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!

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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.

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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.

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"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!

Episode 2: "The Note"

As with our first episode, we begin on the moon planet Moleculon, where the evil Emperor Gorganus is pacing back and forth in front of his throne as he plots his next move to conquer Earth. He doesn't want to "linger" on this "project" and expects a swift victory over the Galactic Sentinels. I would be totally okay with that if it meant I didn't need to watch 38 more episodes of this junk, but alas, it is not to be.

Meanwhile, in the hallway at some unnamed high school in Beverly Hills, Drew is complaining to Gordon about how they were forced into being Galactic Sentinels (even though she was super stoked about it last episode). Seeing this, Laurie immediately comes over and joins their discussion (even though the last episode ended with them agreeing not to talk or hang out at school). The trio get into a brief debate on the merits of conformity versus individuality and tradition versus discontentment and rebellion. This leads into Drew calling Gordon a "wuss" who always follows the rules, no matter what, and gives in to peer pressure.

And then Gordon seems to remember he left the oven on.

Back on Moleculon again, Gorganus finally decides on which mercenary alien monster to use to destroy the Galactic Sentinels - a brain-themed creature called Neuragula. As he summons the poorly-made model of the creature from his dry ice machine, a loud roar echoes through the throne room and drives his pet minion Lechner crazy. Apparently the primary attack of this brain-themed monster is that he screams really loudly, which makes me think he should've been some kind of punk rock monster instead. Maybe it'd make sense if it were some sort of telepathic attack, but that idea evidently never occurred to the writers.

After school, Drew and Laurie run into each other at the coffee house, where Drew apparently works as a waitress. She's unimpressed to find out Laurie is the president of both the school's student council and the National Honor Society, claiming, when Laurie goes out of earshot, that she "doesn't have a clue." I'm starting to think Drew is less of a pseudo-intellectual rebel and more just kind of a bitch. 

Once Laurie leaves, Gordon appears and approaches Drew, still troubled by their earlier debate. He insists she's wrong about him, and that he only acts the way he does because it's objectively the right way to act. He also counters that Drew is "a regular non-conformist cliché." While that's an entirely accurate statement, the fact that he is equally clichéd is apparently lost on him.

In a bit that admittedly made me chuckle, Swinton arrives in the coffee house and Drew assures Gordon that he's down with the whole act of pretending not to know one another and won't come over - which is naturally immediately followed by Swinton making a beeline for them and asking if they're talking about being superheroes. After a brief and uneventful conversation in which he manages to insult Swinton twice, Gordon's "electronic date book" beeps and he leaves.

Presumably to go buy more pink shirts and striped suspenders.

Later on, Laurie returns and asks Swinton to deliver a book to Gordon for her since she's too busy. Swinton is flattered just by being asked to do a favor for Laurie, which gets Drew's panties in a bunch again. Suddenly devious inspiration strikes! Picking up a piece of paper Laurie left behind for... some reason... Drew declares that if she could copy Laurie's handwriting she could use it to prove Gordon is "a slave to peer pressure." Swinton excitedly offers to help by scanning the paper into his computer and using it to "generate" a note replicating the handwriting, apparently with the custom program he made to fake a doctor's note to get out of gym class.

Drew dictates the note to Swinton as such: "To the man I most admire - while I've always thought of you as rigid, uptight, and a rule-follower, I now realize you'd break loose and forget the rules to be at my side if you knew I needed you."

To be honest, I don't understand how this is supposed to prove Drew's point. The note isn't really asking him to do anything, so there's not really any peer pressure involved. And if he were to disregard the rules to impress Laurie, as the note implies, that would actually prove Drew WRONG about him always toeing the line. At best, Drew is just using the "proving a point" smokescreen to mess with Gordon for fun. More likely, the writers just didn't think this through at all.

The next morning, Swinton delivers Laurie's book and the fake note to Gordon. Sure enough, Gordon falls for it, and when Laurie shows up to make sure he got the book he starts talking to her as if he's speaking to a little puppy. Before things can get too awkward, though, Laurie's tattoo flashes - and only Laurie's. Regardless, Gordon offers to come with her, saying he can break loose once in a while. Then a Power Portal opens right next to them, and the pair jump through into Nimbar's lair - leaving Swinton and Drew to wonder why they weren't summoned.

Sure, just put the magic space-time rip in the middle of the school hallway. No one will notice.

In his lair, Nimbar immediately asks Gordon why he bothered showing up. This, he explains, is only a reconnaissance mission, and only Laurie was required. As it turns out, Nimbar's monitors are malfunctioning due to a solar storm, and he can't be sure whether or not Gorganus has sent down a monster. He wants Laurie to go check out the area he got the reading from and see if it's a false positive. Nimbar allows Gordon to go along, but under strict instructions that they are to return immediately if they find a monster and not to start a fight without the full team. The pair transform and teleport to the same desert where they fought Ninjabot in the previous episode.

The two do a bunch of pointless cartwheels through the sand and find nothing, but just as they're about to leave, Neuragula appears and confronts them. Gordon - presumably in an attempt to impress Laurie - immediately launches himself into battle with the monster. Miraculously, Nimbar's holo-monitor interference clears up just in time for him to see this transgression.

Apparently Laurie and Gordon missed a full day of classes doing investigative gymnastics in the desert, because when we next see Drew and Swinton, it's at Drew's pool house after school. Swinton has brought over his friend Dwayne to loan Drew some video equipment for a project she's working on. Dwayne is an overweight, overacting, lisping, constantly-sneezing caricature of a nerd with taped-together glasses and everything, and I immediately hope he doesn't become a recurring character. During the conversation over the A/V equipment, our two remaining heroes' tattoos flash, and they make a quick excuse about running out to the market in order to get out of dodge.

Upon their arrival, Nimbar informs Swinton and Drew that Gordon broke a rule, much to their shock. Swinton tries to spill the beans about their nefarious note prank, but Drew interjects and stops him. The two transform and join the others in the battle against the brain beast, which hasn't been going very well without them. The quartet attempt to subdue him with more gym-kata, but Neuragula counters with sparky energy beams that, despite only being fired at their feet, force the Sentinels to retreat to Nimbar's lair.

He's got pretty nice abs for a walking exposed brain.

The teens ask Nimbar if they know how the monster has been "re-configured," and claim he's "twice as ugly as before," implying they've already fought him sometime between the previous episode and this one. Granted, it's not clear how much time has passed, so that's technically possible, but it's a pretty weird way to handle what should be the introduction of the show's second monster. They also comment on his painfully loud roaring, even though we haven't actually seen the monster use that in battle yet.

Nimbar explains that Neuragula "creates a harmonic sound weapon using both sides of its brain." This nonsense gives Swinton a brilliant idea. He surmises that they need to keep the left and right halves of Neuragula's brain from working together by tricking the logical hemisphere and the emotional hemisphere into behaving differently. They return to battle and enact this cunning strategy by... summoning their weapons and shooting the monster with lasers. When that doesn't work, they form Knightron and... shoot more lasers at it. And it works this time. For... some reason.

I'm thinking Neuragula just got tired of being on such a terrible show and gave up on life.

Gorganus explains he's opening a portal to bring back Neuragula, but we plainly see the monster explode into nothingness on-screen anyway because this episode wants to keep up its perfect record of immediately disregarding things the characters have just said. Back in Nimbar's lair, Drew and Swinton finally fess up to their ploy. Nimbar swiftly scolds them for putting the galaxy in jeopardy over some petty bullshit and sends the teens on their way.

That night, Drew puts on some sort of bizarre performance at the coffee house, which the other three come to see even though they're not supposed to be hanging out together in public. Gordon asks Drew for the fake note so he can tear it up, but Drew can't find it. In a truly Shyamalan-esque twist, it turns out Dwayne has the note, and thinks it came from Drew. The episode ends with him blowing her a kiss and the others laughing at her. As a final note, we never find out what Drew actually needed the A/V equipment for, making Dwayne's appearance completely pointless.

_____________

Wow. I really wasn't expecting things to get so much worse than the already-awful first episode so quickly. Granted, Neuragula is a much better-designed monster than Ninjabot, but that's the only real positive I can give this episode. Dwayne is insufferable, all the characters but Laurie act like total jerks, and neither the civilian plot with the note nor the logistics of the monster battle make a lick of sense. Power Rangers can get pretty spectacularly bad, but, even having seen hundreds of episodes of that franchise, I legitimately cannot think of a single episode that lives down to the sheer lack of entertainment value "The Note" boasts. Going into this blog I had hoped that Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills would be so-bad-it's-good. If this is the level the rest of the series operates at, then it'll be a minor miracle if I can actually sit through 38 more episodes.

Episode 1: "In the Beginning...."

Look at the title of this post. See anything strange? Check it again. If you're not a grammar nerd like me, you may be surprised to learn that an ellipse is supposed to consist of three dots. The title card for this episode uses four. Insignificant? Maybe. But I like to think of it as the very first problem with the show. What's one more, after all? Trust me, we'll be racking up a LOT of them. As the title card fades out, a planet comes into view...

A planet which is just a still photo of the moon tinted orange, that is.

Fade in on an evil villain's lair, presumably on said planet, which we will later learn is called Moleculon. The big bad honcho himself has an alien visitor who delivers a clear piece of plastic with some etchings on it to him. This, somehow, is a map - to be precise, a map that shows "the focal point of the Power Portals," as the naughty overlord proclaims. He's quite pleased to receive this information and offers his delivery boy a tip in the form of some spaaaaaaaace treasure... but it's a fakeout! You see, somehow by looking at this five cent prop, our evildoer has determined his alien henchman has failed to kill someone known as "Nimbar." He decides instead to banish his servant to "forty years of a living death in the Stracchan toil mines!"

You know he's evil because he doesn't care that it's rude to point.

This lovely fellow, as we will learn later, is Emperor Gorganus. And he has an annoying little alien bird pet thing named Lechner who compliments him on the generosity of his punishment. If you've ever seen the Z-movie classic The Giant Claw, Lechner looks kind of like that monster crossed with Jabba the Hutt's little minion from Return of the Jedi. 

After zapping away his unnamed servant to a life of slavery, Gorganus gazes through a magnifying glass lens mounted on a movable arm like a dental instrument and spies Earth. He exclaims this planet is the key to his conquest of the galaxy, as it is the focal point of those portals he just mentioned a minute ago. But who to use to conquer the Earth now that his previous minion has failed him? Gorganus rubs his chin and comes up with the perfect solution. He declares his champion shall be... "Ninjabot, the samurai robot!"

Yes, really. Apparently the writers didn't realize ninjas and samurai are two very different things. It's all stupid Japanese crap anyway, right?

Anyway, with that magic pointer finger of his, Gorganus summons a really crappy-looking model of the monster from a glass pedestal with some dry ice fog around it.

It was actually his grandson's arts - n - crafts project from space summer camp.

With another finger zap he teleports Ninjabot to Earth - or, specifically, some mostly-empty desert on Earth. Because obviously the best, quickest way to conquer a planet is by sending your warrior to a dry, deserted patch of land no one cares about. Ninjabot goes on a "rampage," by which I mean he sets a telephone pole on fire with an energy blast from his sword, cuts a rock in half, and then starts a pathetically small fire at what looks like a crappy model of a power plant.

Meanwhile, in a Beverly Hills hangout called Cafe Maison - which is literally just French for "coffee house" - a bespectacled high school student named Swinton is being scolded by his father for refusing to work with others on a group assignment for physics class. Swinton's father warns him that if he never learns to work with others and make friends, he'll wind up living alone in the desert taking photos of giant samurainja robots, like some he happens to have with him (apparently he's some sort of newspaper or magazine publisher and a "usually reliable source" has sent them in).

Swinton is still reluctant, especially with the team he's been assigned. Not only are Gordon, Drew and Laurie not dedicated physics majors (GASP!), but he worries Gordon is "only concerned about his image," Drew is "out to lunch," and Laurie is a cheerleader (DOUBLE GASP!). But his dad just doesn't see the problem.

Flash forward to Saturday, where Gordon, Drew, and Laurie are assembled at Drew's pool house waiting for Swinton to arrive. He arrives carrying what looks like something the prop department threw together in five minutes, and also like a terrible fire hazard. Seeing this mess of wires and circuit boards flimsily attached to a plank of wood, Laurie concludes he's finished to project on his own, to which he admits. Gordon, after calling Swinton an "egghead geek," inquires as to what the project does and manages to spill a drink on it, causing it to short-circuit and fire off an energy blast that opens an incredible mystic portal in midair!

I don't think they're trying very hard with this new Stargate spinoff, guys.

The teens are shocked, most of all Swinton, who insists that his device was just supposed to measure secondhand smoke. Drew, our "out to lunch" blonde in the leather jacket, thinks it's cool and immediately decides to walk up and touch it. When the others protest, she decides the best course of action is just to leap straight into it. The others hesitantly follow, and they find themselves in A MAGICAL PLACE OUT OF SPACE AND TIME!!!!

By which I mean a cheap cave set with a fog machine on. Which happens to be home to a giant space-loogie on a pedestal.

Truly an inspiring figure of intergalactic justice.

The gross glob identifies himself as that Nimbar fellow we've been hearing so much about. He reveals he summoned the teens on purpose through one of the Power Portals he guards. So, now - maybe it's a fool's errand to question the logic of a show that's just a cheaper knockoff of a kids' karate show known primarily for making no damn sense, but play along with me here. If Nimbar summoned them on purpose through a pre-existing portal, what was the purpose of the accident with the science project? It CLEARLY fired off a beam right before the portal opened. Was that just a perfectly-timed coincidence, or did Nimbar telekinetically force Gordon to spill the drink on it so this would happen? Does he control us like puppets without our awareness? Is all free will just a lie? Does this explain why I'm wasting my time watching and writing about this show?

Whew, that got heavy for a second. Anyway, Nimbar explains the threat of Emperor Gorganus and his evil plans to conquer Earth with space mercenary monsters, which will allow him to teleport through the Power Portals and conquer the galaxy. Nimbar also drops the tidbit of backstory that Gorganus had previously destroyed his home planet. 

One of the interesting things about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiere was that the Rangers were overwhelmed and weirded out by Zordon's explanation of himself and the threat to the world. This set of teens, however, immediately trusts the giant glob of mucus and takes everything he says at face value. Swinton suggests calling in the army - because apparently he thinks the military will just immediately believe all this nonsense the same way he did - but Nimbar warns him that Earth's military is no match for the alien mercenaries. I mean, did you SEE that ninjamurai robot set that telephone pole on fire? Truly it is a more destructive force than the H-bomb.

Nimbar goes on to explain his solution: he's summoned these four teens to become "Galactic Sentinels," the alien-fighting warriors who will defend the planet. He reaches a slimy hand-like protrusion out of his gelatinous mass and rubs a finger on each of their wrists, endowing them with glowing "tattoos" that are apparently the mark of the Order of Galactic Sentinels.

For all we know, that's his dick and this is actually some kind of exotic space-STD.

Nimbar explains the tattoos will only be visible when he activates them to call on the teens to go into battle, so they don't need to worry about their parents freaking out. Then he shows them the evil Ninjabot on his quote-unqoute "rampage" via a magic holographic viewing screen that appears in midair. Swinton is shocked and terrified they're supposed to fight such a menacing opponent, but Nimbar reassures them they were handpicked for their potential to work well together. They counter that they're not friends, and Swinton doesn't even take P.E. class, so there's no way for them to be a team of superheroes. 

Not to worry, though! The "Transo-Discs" - a set of four circular pedestals in the cave they are meant to stand on - will not only transform them into their Galactic Sentinel forms, but will instantly imbue them with all the knowledge and fighting skill of the Sentinels that came before them. Each of them will use the power of the constellation astrologically associated with their personality traits. Strong, dependable, and a follower of rules, Gordon is Taurus. Innovative, bright, and the maker of new rules, Swinton is Apollo. Drew, independent and the breaker of rules, is Centaur. And Laurie, the cheerleader who brings everyone together, is Scorpio.

Now, believe me, I won't be giving this show credit for much of anything, but this setup is actually a bit more believable than the Power Rangers system of recruiting five teenagers who are vastly different (at least as far as their shallow characterization allows) but somehow already friends and just trusting them to know karate, or at least be able to build a flying car. While it's another inexplicable coincidence that Nimbar just happened to pair together the exact same team as the physics teacher, it's interesting - in theory - to force together a group of kids who barely know each other and make them fight monsters together.

The teens step on the Transo-Discs, and, as instructed by Nimbar, shout out the names of their constellations. In a flurry of the most impressive visual effects $5 and a double cheeseburger can buy, they transform into the mighty Galactic Sentinels! By which I mean they're replaced by a group of buff, oiled-up stuntpeople in absolutely hideous costumes that look like they were rejected from a pro wrestling show targeted at kindergartners.

Or maybe it's just pastel-colored fetish gear?

Notice how Swinton, the yellow one, has one of his suit's arms still attached while everyone else has both of theirs cut off? Don't get used to it. In all future episodes, his outfit will be sleeveless like everyone else's. Maybe this was an intentional design choice they decided not to go with after shooting the pilot, but it's much more fun for me to imagine that this thing was so rushed the costume department literally ran out of time or just forgot to cut off one of the arms.

The Sentinels, in their poorly-dubbed over teenager voices, marvel at their bodies as they flex and pose. Then they're immediately teleported into a different soundstage the desert. Though it's never explained or even acknowledged, they also grow giant when they teleport. Unlike Power Rangers, this show doesn't have human-sized monsters or giant robots; the Sentinels simply grow really big and fight the monsters that way.

I'm not going to describe the fight in detail, but rest assured it's completely awful. While the Sentinels are certainly more ripped than the Power Rangers, they don't seem to have any of the martial arts skill - though admittedly this could just be down to terrible battle choreography. The fight mostly consists of the heroes jumping over attacks Ninjabot thoughtfully fires directly at their feet, with the occasional gymnastics move like a backflip or midair splits and a kick or punch every now and again. Some of this is shown in horribly choppy post-production slow motion.

Can someone tell me what about this costume screams "robot?"

Eventually the Sentinels summon their unnamed weapons, and even though they're all silver melee weapons, they're used exclusively to shoot color-coded laser blasts at Ninjabot until he just kind of falls over. Back up on Moleculon, Gorganus is watching the battle through his magnifying glass thingy. Shocked and angered at the sight of Galactic Sentinels, he remotely increases Ninjabot's power by shooting bolts of energy out of his finger, apparently all the way down to Earth.

Ninjabot leaps back onto his feet and vaporizes the Sentinels' weapons with lightning from his sword. Laurie calls for the team to "form Knightron." Earlier in the episode Nimbar had a line about how the disparate teens could come together to form a "powerful warrior," but at the time he was talking about teamwork and it seemed like a metaphor. Nope! It turns out the Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills counterpart to the Megazord is for the four Sentinels to literally merge into a single being, a guy in a dime store Halloween knight costume with a sword and shield.

With cosmic armor as durable as store-brand aluminum foil!

Nimbar instructs Knightron to use "Megacalibur," which is "the most powerful sword in the universe!" There's a very, very brief and unimpressive battle that ends, once again, with our hero just shooting a laser beam out of their melee weapon because it's easier than planning and filming an actual fight. Ninjabot is seemingly destroyed, and the Sentinels teleport back to Nimbar's lair, transforming back to normal teens in the process.

The group is ecstatic about their experience, and Laurie gushes about how she can't wait to tell all of her friends, who certainly won't have her shipped off to an insane asylum once she starts babbling about turning into a steroid abuser and then merging with three other weightlifters to form a giant ancient Englishman. But Nimbar tells them their identities must remain a secret, because if Gorganus were to discover who they really were, he would just kill them while they weren't in Sentinel mode.

Again, I have to begrudgingly admit this makes more sense than Power Rangers, where Rita Repulsa immediately knows who the Rangers really are and yet never just sends a monster to kill them in their sleep, and the teens still need to keep their identities a secret from everyone else on Earth because reasons.

Drew expresses how easy their new monster-slaying job will be when they can just "form Knightron and kick butt," but Nimbar warns that Knightron must be used sparingly as a last resort because his power is "finite." Not that he goes into any detail about why that is or what happens if they use him too often, but hey, the episode's almost over. After explaining that their tattoos will flash and a Power Portal will open nearby whenever he needs them, Nimbar teleports the teens back home.

Back on Moleculon, Lechner tells Gorganus that Ninjabot is "ready for the junk heap," but Gorganus reveals he plans to upgrade him and use him again later. This is one of the other major differences from Power Rangers - on that show, there's a new monster almost every episode, and they're rarely reused. But since Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills doesn't have a Japanese show to borrow footage and monster costumes from, and was presumably funded entirely through middle school bake sales, it has a grand total of ten unique monsters to spread across its forty episodes, meaning reappearances are frequent. It takes away a lot of the fun when the heroes face off against the same unimaginative enemies time after time.

Back at the coffee house, the teens sit together and discuss what to do going forward - in a crowded public place, so great job with that secret identity thing - when Swinton's dad comes in and is happy to see them apparently working well together. He offers to take them all out to dinner at a new restaurant, and also informs Swinton that the Ninjabot photos he had from the desert turned out to be fakes. Which they obviously weren't, but whatever.

This place is no Central Perk, that's for sure.

Swinton's dad gets a page (ahh the 90s) and has to leave for a moment. This leaves the teens more time to talk strategy, and they decide they shouldn't start hanging out together in school so that people won't get suspicious of their sudden friendship. Again, a good, perfectly sensible idea in theory, but as we'll see going forward, it's a rule they interpret fairly loosely.

Just as Swinton's dad returns, the teens' tattoos flash and they all need to make up quick excuses for why they can't go. Luckily, Swinton's dad gets paged again, so it doesn't really matter. The episode ends with a title drop as - again, in the middle of a crowded coffee house and not at all in a whisper - the teens declare themselves the Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills.

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Overall, this is a pretty terrible start to the series, which is to be expected when it's leading down into such an abyss. Everything about the show feels cheap and uninspired, and the sense of fun Power Rangers exudes is really nowhere to be found. This is just a blatant, sloppy cash-in, and while the actors at least seem to be having fun, there's precious little charm or entertainment in watching them. The story does attempt to avoid some of the plot holes its obvious inspiration left wide open, but trust me when I say coherency is not going to be one of this show's precious few strong suits. After sitting through this, you'd have to be a pretty special kind of crazy to want to see more. Luckily(?), I'm apparently that guy!

Welcome to the Bottom of the Bargain Bin - An Introduction

Every once in a while, a television show comes along that's such a massive hit, such a pop culture icon, that it captures the hearts and minds of a generation. Ratings soar, merchandise sells out, armies of children dress up as the characters for Halloween - and all throughout the entertainment industry, less-inventive people set out to copy it. This blog is not about one of those successes, but if it were, it would be about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the kids' action show from Saban Entertainment that premiered in the summer of 1993 and became an overnight sensation, launching a franchise that has endured for over two decades.

In its wake came a slew of imitators, other shows combining old Japanese stock footage of superhero shenanigans with newly-filmed American story segments. Many came from Saban itself - VR Troopers in 1994, Masked Rider in 1995, Big Bad Beetleborgs in 1996. This blog isn't about any of them either. Nor is it about Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, DIC Entertainment's cash-in that premiered a week after VR Troopers. This is a blog about a show that really wishes it could've been any of those other shows. A program that tried as desperately as it could to be the next Power Rangers and then didn't try at all at anything else. DIC Entertainment's OTHER live-action super teenager show...

Go ahead. Say that five times fast. Yes, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills. It's an actual show, one that ran for a single season of 40 episodes on the USA cable channel from October to December of 1994. All 40 episodes are now horrifically preserved for posterity on a complete series DVD set that sells for $7. That's less than 18 cents per episode, which coincidentally is exactly how much it looks like it cost to produce.

Unlike all the other Power Ranger ripoffs - with the later exception of Saban's 1998 oddity Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog - Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills was not based on a prior Japanese program, nor did it use costumes or footage from pre-existing shows. It was a series that was, technically, entirely original, and yet it manages to be the least original Power Rangers ripoff by far.

So, if you dare, embark with me on this journey through the dark underworld of children's entertainment as I subject myself to far more of this terrible show than mortal eyes should ever witness. I'll relay the happenings to you, dear readers, in eye-searing detail. Let's get this over with.