Power Rangers Samurai "ORIGINS": Opening Act

Part I was just alright. Way too much translating. I didn't really like Ji's magical arrows or Jayden creating the horse.

The Red Ranger bit was funny and I liked that the zords were used individually for the first fight.

For being the original first episode when they were just starting out, it was pretty much what I expected and did a semi-decent job of setting up the season, enough that I'll give it a 3/5. If this had aired as the first episode, I wouldn't have been that excited but it would've been nice to see the first morph and clips from the promos on TV MUCH sooner.

Part II was a lot better and really worked I thought.

I expected Bulk would arrive in the city with Spike for a new adventure or something, so it was a nice surprise that he was already there awaiting Spike's arrival. Bonus points to Tony Oliver for mentioning Skull and Bulk's history with the Power Rangers.

The line delivery was still bad and Jayden not looking for Emily with the others could've had an explanation. I did like the focus on her and the morphed battle with Jayden rescuing the girl. The original scenes and background matched up with Shinkenger good I thought.

... Totem Pole Megazord? Haha.

This episode setup the characters pretty well and was pretty on-par with other "2nd episodes" PR's done - enough for me for an easy 4/5. Just wish it had aired in the proper place.

PRS #18 "THE ULTIMATE DUEL": Ultimate Fail

The problems with Samurai haven't bothered me too much, but it felt like it all came out in this episode. Terrible line delivery and it just dragged on and on. I knew this would not be good when they recapped Mia trying to reason with Dayu - and then flashbacked to it AGAIN.

I didn't care about the MMPR-2 zord fight, but having Antonio sit out from being too weak was lame (at least he coud've taken more damage and demorphed to make it more believable.

I did like the training scene with Jayden & Kevin and the Hydro Bow attack with wire-fu. But it was pretty minimal to sitting through the rest in addition to commercials.

A longer sequence with Jayden honing his skills or maybe Bulk & Spike and I would easily give this a 3. But nope - first time in ages I'm giving a 2/5.

PRS #17 "BROKEN DREAMS": Deal with the Devil

I thought Dayu's backstory was good for the most part. Sort of resembles Captain Mitchell getting Diabolico to save Ryan in Lightspeed Rescue. Nice foreshadowing with Akumaro and I expect Dalia will return by the last episode.

I was annoyed that the black box plot is being stalled, however I do like that PR is trying to do its own thing (probably holding off until its time for the battlizer, would be my guess).

The dream world was kinda weird and though I liked that Jayden teamed up Lionzord with Antonio in the zord battle, that was a pretty odd MMPR-2 style sequence.