Ranger Recap: DINO CHARGE Unleashes the Power
Season 1, Episode 1 “Powers From the Past”
Hello and welcome to Ranger Recap, where I take you into the wonderful world of Power Rangers.
It’s a brand new season for a brand new show, Power Rangers: Dino Charge. With a title like “Powers from the Past”, I was intrigued but skeptical. I mean, we have already done dinosaur themed zords and powers in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers: Dino Thunder.
In case you are new to Power Rangers, zords are the machines that the rangers pilot, whether they drive it or they stand in front of something and control it with their bodies. Zords are usually based on animals, dinosaurs, mythological creatures, rescue vehicles (yes, there have been rescue vehicle zords), or a spaceship. The rangers use the zords to combine and create the Megazord, a bigger robot that has all of the zords combined that all the rangers control, for when the monster grows.
We begin the episode in the middle of a spaceship battle between Keeper, the protector of the Energems, and Sledge, the evil bounty hunter, and his fiance Poisandra. Keeper has the mystical Energems that Sledge wants. As the battle ensues Keeper’s ship gets damaged and he lands on Earth during the prehistoric era. Sledge sends his General Fury to go down to Earth to get the Energems from Keeper, and Fury finds Keeper and the box full of Energems. Fury takes the box with him to Sledge, but the box was actually a bomb rigged by Keeper, and Fury’s pod gets launched back down to Earth. As a result of the bomb, we see the tractor beam holding Sledge’s collection of asteroids stop working causing the asteroids to plummet.
Wanting to hide the Energems and their power, Keeper contacts the most powerful beings on Earth, dinosaurs. He asks these ten dinosaurs to protect the great power within the Energems, and with that each different Energem fuses with one of the ten dinosaurs. Keeper suddenly hears Fury’s voice calling for a fight, and so the two fight until Sledge’s asteroids come falling down around them.
So wait… if there are ten dinosaurs with the magical Energem powers, that means we are going to get ten rangers, which is something that hasn’t happened before. The only season that has come close to having ten rangers is Power Rangers: Jungle Fury, and they had eight. I hope with the 24 episode season that we are getting we will have enough character development for the ten rangers.
It’s safe to assume that it was in fact Sledge’s asteroids that are what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct, also we have no clue what happened to Fury or Keeper, and this brings us to present day New Zealand. They have been filming the show in New Zealand for years so it’s fun to set it there.
We meet Tyler, who is a breath of fresh air of a red ranger because he is a red ranger who is living life, having fun, and smiling. You just want to be friends with this guy. I love how he finds something cool and just wants to take a selfie with it. He misses his dad, who has been missing for ten years, and that is what brings him to the dinosaur museum. I think he will be a great leader of our new ranger team. He has the power of the T-Rex, which I personally think is predictable but it reminds me of the days when I was little and watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so that’s fun. I think that his zord Rexie looks great with the red and yellow coloring.
Tyler is researching the caves because his dad did some exploring there. Tyler gets directions from an employee of the museum named Chase. We then see Chase go in to the “Dino Bite Café”, the restaurant in the musuem, and we meet Shelby, who is a clumsy waitress who is messing up everyone’s orders. Chase then leaves the café to go on a fossil hunt, and Shelby follows him to see if she can go on the dig with him, which he refuses.
We then see a guy named Koda loading up the truck, and Shelby tries to bribe him with a hamburger to go on the dig. The museum director Ms. Morgan tells Shelby she can’t go and needs to get back to work, but Shelby stows away in the truck anyway to go on the dig because it’s for her favorite dinosaur.
Maybe Shelby will get better at her job as the season goes on. She is our new pink ranger, she is very likable and determined to get what she wants. She is our first African American pink ranger in the history of the series. Shelby has the power of the Triceratops, which is pretty cool because it is her favorite dinosaur and there hasn’t been a pink triceratops; usually it’s blue. We haven’t seen her zord yet but I’m sure it will come in a future episode.
Tyler shows up to the cave that his dad was researching, and explores until a mysterious figure suddenly appears and chases him. Tyler loses the mysterious figure and winds up next to a wall with a fossil of a T-Rex with something glowing inside. Tyler dislodges the red shimmering crystal and holds it in his hand.
Koda, Chase, and Shelby arrive at the dig site which is near the cave Tyler is exploring, and Shelby notices the same mysterious figure trying to steal a box from the museum jeep while Koda and Chase are setting up the dig site. The mysterious figure opens the box and we see it glows bright pink until the figure closes it, and Shelby chases after the figure. She tricks the mysterious figure and gets the box and runs while almost being blasted by the figure. Shelby gets hit and drops the box, and just in the nick of time Tyler swoops in on a vine, like Tarzan, and grabs the box.
The mysterious figure takes off the cloak and reveals it is an ice monster, and Tyler pulls a shovel out from his backpack to fight it. Where did the ice monster come from? Has he been laying dormant for 65 million years? I have no clue but he’s not happy at all. The ice monster strikes back and knocks Shelby and Tyler down, the box breaks and reveals a pink crystal similar to Tyler’s. The monster then says that the crystals are two of the Energems. Tyler and Shelby reach for the glowing Energems and the monster freezes them both, but the power of the Energems thaws them out. Tyler is now infused with the power of the Red Energem and Shelby is now infused with the power of the Pink Energem. Their morpher guns appear and they load the Energems into the guns. As the dino spirit goes around them they morph for the first time.
By the way, morphers are devices used to transform the rangers into their outfits and they usually have a pretty cool morphing sequence.
Shelby and Tyler work well together in their first fight as rangers against the ice monster learning about their outfits and their weapons. When they morph for the first time they react in shock and surprise like everyone in the situation might. They work well together when fighting the ice monster, but they don’t defeat him. Rexie, the T-rex zord comes out of nowhere and knocks him out of the way. Shelby and Tyler have been wearing their colors before they morph and after like all the other rangers before them have.
Tyler and Shelby return to the dig site only to find out that Koda and Chase left, so Shelby and Tyler ride in his Jeep. Tyler then tells Shelby that his dad has been missing for ten years and his dad was chased by a monster. We are shown a picture of a monster who looks a lot like Fury… Hm….. I wonder what that means? Tyler and Shelby keep riding off down the street, when we see that Fury has been following them from the bushes, unbeknownst to our Rangers.
So this is the best Power Rangers pilot I have seen in a long time. Tyler and Shelby make a great team. This brings a fun flavor to the Power Rangers that has been missing for a while. So far I like the diversity we have in our cast of rangers. I can’t wait for the rest of the rangers to be revealed and we can meet them.
