puppies, then it would be called a kid show for being to much campy. I guess thats why I still watch this "Kid show" up till this season the writers, producers and stunt crews never used that term as an excuse to write shabby or put out cop outs to this level. This show has a target audience? Yeah, so does Justice League, so did X-Men, Gargoyles, Beast Wars, Reboot, The New TMNT, Batman, Thundercats, Robotech. Even Dora the Explorer has more consistency than what we've been given here.

I'd like to think that this season had a purpose. I`d like to think they didn't just tack on Jacks leaving the B-Squad because they had up and forgotten to do so 20 episodes ago. But it does really really look that way to me. It looks like they tried to jam Bridge's headstands into every bit of the last four episodes just to make it seem like he's been doing this all season when he has not.

It almost seems like they wanted you to forget Sam had magically gained a human body at the end of Endings when he clearly didn`t have it all season long.

So Disney wants self contained episodes? Okay, but just because an episode is self contained doesn`t explain why episodes don`t make sense. Why episodes before Shadow seem to contradict episodes around Badge.
Perhaps this season would not have been such a big disappointment if it had not promised so much.

I can't call A-Squad's story justified at all. Building up five character, well hinting at them, for a whole season only to learn that A)They were evil all along right under Doggie's evil sniffing nose and B)You really never learn why because they're gone before you even have a chance to forget they were there to begin with. Omni's whole story sucks, but it`s related to Gruumm and he sucks, so Omni sucks twice as much as Gruumm.

There were plenty of good things about SPD.
Not just the cast, but the music was great. I love hearing Ron's music again on the show. The massive world they lived in was way huger than anything we've seen in PR in recent years.

This world was a living and breathing entity. Bringing up Onyx was just adding to the mix. This season felt futuristic. I liked what I saw, it was a beautifully shot season. The camera shots this year left me in awe.
Everything before Shadow was golden, S.W.A.T was something we needed more of and Reflections was better than most of the season.

[i]S.P.D.you are charged with mishandling plot devices, ignoring characters, giving us Gruumm, giving up on Omega, trying to convince us that a Krybot is Troobian and finally, never giving us a bath scene[/I]
X
O
X
O
X
O
X
[I] Guilty![/i]
My final grade for S.P.D. is
three count`em three Ninja Cookies out of five