Episode 8: "Commitments"

Today on Moleculon, Lechner is surprised to find Gorganus in a good mood, despite his continued failure to conquer Earth. Gorganus insists he'll have the job done by the end of the day. After all, he's got a brilliant new plan; to destroy the Earth, he's going to summon the terrible Octodroid!

Uh-oh. We haven't even gotten through all of this show's monsters yet and we're already reusing one. Sure, Ninjabot was kind of in the last episode, but only as a hologram that was a small component of Gorganus' plan. This time the whole evil side of the episode belongs to Octodroid, a monster we've already seen. Admittedly he was at least one of the show's better monsters, but a lot of that had to do with him being involved in Gorganus' plan to salinate all the world's freshwater. This time, no such plan is mentioned. I'm not sure if Gorganus even actually has one. Upon his arrival on Earth, Octodroid proceeds to destroy what looks like a small radio relay station by firing poorly-animated flames from his hands. Well that seems like a much less efficient way to bring the planet to its knees.

At the coffee house, patriotic decorations are being set up for an impending re-election campaign speech by the mayor of Beverly Hills, Diane Henley - who, as you may remember from a previous episode, is Gordon's mother. Gordon himself arrives and approaches Drew at the counter, explaining he has a problem. This event is a big deal to his mother, but he doesn't have a date. Drew gives him a quarter and tells him to call someone who cares, which is only funny as a reminder that payphones used to be a thing. But it's desperate, you see - if Gordon can't find a date, his mother is going to try and set him up with some girl named Eloise, who Gordon exclaims is an even bigger pain than Drew.

These 4th of July decorations were half the episode's budget.

Gordon offers to pay Drew to play his date, but she retorts that they haven't printed enough money to convince her to do so. So real talk - why didn't he ask Laurie? In the show's second episode he seemed to have a thing for her, and she's definitely more his type. At the very least it would be more believable than Gordon going out with Drew.

We don't get to see Gordon embarrassing himself for any longer, though, as Nimbar summons the duo through a Power Portal underneath a table. When they arrive, Nimbar exclaims they must prepare to work together "as (they) never have before." Apparently there's a problem with the portal system that prevented Laurie and Swinton from coming, and now Drew and Gordon will have a limited amount of time to fight the monster. If they can't defeat Octodroid before their portal collapses, he explains, they'll be "trapped for all eternity in a soundless, colorless void." Er... why? Wouldn't they be trapped in the place they fought the monster? Unless they were in the portal when it collapsed, I guess...

Nimbar points out that Octodroid has over thirty arms and tells the teens to "remember" his stinger, which is "deadly to humans." Now, there have been plenty of episodes where they've referred to a new monster as if they'd fought it before, but this is the first time an actual returning monster is treated as if he's always had a weapon they're just introducing. Also, why in the hell does an octopus monster have a stinger? Did the writers confuse octopuses with jellyfish? Even jellyfish don't really have "stingers" per se, they're actually...

...wait, sorry, was I expecting this show to have half a brain there for a second? How foolish of me.

The two morph samurize transform and roll out get on their Transo-Discs and portal to the hilly area where the monster is attacking. Hey! A new miniature set for them to fight on! They really splurged on this episode! I guess the producers bought those flag-colored decorations on sale July 5th. During the fight, Octodroid manages to grab Drew with one of his tentacles and fires what looks like his salinization ray at her.

Insert Japan joke here.

Gordon blasts the monster, allowing Drew to get free, and then this exact situation repeats itself with the roles reversed as Drew saves Gordon. Nimbar congratulates them and tells them to hurry back because the portal won't hold much longer. But, uh... they're not even close to defeating the monster. If anything they're slightly losing. Whatever the case, they retreat, but not before Gordon grabs what looks like a handful of salt off the ground.

When they return to base, Nimbar showers them with praise, saying how remarkable it is that just the two of them sent Octodroid running. Again, nothing of the sort happened. He just recalled them in the middle of the battle. 

Gordon tells Nimbar about the salt he grabbed, saying "Octodroid left a trail." Nimbar tells them to put it in "the analyzer," a piece of equipment which does not actually exist as the show had no budget for another prop. Instead Gordon just pours it onto the edge of Nimbar's podium and some stock computer sound effects play. The result, shockingly, is that the mystery substance is... salt!!!!

Gordon says salt is harmless, but Nimbar points out that too much salt in your body can kill you. So, have the teens just forgotten all about Octodroid's salt-based abilities, or is this episode actually out of order on the DVD set? Do these episodes even have a correct order? Or could it be that the people making this show didn't care enough to bother with things like continuity?

...oh, yeah. That's probably it.

Hard to believe when they had such elaborate sets constructed.

Nimbar explains they only injured the monster and will have to fight it again, and to repair the Power Portals so that the other Sentinels can join the battle, he needs a large amount of an element plentiful on the planet Nimulus. But he can't reach the planet without the portals at full power! Luckily, as it turns out, the element he actually needs is diamonds - seven of them, to be precise. And naturally, Gordon's mother has a bracelet with seven diamonds! Nimbar explains if he could borrow the diamonds, he could portal to Nimulus to get more diamonds, and then the new diamonds would repair the portals so he could give back the old diamonds. Diamonds.

Anyway, Drew tells Gordon he can't steal the bracelet or borrow it without asking, but he says he isn't. "WE are," he declares! And then in the very next scene the two arrive at the coffee house, the bracelet already on Drew's wrist. What? I can almost accept them not having time to show us them getting the bracelet, which apparently was readily accessible, but why did Drew put it on? Does she not realize people might think it's suspicious a high schooler who works as a waitress at a tiny coffee house has a seven-diamond bracelet on? Well, then again, this is set in Beverly Hills. Maybe they give those away at barbecues there.

Anyway, as the two talk with Laurie and Swinton - promising to tell them about the trouble with the portals later - Gordon's mom arrives, with Eloise in tow. She immediately recognizes the bracelet on Drew's wrist, because of course she does. Gordon admits that it's hers, and leaves Drew to explain why she's wearing it. A class act, that guy. She explains he gave it to her because they're dating, and Gordon's mom is so excited he finally got a date that she's suddenly okay with his theft. Eloise gets all upset and leaves in a huff, Laurie and Swinton express their shock, and Gordon's mom announces loudly to the entire coffee house, I quote, "my son actually has a girlfriend!" The two proceed to make up a narrative about how they met and fell in love laced with insults at one another, and it's mildly amusing but goes on for too long.

Back at the pool house, the duo have just explained the situation with their fake dating to Laurie and Swinton, who apparently actually believed their woefully unconvincing performance. After a brief explanation of why Nimbar needs the diamonds, Laurie and Swinton leave and Drew takes off the bracelet and gives it back to Gordon. Again - why put it on in the first place? Anyway, Nimbar summons the teens just before Laurie and Swinton can get in the car, but Drew and Gordon don't initially notice because they're lost in each other's eyes.

Though by the "acting" you'd think it was just a staring contest.

All four of the teens manage to get through the portal this time, and Nimbar instructs Gordon to place the bracelet in "the power slot," another nonexistent prop, so he just drops it onto the podium where he put the salt. This restores power to the portal system, and just in time; Octodroid is back. Well, he never really left, but. You know. Nimbar surmises his mission is to salt the clouds to ruin Earth's freshwater system. He can't just salinate water directly anymore? Or is that the same plan he was trying last time and they just didn't bother to elaborate? Either way, the teens portal into battle.

It doesn't take long for Octodroid to snare all four Sentinels in his tentacles at once. Nimbar urges them to remember they are a team, and so they immediately decide to stop being a team and become one guy in a Halloween costume instead. Somehow, despite being wrapped individually in separate tentacles, they're still able to form Knightron. Not only that, but once they do, Knightron is standing freely some distance away from the monster. From then on it's a curb-stomp battle as Knightron avoids being recaptured and blasts the monster away with its sword. Which I will again remind you is named "Megacalibur" just for yukks.

At no point during either battle does Octodroid demonstrate that he has a stinger.

Back at the lair, Nimbar congratulates the team on their victory and returns the bracelet, explaining he made a quick diamond run while they were away and he no longer needs it. Laurie asks if he might have happened to pick up any extra diamonds for them, but he scolds her about how one cannot abuse nature's bounty, even on another planet. Damn hippie liberal scum.

When they arrive back at the coffee house, Gordon's mom is giving her speech and invites Gordon and Drew onstage. When the speech is done, Gordon returns her bracelet, and the two teens explain - while smiling broadly - how they had a fight and broke up. Being an imbecile, she accepts this obvious lie and takes back the necklace. As the other three teens leave, Gordon is left alone in the coffee house - with Eloise!

THE HORROR!

_____________

This wasn't the worst episode, though it sure has a lot of problems. Octodroid was a far less menacing foe this time around, even with his nonexistent deadly stinger of doom. The cheesy rom-com civilian plot is better than some of the stuff this show has done with the teens, but it is pretty weird that it hinges on the mayor giving a major campaign speech at a tiny coffee house that seems to be patronized almost exclusively by high school kids. I will say I was pleasantly surprised that the show didn't make Eloise a caricature of an "undateable girl." Granted, she only has one line, but she's pretty enough and doesn't seem to have any obviously repulsive qualities. Early on I was worried she'd be a female Dwayne.

The action was as forgettable as ever, and the way the Sentinels won seems like a total cop-out. Then again, I should be used to that by now, because despite its "finite power" Knightron has really never had serious trouble with a monster before. Maybe one day it'll get its ass kicked. I'd like to see that. Pay off the setup about its limited power or it's pointless. Of course, this show doesn't have a great track record of paying off what it's set up, so... I won't hold my breath.

Episode 7: "The Spy"

Today on Moleculon, our episode begins with Emperor Gorganus scolding one of his monster mercenaries for some unspecified failure. The evil minion, an ice monster super-creatively named "Isolus," begs Gorganus for one more chance. There's some really clunky dialogue where Isolus says Nimbar "protects them" without saying what "they" are and that he "thwarts her search." Judging from the later events in the episode I can only assume she'd been trying to discover the identities of the Galactic Sentinels, but the opening tries its hardest to obscure this point for no apparent reason. Before sending her off for her last chance, Gorganus menacingly warns her that "the empire doesn't have a retirement plan."

...what? That's one of the worst threats ever. Is that seriously going to be her punishment? Unemployment at old age without social security or a 401k? I mean yeah that sucks, but it doesn't really seem befitting of an evil space overlord.

Meanwhile on Earth, Drew is holding a party at her pool house. I'd assume it's a pool party since some of the guests are in bathing suits, but this show is too cheap to afford an actual pool so for all we know she's actually planning to hold a swimwear modeling competition. Drew is having a blast watching Swinton and Gordon flirting with a new foreign exchange student, Ilsa, who is definitely not a space alien in disguise. Even though Swinton's making quantum physics jokes and Gordon's talking about credit cards, Ilsa seems oddly receptive. Hmmmm... COULD IT BE!?!?

Also, Ilsa is speaking in one of the worst fake "vaguely European" accents that I've ever heard.

What a beautiful day for a good ol' American soundstage party!

That evening at the coffee house, our four heroes are inexplicably hanging out together in public again. Gordon and Swinton are sure they've scored big time with Ilsa, but the girls are trying to convince them otherwise, pointing out she was flirting with everyone. Laurie says that she knows her type, and that after wooing the boys, "she'll turn all cold - practically Arctic!" Whoever wrote that probably thought it was really clever foreshadowing. Let that sink in for a moment.

Suddenly, Gordon's tattoo flashes - and only Gordon's. He doesn't want to go - because he was planning on going out with Ilsa, natch - but the others convince him it's probably important and he relents, leaving through a portal that opens in the back room. At Nimbar's lair, the intergalactic booger informs Gordon he's picked up a strange reading from the desert, one "similar" to Ninjabot but "strangely different." Then, for no apparent reason, Nimbar burps. Gordon asks if he has any antacid. Nimbar ignores him and tells him to transform into a Sentinel and check out the desert.

Uh... comedy?

In a bit that actually did make me chuckle, Gordon asks why only he's being sent, and Nimbar says it's because in case of a trap "it's easier to replace one Sentinel than four." I mostly appreciate the fact that not even the aloof glob of space snot can stand this guy. Somewhere deep down in his mucus, he's clearly hoping Gordon won't come back.

Gordon portals into the desert, and - without even looking around - immediately declares nothing is there. Of course, Ninjabot then materializes right next to him. Gordon blasts him with his weapon a few times and the evildoer vanishes again, prompting Gordon to declare he's "outta here" and teleport back to base. Grade A commitment there, pal.

It's a good thing he's a robot, or else he'd get pretty sweaty wearing this getup in the desert.

Upon his return, Nimbar informs Gordon that he didn't actually destroy Ninjabot. But not because he was a lazy, non-committal jackass. Well okay, not ONLY because of that. As it turns out, there was no Ninjabot! In fact, it was a "Gaborian Wavefront Reconstruction," his space-jargon for a hologram. Albeit a hologram that could've killed him, because apparently this kind is solid? I don't even know you guys. At this point I'm just hoping Jem shows up to save this show in the most unexpected crossover event of the 20th century.

Anyway, Nimbar says they need to figure out what the purpose of the hologram is, and as such, he summons the others. But as they head to the base, Ilsa sees them entering the portal! Finally someone on this show doesn't fail a spot check! 

Upon arriving in Nimbar's lair, the teens immediately see an image of Ilsa watching their exit on the holo-monitor, and Drew instantly comes to the conclusion she's a spy. That seems like a pretty big leap to make from the amount of information she has. Would she assume that of anyone who sees three teenagers disappear into a glowing white dimensional rift that opens up in a coffee house? Because despite what the show would've had us believe up until this point, that kind of thing seems pretty hard to miss.

Still, Nimbar confirms she's an agent of Emperor Gorganus. Swinton claims it can't be true because she's too pretty, and Gordon accepts the truth but still wants to date her. Then Laurie asks how she found them, which is exactly the question I have. Apparently, the Ninjabot hologram was made to force the Sentinels into action so they could be seen using a portal. Nimbar explains it "will have taken a massive effort by Gorganus to watch all the portals on the Earth nexus - but the Emperor is diabolically patient." Laurie chimes in that Ilsa had been transferring to and from a lot of different schools in the area and eventually found the right one.

...where to even start. Are we supposed to believe Ilsa was the only spy? No evidence or mention of others is given. Why was she disguised as a teenager? Did Gorganus know the Sentinels were high schoolers for some reason? And how did she know to follow them to the coffee house after the party instead of following any of the other kids who were there? Anyway, Ilsa tries to contact Gorganus on her earring-communicator, but Nimbar blocks the signal.

That's what you get for using T-Mobile.

Ilsa makes a beeline for the portal but Nimbar puts a forcefield around it. He warns, however, that he can't hold it forever. The teens will have to use a mind-erasing device on her before she can report back to Gorganus. They head back to the coffee house and proceed to confront her. In the middle of said public establishment. The guys still have the hots for her and get distracted, and the conversation between the heroes and the spy goes on for far too long. Laurie reaches out to Ilsa with the mind-eraser, but just then, she disappears in a flash of white light! Apparently none of the customers see or hear any of this.

Nimbar re-summons the teens, explaining he was barely able to stop Ilsa from portaling into his lair. He further explains via a bunch of nonsensical technobabble that he managed to send her to the desert instead, and that this is their last chance to stop her before she returns to Gorganus with the information on their identities. Nimbar informs them she has transformed back into her true form. Swinton guesses, based on the fact that the temperature in the desert just dropped by 75 degrees Celsius, that she's Isolus the ice creature. First, how does he know what the temperature in the desert is? Second, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was less than 57 degrees Celsius. Dropping 75 degrees from there would bring the temperature down to below zero even in Fahrenheit, yet when the Sentinels arrive in their skimpy spandex outfits, they don't react to the temperature at all.

Anyway, a fight ensues, and it's typically terrible. Isolus fires freeze rays from her sword, yet when one hits Drew she simply falls over and suffers no apparent ill effects. But then when one hits Gordon he's frozen in place (by which I mean they freeze-frame him and tint it blue). Nimbar tells them that if they need to leave Gordon to preserve their own lives, they must have the wisdom to do so. That's the second joke about Gordon dying today and I am totally okay with that.

The new Blue Man Group act really sucks.

Unfortunately, Swinton blasts Gordon with his weapon, somehow unfreezing him without any damage. Now reunited, the team forms Knightron, which causes Gorganus to freak out as he watches the battle from Moleculon. Desperate for the spy's information, he scrambles to open a portal by tinkering around with a device on his wrist. No portal materializes, presumably because Nimbar is blocking it, though that's not made explicit. Knightron reflects Isolus' freeze ray back at her, and she's frozen solid. Then Knightron lightly taps her forehead and she... disappears with some sparkly effects. I honestly can't even tell if they were trying to simulate shattering ice or not.

Back in the base, Laurie, Swinton, and Drew materialize, but Gordon does not. Nimbar fears he may have actually been teleported to Gorganus! Oh no! Aaaaaaand seconds later Gordon shows up. He thinks for a second he may have been sent to Moleculon after all. Aaaaaaaand then he immediately changes the subject and asks how Swinton knew he could unfreeze him. Turns out he couldn't be sure and he might have actually blown up. Hah! Gordon's life doesn't matter to anybody! Marvelous!

Up on Moleculon, Gorganus is holding an ice cube vaguely shaped like Isolus' head. He says he must find a way to reconstruct her somehow eventually. When Lechner asks what he's going to do with her remains for now he... drops the ice into a carbonated drink he's holding. Complete with one of those little umbrellas.

Mmmm, corpse-flavored.

Back in the coffee house, Swinton and Gordon are still swooning over Ilsa. Gordon, in fact, insists the girls are jealous because Ilsa really liked him. Right before trying to kill him. He then goes even further by insisting Drew and Laurie are crushing on Swinton and him, respectively. The episode ends when the new foreign exchange student from France walks in, leading Gordon and Swinton to rush to her side as the girls ponder whether she is also secretly an evil alien.

_____________

Ohhhhh boy. This is one of the show's worst episodes so far, which is definitely saying something. I appreciate the running joke about Gordon's horrific but inconsequential death, and at least Dwayne wasn't in it. But the plot about Gorganus' attempt to discover the identities of the Sentinels was horribly mishandled, with a "spy" who did no actual spying but just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was equipped with powers of noticing the obvious (unlike everyone else in the coffee house). The action wasn't appreciably worse than usual for this series, but the fights are never the highlight of these episodes anyway.

About the Ninjabot hologram: If Gorganus can create holograms that can actually hurt or even kill the Sentinels, why does he bother using the actual mercenaries at all? It seems like a waste of manpower. At the very least the hologram could've stuck around to assist Isolus in battle. In fact, this episode has a "today on..." segment preceding the episode - the first time there's been one on this DVD set - and said segment explicitly says Isolus is going to team up with the Ninjabot. I suppose you could say that's true-ish in a certain sense... Isolus teamed up with a fake Ninjabot to try and discover the Sentinels' identities - but it feels like a cheat anyhow. I'd say the kids watching this back in 1994 were probably disappointed, but let's be honest. If they were watching this instead of Power Rangers or VR Troopers or Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, they'd probably already lowered their standards too much to care.

Also since I didn't fit it into the main recap, here's a shot of Isolus in all her, uh, glory:

You're... welcome?

Episode 6: "Three Cheats to the Wind"

Today on Moleculon, Gorganus is especially happy with his plan to conquer Earth. You see, he's given one of his alien minions who may or may not be mercenaries, Octodroid, the ability to turn all freshwater into salt water. Sadly this does not involve having him run around with a comedically oversized salt shaker. That said, as far as evil world-conquering plans from kids' shows go, it ain't bad. Gorganus correctly points out that either the humans will need to surrender and beg him for freshwater, giving in to his demands, or just die out.

It's also worth noting that instead of sending the monster directly to Earth as he's always done before, Gorganus actually transforms Octodroid from his frozen model form into his guy-in-a-rubber-suit form and lets him just kinda hang out in his throne room for a while as he discusses his plan. So either the monsters only turn gigantic when they teleport to Earth, or Gorganus himself is hundreds of feet tall.

Dude doesn't look like the first person I'd invite over to my crib, but whatever.

After the monster arrives on terra firma, we change scenes to the coffee house, where Drew is taking orders at a counter from a long line of customers. Despite the fact that every previous time we've seen someone place an order on this show, they've done so from their seats. Swinton, Laurie, and Gordon are inexplicably hanging out with her at the counter as they enjoy their refreshments, because this episode wants to break the "keep our identities secret by not hanging out together" rule as quickly as possible. Why even bother trying at this point, right?

In between taking orders, Drew is trying to write a paper for class on "heroism in classic French revolutionary literature." She's writing it on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Here's another of those rare moments where I need to give this show credit; that's actually a believable high school assignment. On Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (and even the current Power Rangers Ninja Steel), the Ranger teens' classes are always elementary school level with such challenging curriculum elements as "Question marks: Why do we need them?" and show-and-tell. Which I guess is to make them more relatable to the target audience, but honestly seems pretty pointless and distracting.

Anyway, Drew is actually really enjoying the book and the assignment (which is good since this one paper is apparently SIXTY PERCENT OF HER CLASS GRADE), and takes the time to briefly outline the novel's plot about an innocent man on the run from the law. Gordon is unimpressed because as far as he can tell, that story is just a rip-off of the 1993 Harrison Ford film The Fugitive. When the others call him out on the fact that Les Misérables was around over a hundred years earlier, he tries to play it off as a joke. But it's clear to the audience and the other characters that no, he really is just that stupid.

A realization perfectly conveyed by Laurie and Swinton's facial expressions.

Meanwhile, Octodroid is busy salinating all of Earth's water. Or at least he's supposed to be. All we actually see him do is stomp around a forest and shoot fireballs at trees. Somehow this unconventional method seems to work, because when Gordon takes a sip of his coffee, it's disgustingly salty! He complains to Drew, but she couldn't care less - her shift's up and she's off to finish her paper. Or she would be, except that the four teens get a page from Nimbar. Gordon "creates a diversion" so they can escape through the Power Portal in the back room unnoticed by... loudly declaring he wants a refund for his coffee. 

I'm sorry, but in what universe is shouting in a crowded public place the best strategy for making sure you go UNNOTICED? Whatever. Somehow it works and the foursome teleport to Nimbar's lair.

Once there, Nimbar explains the situation to the teens. Laurie asks if it's too late to stop Gorganus' plan, but Nimbar explains Octodroid has just begun his task. Apparently ruining the coffee of a bunch of people in Beverly Hills was his first priority. The team step onto their Transo-Discs to confront the monster, and Drew takes her paper with her. When they transform, the paper and the clipboard it's on grow giant alongside Drew. Now, this seems pretty stupid, but it's not without precedent; the same thing presumably happened to Swinton's earpiece in the last episode since he could still hear the teens talking to him through their microphone (though we couldn't see the earpiece).

My immediate question is: have they found the solution to world hunger? Could Laurie go buy a pizza, portal to sub-Saharan Africa with it, and suddenly possess enough cheesy bready goodness to feed a tribe of starving children for a month? Is that how those giant party cupcakes were invented?

It's also worth noting that when they arrive on the scene, Octodroid is spinning around like a ballerina and releasing waves of white energy from his body. I think this is supposed to represent him salinating the water, but if so I have no idea why he wasn't shown doing it before.

Maybe he just thinks his tentacles look pretty spinning around like a skirt.

As Drew follows the others' lead and attempts to summon her weapon, Octodroid snares her in one of its (apparently extendable) tentacles. Gordon manages to free her, but then Octodroid retaliates by knocking the essay out of her hand, apparently just to spite her. The teens get the upper hand by blasting the monster with their weapons, and Gorganus teleports Octodroid out of the battle. The teens arrive back at Nimbar's lair, but Drew is super bummed about the loss of her essay. She claims "that thing ate my essay," which very clearly did not happen. She just dropped it on the ground. But I suppose that line is meant to explain why she couldn't have just picked it up before teleporting back. The paper's due in an hour, which in Drew's estimation makes her "dead meat."

Later in school, Drew thinks she's gotten away with not handing in a paper. Since her teacher, Ms. Musker, takes "forever" to grade papers, she reasons she can write a new one. Then once Ms. Musker notices she doesn't have a paper from her, Drew will insist she handed it in but offer her an "extra copy" to replace it. Shockingly, this foolproof plan falls apart immediately when Ms Musker shows up to confront Drew for not turning in a paper. Surprisingly, Ms. Musker offers Drew twenty-four hours to hand in a paper with no penalty, which is actually really generous. On the other hand, as she puts it, "twenty-four hours and one minute - you fail."

I need to take a minute here to pay special attention to just how terrible an actress the lady playing Ms. Musker is. Her line readings are flat and unsteady, as if she's struggling to remember what she's supposed to say even as it comes out of her mouth. It makes me think they hired the first lady who walked in off the street instead of holding an audition for the part. Or maybe it was a producer's relative who just wanted to be a "TV star." Whichever it is I'm immediately relieved when she walks out of frame and hopefully out of the show forever.

That afternoon, Swinton, Gordon, and Laurie all come over to Drew's pool house and find her struggling to rewrite her paper. Seems she can't remember anything she wrote the first time around. Swinton offers her a tape of songs from the musical version of Les Misérables to "inspire" her, which Drew doesn't expect will be especially helpful. Gordon then offers his unique take on the situation - according to him, school is a business where grades are a product paid for by their parents' taxes and, therefore, the students deserve grades they're satisfied with. This, of course, turns out to be a sales pitch.

One accompanied by pointless hand gestures, even.

You see, Gordon has actually brought along a printed catalog for a mail-order pre-written essay company. He explains that it's the perfect solution because they take credit cards and provide overnight shipping. They even have a selection of Victor Hugo papers, and guarantee a B+ or your money back! Laurie is appalled at the mere notion of cheating and remains unswayed by Gordon's justification that it's not Drew's fault she doesn't have a paper done already. Swinton offers to personally help Drew write her own paper, but ultimately, she's persuaded by Gordon's argument and decides to order herself an essay.

Even in a pre-internet plagiarism checker age, I wonder how often this could've worked. The essays are presumably typed so that handwriting isn't an issue, but if the papers are pre-written, there's probably only one or two for each topic. I have to imagine at some point someone would hand in the same paper as another "customer" and the ruse would fall apart. That said the scene definitely implies Gordon makes regular use of this service, and the potential for getting caught is never actually brought up, so I suppose we're just supposed to assume it always works.

Up on Moleculon, Gorganus has Octodroid back in his frozen figurine form and is working on him with a thrown-together prop that shoots lasers. He explains that humans are 98% water - which is a hilariously huge overestimation (the number is more like 60%) - and so he plans to defeat the Sentinels by giving Octodroid a "desiccation ray" that sucks the moisture out of whatever it hits. Which, again, is actually a pretty good plan. To draw the Sentinels out, he plots to send Octodroid to drain the water from a nuclear power plant, potentially causing a meltdown.

It looks more like he's spray-painting his collectible figure with lasers, but what do I know of alien technology?

At the coffee house, Gordon is handing out more mail-order essay catalogs to classmates - with Drew sitting nearby - when Swinton and Laurie arrive to scold her about her choice. Gordon says he's proud of Drew's decision, which Laurie immediately points out is a pretty big red flag. Before this can turn into a full-blown Jerry Springer episode with flying chairs, Nimbar summons the teens to his lair. They leave through a Power Portal that opens right in the middle of the room, which leads me to realize that the coffee house is deserted (save for another employee we'll later learn is named "Roz," who comes out of the back room looking for Drew right after they teleport out). Now maybe the place was closing and the people Gordon handed the catalogs to were the last customers to leave - but even then, how would Nimbar have known it was safe to open a portal in plain sight? So far he's been completely ignorant of the teens' civilian lives, and there's no indication he can or does watch them when they're not in battle. It seems ridiculous to assume he knows the business hours of their hangout.

Nimbar quickly explains the situation at the nuclear power plant to the teens, and they teleport into battle. The fight that ensues is about 75% jumping and flipping for no discernible reason, with an occasional kick thrown in for good measure. Eventually Octodroid hits the Sentinels with his desiccation ray, a particularly embarrassing special effect that causes what look like teal smudges made with crayons to be sucked from the empty space to the left of them.

No comment needed, really.

Drew declares that they're goners unless they form Knightron, which they promptly do. At first it seems to be a good idea, as Octodroid stops trying to drain their moisture. I assumed at this point that Knightron might be some sort of space-metal golem that doesn't have or need any water in his body. For a while the two exchange blasts and blows, but as soon as Octodroid manages to wrap Knightron in his tentacles he goes right back to using his desiccation ray. So, frankly, I'm not entirely sure how forming Knightron really helped. Still, Knightron does eventually manage to break free of Octodroid's grip, at which point Lechner declares that the battle's over and Gorganus should let the Sentinels kill him. Gorganus disagrees and teleports Octodroid out of battle. 

At the time this exchange occurs, Knightron is not actually winning in any way, shape, or form. There's nothing to stop Octodroid from grabbing him again or, hell, just using his desiccation ray without wrapping him up. But as soon as this decision is made on Moleculon, Octodroid inexplicably stops fighting and allows Knightron to blast him repeatedly while he waits to be withdrawn. It seems like the villains weren't really as committed to this whole plan as they should've been.

Back at the coffee house, the teens emerge from that same Power Portal in the middle of the room. Roz is standing right next to it cleaning a table but conveniently fails to notice it. Despite seeing Roz and knowing she's there, the teens then congratulate Drew on her courage in battle out loud. The employee somehow misses this, too, and simply asks where the teens have been. They reply they went outside to watch a parade, which Roz couldn't hear because it was a MIME parade. Genius.

Roz is clearly unconvinced but also doesn't have time for this bullshit, so she disregards it and hands Drew a package that came for her - obviously the essay. Somehow the battle with a giant rubber octopus man has changed Drew's mind about cheating, and she rips up the paper. When Gordon protests, Drew explains her reasoning and realizes that she's actually reciting her old essay. Conveniently, it seems that one of the residual effects of Power Portal travel is enhanced memory, and now she can recall everything she wrote. So the episode ends with Drew dictating her assignment to Swinton, who types it up on his laptop, and the moral about facing unpleasant consequences to maintain your integrity is completely botched as the central character experiences no consequences whatsoever.

Remember kids, if you ever have trouble with your schoolwork, space magic will fix it for you!

_____________

First, about the episode's title. It doesn't make any sense, on multiple levels. Unless we're counting the random kids Gordon hands catalogs to in the coffee house, there are at most two cheats in this episode - Gordon and Drew. And Drew ultimately doesn't go through with it in the end. Now the reason for the "three" in the title is because it's a play on the expression "three sheets to the wind." A phrase which is completely irrelevant to the episode, as it refers to an out-of-control drunk person. Though admittedly this episode would probably have been a lot more entertaining if it were actually about Drew's hard liquor habit and a drunken bar fight with the space octopus.

As to the merits of the episode itself - it's pretty middle-of-the-road by Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills standards, which is to say it's pretty terrible by literally any other standard. Gorganus' plan was good but he gave up on it way too early. There were the typical lapses in logic and common sense, and the fights were as uninspired and poorly-choreographed as ever. At least, with the exception of Ms. Musker's acting, the civilian plot was tolerable - even if it did completely drop the ball with its deus ex machina ending.

Episode 5: "Perceptions"

Today's retina-searing installment begins, as ever, on Moleculon. Emperor Gorganus is lamenting his continued failures on Earth, wondering why it is he hasn't won yet when he's conquered thousands of planets and defeated the Galactic Sentinels on all of them. Now at first I thought it somewhat implausible that he'd be having so much trouble with these four twenty-somethings pretending to be high schoolers, but it actually kind of makes sense; Nimbar did mention the Galactic Sentinels are imbued with all the skill and knowledge of those who came before them. If that holds true, then this show's heroes are by default the most skilled and knowledgeable Sentinels ever. Which... really makes me wonder what kind of severe mental disabilities the previous Sentinels all had, and why none of them knew actual martial arts. But anyway.

Gorganus summons Slaygar, a monster he insists will both conquer Earth and eliminate the Sentinels "for eternity." It's a toxic waste monster that's supposed to look like a living glob of sludge. In actuality, he's an oddly-squarish hunk of slightly melted-looking rubber with a permanently agape mouth. He arrives in the same old desert on Earth and sets about creating mayhem by... shooting some kind of terribly-animated green beam out of his mouth that turns a rock formation into gas. Which, hey, I guess is more impressive than setting a single telephone pole on fire.

Amazing how the beam instantly materializes in a perfectly straight line just in front of his mouth. And shoots in a different direction than he's facing.

In the hallway at their high school, Swinton and Drew are talking. Swinton insists Drew almost never acknowledges they know each other while school is in session, which based on a cursory viewing of previous episodes is both something the show desperately wants us to believe and a blatant lie. Drew asks for an answer on a piece of homework, but just as Swinton begins to reply, he goes silent and his face contorts into an unspeakable mockery of an expression. He's caught sight of a girl smiling at him from across the hallway, and it's driven him totally bonkers!

The girl, Kathy, comes over to talk to Swinton, but he's unable to form a sentence in her presence and she quickly departs. When Drew asks what just happened, Swinton claims he was trying to ask Kathy out - much to Drew's amusement. He explains he freezes up around women - except for Drew and Laurie, apparently - and Drew suggests he should just "let the dialogue flow." 

Then Gordon shows up and the pair make the boneheaded mistake of letting him know what's going on. Laurie comes along too - loudly asking, in the middle of the hallway, if the world needs saving - just in time for Gordon to offer Swinton dating advice. Except he wants to charge him $50 for the privilege. When Swinton pays up, Gordon suggests he should show her his gold credit card to impress her. Because yes, he is apparently so far up his own ass he thinks everyone has one. Laurie suggests just taking Kathy out to do whatever she's into, while Drew counters he should write her a poem. For further advice, Drew arranges for Swinton to meet her at her pool house later. After Swinton leaves, the other two decide they'll be there too.

That afternoon at the pool house, Laurie and Gordon express their wish that they could just tell him what to do and say in the heat of the moment. This, of course, prompts Swinton to "rig an RF mic and a non-detectable earpiece" to solve his problem. This is followed by a scene of the monster gesticulating in the desert, coming upon the very telephone pole Ninjabot set on fire in the debut episode, and attacking it with his toxic beam. Bizarrely, this just causes the pole to... smoke slightly. I guess I should take back what I said about Slaygar being a more impressive monster.

JUST KNOCK IT OVER ALREADY!

I feel the need to point out that it's presumably been some time since the monster was sent to Earth, since we went from the teens being in school and looking as if they were prepping for the next class to them being at the pool house after school. Apparently Nimbar finds Slaygar just as non-threatening as the audience, because he's yet to do jack shit about it. That or he was too busy watching his daytime soaps to bother checking the monster monitors.

Cut to the coffee house, where the teens are ready to enact their clever microphone plan. This is set up in one of the stupidest ways possible. Swinton is sitting in a booth against the wall, and the other three are sitting together at their usual table - which is, at most, about ten feet away from the booth, with no other tables between them. And they're not exactly being inconspicuous, either - they've got the microphone mounted on top of a makeshift tower made up of a backpack, binder, two textbooks, a napkin dispenser, and a pepper shaker, and they're all huddled around it, bending over to talk into it. They test the mic and Swinton responds that he can hear them perfectly, which, let's be honest, he probably could without the earpiece.

Kathy walks in and sits with Swinton, and a really bad, drawn-out gag ensues where the teens give him conflicting advice and Swinton mixes it up and mashes it together in embarrassing ways, sometimes responding out loud to things only he is supposed to be able to hear. 

Through his "non-detectable earpiece."

Back on Moleculon, Gorganus and Lechner watch footage of Slaygar's triumph over the telephone pole. Gorganus declares that soon the stench of Slaygar's fumes will permeate the entire atmosphere. So wait. Was that his entire plan? Make Earth smell bad? Because I must regretfully inform him that air freshener had already been invented by 1994, and the practice of pinching your nose dates back to antiquity.

Just then, the teens notice the smell in the coffee house, and Nimbar finally decides to get off his ass (assuming he has one) and summon them. This, of course, forces Swinton to ditch Kathy in the middle of an impeccably-timed discussion about environmentalism. For some reason, he picks up the microphone - and the pepper shaker it's mounted on - and takes it with him to Nimbar's lair.

Nimbar explains the situation to the teens, stating that the entire planet will be contaminated in less than two hours. So, seriously, why did you not call them earlier? Anyway, in today's token plot contrivance, Slaygar's toxic fumes are somehow destabilizing the Power Portals, and only one of the Galactic Sentinels can be sent through to fight him. Drew, Gordon, and Swinton all volunteer, and Laurie suggests they draw straws. Nimbar immediately reaches out with his arm-thing clutching four small sticks of some sort, which he apparently was keeping inside his gelatinous mass this whole time. Swinton draws the short straw.

Nimbar advises him that Slaygar has only one weak point - behind its ear. Setting down the microphone, Swinton steps onto his Transo-Disc, transforms into a Galactic Sentinel, and teleports to the desert to face the monster. As soon as he turns around, Slaygar fires some poorly-animated goo at him, landing a direct hit and causing the hero to cough and crouch down.

The production seriously couldn't afford a package of Gak or something?

Back in the lair, Nimbar says they'll try sending one Sentinel through at a time to help Swinton. Just as Laurie's getting ready to go, Gordon declares they need to help Swinton by talking to him through the microphone. Once again, he and Drew end up giving Swinton conflicting advice. Swinton summons his weapon and shoots energy blasts at the monster to seemingly no effect. Meanwhile, Laurie is unable to join the battle because the Transo-Disc can't lock onto the Power Portal's location at this dramatically convenient moment. Nimbar tells the non-transformed teens to stop talking to Swinton, as he needs to be able to judge the flow of battle on his own. Just then, the Power Portal collapses, stranding them in the lair and Swinton on the battlefield. The force of the sudden collapse also shakes the lair and causes the microphone to fall and break. 

Back in the desert, Swinton summons his weapon - yes, the one he was already holding - and shoots some more in the general area of the monster's ears, but certainly not "behind" them, and complains that it's not working. After a fruitless bit of melee combat, Swinton puts down his weapon and appears to surrender. He starts clapping, and then begins to whistle loudly. In response, Slaygar grabs his gut as if in pain. This prompts Swinton to summon his weapon back to his hand - it flies up from the ground into his grip - and repeatedly blast Slaygar in the stomach. The monster collapses and Gorganus pulls him out of the battle.

After teleporting back to the lair - apparently the Power Portal was repaired off-screen - Swinton explains his methodology. After his initial attacks failed, he deduced Slaygar's ears weren't in a normal place. So he made a lot of noise to find out where they were, and then blasted him there. Just ignore the prominent, clearly-molded ears on the monster's head. For all we know they're actually extra buttholes. Nimbar congratulates Swinton for having the wisdom to be himself, and the moral of the story is shoved down our throats.

Then Swinton looks at his watch and remarks that he forgot about his date. His date? Are we now meant to believe he actually had a date with Kathy, and that's why she came over to him in the coffee house earlier? The entire point of this subplot was to GET him a date with her. How did he manage to? That seems kind of important! Sure enough, later on in the coffee house we see Kathy still there waiting for him.

Personally, I'd be too distracted by that upholstery to read anything.

She asks where he's been, and when he explains he was saving the planet from an environmental crisis he can't tell her about, she naturally doesn't believe him. She asks him to stop trying to impress her and be himself, just in case we didn't get the moral last time we were hit over the head with it. Luckily, it turns out they're both big fans of advanced computer chess. They decide to make a date of it by leaving the coffee house and each other's presence so they can both go home and play against each other online. Ah, the wonders of the modern world. Gordon tries to get Swinton to pay the rest of his "dating tips" balance, but he instead rips his previous payment right out of Gordon's hands, correctly stating he got a date by ignoring the advice instead of using it.

_____________

I appreciate what this episode tried to do, introducing an element of strategy to the battle and actually following through on it instead of just dropping it like "The Note." Granted, it doesn't make a great deal of sense - how exactly do you shoot BEHIND one's stomach-ear, anyway? - but at least they tried. The civilian plot is acceptable and has a decent moral, but the humor is forced and mostly falls flat. The action remains boring and poorly-choreographed, consisting mostly of melee weapons being used as laser guns. Overall, it's not unwatchable, but it's never as entertaining as "How Time Flies."

Incidentally, I've noticed a few people online declaring this show to be an intentional parody of Power Rangers and its various ripoffs. Obviously I can't read the writers' minds to be sure of their intent, but I really don't get that sense at all. Most of the humor on this show is unintentional, and the stuff they do on purpose really isn't a lampooning of the subgenre's tropes so much as typical sitcom stuff. The title is obviously knowingly ridiculous, but other than that, this definitely seems like a straight attempt at aping PR.

Episode 4: "Switch"

Up on planet Moleculon, Emperor Gorganus is in a grumpy mood. Once again, he's contemplating just how to deal with those pesky Galactic Sentinels defending Earth. He decides the key is to get to them at the source - the Power Portals they use to teleport to the scenes of his monster attacks. If he sabotages the portals, he reasons he can sabotage the Sentinels themselves. To help with his scheme, he summons the electronically-gifted monster mercenary Voldek. Gorganus teleports him down to a forest on Earth to begin his dirty work.

Meanwhile in school, Laurie catches Gordon ogling a girl walking down the hallway, which leads all four of the teens - who still aren't supposed to be talking to each other in public - into a debate about the merits of men versus women - revealing Gordon to be a sexist idiot. Suddenly the lights begin to flicker, and their tattoos flash. The Power Portal appears... inside the girls' restroom. Gordon and Swinton want to go look for another portal, but the girls literally drag them into the bathroom.

In his lair, Nimbar reveals to the teens that Voldek is on on the attack, and Gordon expresses his hope that he's "not more charged up than last time." This marks three episodes in a row where the characters treat a never-before-seen foe as if they've already fought him. Perhaps this was an attempt to make it so that the series could be viewed out of order with a minimum of fuss, but watching the show in sequence it comes across as pretty bizarre. Though if there ARE a bunch of secret adventures where the Sentinels fight each enemy for the first time, I'm frankly not terribly upset we don't get to see them.

The only reason the teens hang out at Nimbar's place is for the magic floating HDTV.

Nimbar warns the teens that Voldek is now twice as powerful as he was in their imaginary prior fight, and they step onto the Transo-Discs and transform. To prove his manly dominance, Gordon rushes in on his own against the monster. He summons his staff and, for the first time, actually uses it as a melee weapon - at least until it's blasted away by his enemy. Despite apparently having the upper hand, however, Voldek teleports away, and Gordon is convinced he's scared him off single-handedly. Nimbar points out how unlikely that is, but isn't sure what's going on himself, and portals the teens back to school.

When they re-emerge in the school hallway, however, they've switched bodies (and certain accessories like glasses and a handbag). Laurie's in Gordon's body, Gordon's in Laurie's body, Drew's in Swinton's body, and Swinton's in Drew's body. Drew suggests contacting Nimbar to see what's going on, but Swinton points out that they have no way to contact him - they just need to wait to be summoned again for the chance to speak with him.

Later in the day, the four meet at the coffee house, and, continuing to completely disregard their secret identities, discuss their body-switching predicament out loud in the middle of the room. Swinton even suggests wearing name tags in order to keep who's who straight, as if that wouldn't lead to a lot of questions. Swinton's father comes to pick him up and Drew, being stuck in Swinton's body, has to go home with him. She's terrified to learn both that Swinton's bed-wetting little brother regularly shares a bed with him and that the family plans to get a pepperoni pizza for dinner, since she's vegetarian (shocker). This is followed by one of Gordon's friends coming over and kissing Laurie's body, obviously unaware it's actually Gordon inside. Meanwhile, Swinton, being in Drew's body, is informed by Laurie that he's supposed to be working her job as a waitress. 

The next morning, the teens meet up at Drew's pool house and, after a bit of banter about their predicament, their tattoos flash. Upon arrival in Nimbar's lair, Gordon asks why he didn't call them in sooner, and Nimbar explains he realized something was wrong with the Power Portals and didn't want to risk calling them back in before he needed to. Nimbar warns them that Voldek is back, and worries they might not be as effective a fighting team in the wrong bodies. Gordon ironically gives a speech on how he's gender-blind when it comes to their Sentinel duties - and besides, Nimbar concedes it's possible traveling through the portal to face the monster could switch them back.

Wrong bodies or not, I think these guys really need to work on their fashion sense.

The teens transform - by calling out their own constellation names, not the ones corresponding to their current bodies. Yet when they emerge from the portal at the battle zone, the uniforms are all on their typical bodies. I guess this show was too cheap to afford palette-swapped costumes. In addition, the teens are still trapped in the wrong bodies. That concern becomes secondary as Voldek strikes, firing lightning at them from his sword. 

Then we cut to commercial, and when we come back, the editor has apparently forgotten that happened, because we never see what happens with said attack. Instead, the Sentinels pointlessly frontflip around the monster before engaging in a melee battle that, admittedly, is slightly more active and better-choreographed than we've seen in the past episodes. It doesn't take long for them to summon their weapons and start blasting Voldek with energy attacks, but they don't seem to do anything, and the evil warrior easily retaliates, vaporizing their weapons (which seems to happen with alarming regularity).

As Gorganus watches and gloats, the teens decide to form Knightron. Gorganus remarks that it's "too late, even for that," and is proven immediately wrong when the Sentinels successfully combine. As usual, once Knightron is formed the battle is basically decided. There's a brief sword fight before Knightron cuts one of the cables coming out of Voldek's costume, apparently de-powering him and forcing his retreat.

Maybe next time Voldek should put his shoulder armor OVER his weak points.

Gorganus laments his defeat, loudly declaring that Voldek will need to be recharged on his own home planet before he can be used again. Lechner suggests Gorganus just plug him into a cigarette lighter instead, earning him a spray of mist from the emperor's pointy finger of doom. Wow, that thing has all sorts of handy functions. Can he use it as a laser pointer to play with his space-cat?

When the teens arrive back in Nimbar's lair, they're conveniently transported back into their correct bodies. After a brief bit of celebration, Nimbar portals the teens to school since they're already late for class. Unfortunately, he uses the portal in the girls' bathroom again, and a teacher sees Gordon and Swinton coming out of the door. The teens throw together a story about Gordon and Swinton going in the restroom to save the girls from a big scary rat and, despite their pathetically unconvincing delivery, the teacher believes them. Also, the experience of switching bodies has apparently cured Gordon's sexism forever. So I guess the moral of the story is that any man can learn to appreciate women if he has to spend a day with a vagina.

_____________

"Switch" is a step down from "How Time Flies," but still an improvement over the first two episodes. The fight is probably the best one we've had yet, which admittedly isn't saying much, and the old "body switching" plot chestnut is handled decently enough. It's never really explained how or why Voldek's defeat repairs the Power Portals and switches the teens back into their own bodies, but as far as the plot holes and logical flaws on this show go that's a minor offense at worst. Overall, if the rest of the series stays at this level of watchability, I estimate a roughly 60% chance of finishing all 40 episodes with my sanity mostly intact.

Episode 3: "How Time Flies"

Today on the planet Moonleculon, Emperor Gorganus, inspired by an off-the-cuff statement from Lechner, decides to "give time a little push." Mentioning that Earthlings run their lives based on time - which is apparently unusual - he reasons that if he can make time behave inconsistently, the planet is doomed. To that end, he summons an alien mercenary known as the Sorcerer to enact his plan. In a remarkable twist, this time Gorganus doesn't send his warrior down to the desert, but actually into the heart of an unidentified city! Or at least onto a soundstage with some really unconvincing fake skyscrapers on it. Our champion of evil dances around for a while, flamboyantly flinging his cape all over the place and firing a few blasts that seem to do nothing from his magic wand, before twirling around and disappearing in a puff of purple smoke. I guess interpretive dancers are secretly time magicians.

Hey look, it's Dr. Doom's little-known gay cousin!

Meanwhile - or presumably the next morning, I guess, since it looked like night in Cardboard City - Drew and Laurie strike up a conversation about keeping their superhero identities secret. In the coffee house. Which is full of people. While a man sits reading a book literally one foot behind Drew. Seems a bit counterproductive to me, but hey, I've never been a secret superhero, so what do I know?

Anyway, Laurie is studying for an upcoming French test, which she complains is going to be very hard, and Drew convinces her to order a coffee, which she promptly leaves to go get, being a waitress here and all. I only mention these mundane details because they're the setup for some time trickery. You see, as soon as Laurie looks back down at her textbook, Drew is standing next to her with her cup of coffee, which she warns is piping hot. Despite Laurie's surprise at the speedy service, Drew doesn't seem to notice anything strange - until Laurie sips her coffee and realizes it's already cold. Meanwhile, Gordon, who has been sitting on the other side of the room, approaches Drew with a donut (that is obviously plastic) and complains it's stale, even though Drew insists it was just baked that morning. 

Gordon reveals to Laurie he's here for his weekly appointment to talk with his mother (they both have "very busy schedules," partially because she's the mayor), who promptly walks in and orders herself a cappuccino. But as soon as she sits down, she stands back up and says she has to leave but really enjoyed their time together. Gordon checks the time and sees it's apparently an hour later than he thought, then turns only to see Swinton suddenly sitting next to him even though he hadn't been in the coffee house at all before. Swinton sees Laurie studying and asks her a question in French, which she doesn't understand. But as soon as he repeats the question in English, she responds in perfect French and is amazed at how well her studies are suddenly going.

Things don't get REALLY weird, though, until Swinton gets up to go to the bathroom - then turns around and sees himself, still sitting down where he just was, saying he needs to go to the bathroom. The two Swintons encounter each other on the stairs to the restrooms and, regrettably, the universe doesn't implode. Instead, they react with vague confusion and Swinton #1 returns to his seat to point out his double to the others. Gordon's immediate assumption is that Swinton has cloned himself as a science project, but Swinton correctly guesses something is wrong with time itself - which the teens confirm by checking their watches and realizing they all have vastly different times (except for Drew, who wears a broken watch because she likes how it looks). 

The two Swintons realize this is going to be really awkward once they get to the urinals.

I'm sorry to spend so much time on this sequence of events, but the fact is that, to my amazement, it's actually a pretty entertaining scene; easily the best thing in the show so far. It's a fun concept and it's actually interesting to see it play out. Now let's see how long it takes for this episode to go off the rails.

To get to the bottom of things, Swinton asks for a sundial so he can measure the distance between solar time and clock time. Conveniently, Drew has one in her backyard by her pool house, so they relocate there. As the teens sit around discussing the situation, Drew's aunt suddenly walks into frame tugging along an artificial Christmas tree on wheels, asking the kids to help decorate it. This strikes them as odd since, as far as they know, it's the middle of May. Drew's aunt goes off to get the lights for the tree and the teens finally pull their heads out of their asses and realize that Gorganus must be up to something. And all without consulting a sundial, which we never actually see.

Just as our heroes realize the flagrantly obvious, their tattoos begin to flash. A Power Portal appears next to them, but because of the time fluctuations, it disappears before they have the chance to go through. In his lair, Nimbar freaks out about how the Sorcerer is making time go haywire, while wondering why the teens don't answer his summons, proving he is incapable of putting two and two together. Back at the pool house - with a now fully-decorated Christmas tree - Swinton reasons that only one of them will be able to jump through the portal next time it opens. Worse, he also alleges that they're aging at an accelerated rate. Gordon points out that Swinton is the youngest of the group, and volunteers him to be the one to go through the portal as he'll have the longest time to fight. Swinton agrees, and says he'll send a portal for the others the day after tomorrow, which he figures should be pretty soon at this point.

The portal opens again, and Swinton gets through. He and Nimbar discuss how time is speeding up like crazy and going out of order, and Swinton advises Nimbar to open a portal, leave it open as long as he can, and hope for the best. Because dramatic tension is apparently overrated, the very next scene is the portal reopening at the pool house and all three of the others getting through immediately.

Personally, I don't think I'd be in much of a rush to get to the giant snot-pile's space cave.

Upon arrival, the teens realize they're extremely tired, and Nimbar points out that the time shenanigans are not only aging them, but also causing them to suffer from sleep deprivation. When Nimbar reveals their enemy is the Sorcerer, the teens again react as if they've fought him before in some nonexistent earlier episode. They're also worried because "he's trouble" and they may not be able to defeat him in their weakened state. Except when they step on the Transo-Discs and transform into Galactic Sentinels, they become instantly refreshed and ready to fight. Again, so much for dramatic tension. 

The Sentinels and the Sorcerer engage in a poorly-choreographed battle, in which the Sorcerer literally throws some fake snowflakes into the air, prompting Gordon to declare that it's now winter. Then, with a wave of his wand, the Sorcerer turns up the studio lights, and Laurie surmises it's summer! Up on Moleculon, Gorganus and Lechner watch and are assured of their victory, with Gorganus stating all the time warping is (somehow) going to scare the Sentinels to death.

The heroes summon their weapons and blast the monster, but he teleports behind them in a puff of purple mist and vaporizes their arsenal. They immediately re-summon the weapons and fire more lasers, but we don't even see whether they make contact or miss. The editing throughout the whole fight has been horrible, with one shot of the Sorcerer taunting the teens repeated ad nauseum to pad things out, but the worst offense is yet to come.

The Sentinels combine into Knightron and fire some lasers at him from their sword, but he pulls the same teleportation trick again and reappears behind them. After a very brief moment of Knightron swinging Megacalibur at the villain, this entire sequence is completely repeated with no changes whatsoever. They literally play the same portion of the fight twice, back-to-back, which is a truly incredible display of laziness. If it's supposed to be some sort of time loop caused by the Sorcerer's powers, the show does nothing to actually imply that. 

Apparently as sick of this fight as I am, the Sentinels decide to "trap him in the Megacalibur's energy beam." In practice, this means they fire their sword's laser into the sky, which causes a spotlight to shine on the Sorcerer from above and apparently keep him in place. Then they finish him off with a few more laser blasts, causing him to teleport away entirely.

The Sorcerer will never make it to Broadway if he can't get over his stage fright.

Back up on Moleculon, where the Sorcerer has apparently retreated to, Gorganus scolds his warrior for failing him and calls him unworthy, zapping him with his finger-laser and returning him to his dry ice summoning pedestal. So like, they're supposed to be mercenaries, right? Do they actually do jobs for anyone else, or is Gorganus literally turning them into figurines and trapping them in an ice box until he needs them? Somehow I get the feeling the show is never going to bother answering this question.

Upon the teens' return to Nimbar's lair, Swinton notes that they were apparently gone for a whole year. Yet again, the show immediately resolves a problem it's just introduced when Nimbar assures them that defeating the Sorcerer somehow made everything on Earth just go back to normal. On the next episode they might as well just defeat the monster before Gorganus sends it down.

Back at the coffee house an indeterminate amount of time later, Laurie laments that they couldn't have come back from the fight after her French test, but politely refuses when Drew jokingly suggests she ask the Sorcerer for some help with that. Gordon's there waiting for another session of "quality time" with his mother, and Swinton is also there because this show only has a handful of sets so he doesn't really have anywhere better to be. Drew notes that her watch has suddenly started working, and asks the others for the time so she can set it, but they all have different times. The episode ends with each of them wondering whether the Sorcerer's spell is really still in effect, which is either a really lame unresolved cliffhanger or a really lame gag. Your choice.

The teens pictured doing a great job of not hanging out together to protect their identities, as always.

_____________

Okay, so this was a BIG step up from the last two episodes, if not in terms of actual production competence then at least in terms of enjoyability. Which is to say I didn't feel like smashing my computer monitor the whole time it was playing. The time-warp jokes were at least interesting enough to keep my attention, even though the script is pretty inconsistent on whether time is looping, jumping around, or just speeding up. The characters were more tolerable than they were in "The Note," and the monster fight, while still terrible, at least had a few laughable moments. And hey, no Dwayne. That's worth at least one consolation point on my nonexistent scoring system!