Friday, February 19, 2021

Beast Morphin' Out

Coming off the dino teamup, Beast Morphers had some episode plots not all that great (Nate & his parents, Roxy & Ravi's trust issues), but I still enjoyed them especially GoBusters fight footage combined with the original stuff, like Ravi's overheating. Nate going over-the-top as Steel was fun and it was cool seeing Robo Blaze impersonate the real one, which should've happened earlier in the show. Also, I wish the musical had been more of a dream sequence than to have actually happened (kind of), but they weren't bad episodes. Zoey & her brother though was pretty lame with how the original fossil was disintegrated, how rushed the whole discovery was, not to mention the comedic slapstick with the dog.

And then we got to the good stuff. Evox's comment about a "very dark past" was a great tease. Nate and Dr K would turn out to be the best teamup, surpassing the Dino Charge return. They always manage to screw up returning Rangers, yet Dr K comes in like she never left. Loved it.

I knew about the Venjix twist since August but the voice switch was a surprise. Wasn't really expecting RPM clips either. Even if I hadn't known ahead of time I always thought the "horrifying discovery" in the episode description had to be Venjix. The way the scene played out was perfect. Yeah, tying up Ben and Betty was out of character but I chalk that up to there's no way they weren't gonna water him down from RPM somehow. And despite Venjix talking like old glory, I could never buy he was as powerful even after absorbing what remained from Scott's morpher. The only downside is this episode being another example of how overused the trans dimensional portals have become and why Dr K would let GB have the morphers briefcase in the first place.  And sure Beast Morphers used a lot of arrows but if it works, might as well roll with it.

Going into the finale, I guess I shouldn't be surprised the Venjix origin was largely ignored but it was great they kept the voice and referenced taking out a civilization. To me, the missing robotic voice filter could simply have been a side effect of the snake DNA/Morph-X. The Vault may have been something not planned early on (and could've been introduced earlier) but Chip definitely knew Evox was going to be Venjix with having Andrew Laing under the Randall Ewing pseudonym I thought was clever.

For todays modern PR, I was fine with Steel's sacrifice and how they worked in a final helmetless scene. I liked how it gave the team the drive to defeat Venjix adapting the GoBusters team energy flow. I don't know if allergic to human DNA was really the best idea and I realize putting things in retrospect how much they had the various DNAs as plot devices... not always executed well. Also, I thought redubbing the actor was fine, like something Neo Saban would've done. I really dug his running morph and the morph theme a final time. I thought for sure Nate would be the one to make Steel human and while I'm not too sure about the Grid acting sentinent, in this case, bringing him back with randomized Nate DNA mostly made sense to me. Having Jamie Lineham do it would've been cool, but I assume it came down to wanting a young actor. Also wish Colonel Truman could've had a longer scene but I did like Scrozzle getting captured offscreen hiding out around Corinth. 
 
I know some people had issues with the flashforward and Devon's promotion but I thought it made for a nice sendoff. Not the best finale but easily one of the best since Disney era, as well as Samurai which I always thought had a solid end, better than most of its 2 years. That's something I do miss now that Neo Saban at least tried, when finales had that cool finale moment (like Super Megaforce's mid-morph roll call) and would do something big like when the Samurai Megazord cockpit was destroyed.

4/5's except for 
"FOSSIL FRENZY" 3/5
"SOURCE CODE" 5/5
 

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