Saban delivers a decent start for the 20th anniversary series, but not without a few problems

promotional wallpaper for Power Rangers Megaforce (Courtesy of Nickelodeon )

Feb. 2, 2013 marked the debut of Power Rangers Megaforce, the newest series in the long-running Power Rangers franchise, as well as commemorating the series twentieth year.

This series also marks the first time since Saban bought the series back from Disney where action footage is being taken from two Super Sentai series and combined for one show. This previously occurred during the second and third seasons of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

The premise of the series is simple; five teenagers are recruited by the mysterious entity, Gosei, to defend the Earth against an alien force set on conquering the planet.

This ranger team has a card-based motif, lifted from Tensou Sentai Goseiger, where they summon weapons and power-ups through their morphers, which open up and allow for the insertion of the card of their choice.

There were three major problems I had when watching this first episode

First, the theme song sounded like a rehash of the previous season’s theme with slightly changed lyrics. There were some snippets that sounded like the makings of an original song that were layered over the theme from Power Rangers Samurai.

Speaking of retreads, many of the sound effects also sounded as if they were lifted from Samurai, with very little alteration. This is most easily observed in the team’s morphing sequence.

The morphing sequence itself feels a little too long, as they seem to be trying to copy the Sentai tradition of the team roll call. However, they don’t fully commit to it, making the length of the sequence feel unnecessary.

Lastly, there appear to be problems with the ADR, as certain lines given by the actors don’t match the emotions of the scenes or actors shown on screen, as if the studio assumed the audience would be too stupid to hear what they were saying if it wasn’t loud and clear. This made the actors’ performance feel a bit stiff at times as a result.

Flaws and all still a must see

Flaws aside, I still enjoyed the first episode as it does a good job of introducing us to the characters and sets up the status quo. While not a perfect beginning to a series, at least it’s starting at the beginning, rather than a few episodes in like the series preceding it.

The episode also features some nice send-ups to Mighty Morphin’, with some lines being lifted from the first episode and original pilot. Some of the same character archetypes are also present and bring the series more to its roots.

While the flaws are present, this still looks to be a promising series. A definite must-watch for fans of the franchise.