Ahoy Mateys! Surprised to see me back
so soon? So am I honestly but I wanted to get another recurring
feature caught up before October. Speaking of that glorious month, I
can barely believe it's almost here. There's so much on my plate this
year it's a little spooky, more so since I'm apparently going to be
running a midnight Q&A session with some local filmmakers the
Saturday before Halloween. If you're going to be in the Charlotte MI
area and want to watch me bullshit my way though a public event,
here's your chance. Alright, I'm exaggerating a little, I think it'll
go fine, plus it should be good for everyone involved, including the
Freakshow Film Festival group that I wrote about on Dreadcentral a
while back. Should be a nice little achievement for the year.
On the matter of achievements, our
favorite karate spandex franchise recently hit a major milestone with
the 2000th episode. Consider that for a moment. Think of
all the big nerd franchises out there like Star Trek, Dr. Who, any of
that stuff and consider how puny they seem stacked up this monster.
Combine that many episodes with all the solo, team-up, crossover
movies, and video specials and you've got more content than a sane
human being would ever dream of tackling. So how did they go about
celebrating this milestone? Quite simple actually, they brought back
the last anniversary team Gokaiger for a two part team up.
As usual of late, Bangley starts
causing trouble but instead of being interrupted by our crew he is
met in battle by Marvelous, pirate caption of the Gokaiger and major
fan favorite among red rangers. Marv is back on Earth in search of a
treasure located within the big cube that originally brought the
Zyumans to our world.
The treasure is a golden cube with a
message from the very first zyuohger, a whale who defended Earth
centuries ago and later went on to create zyuland. He informs the
team of the greatest guardian beast of all time, the cube whale.
In a nice bit of serendipity, the cube
whale is the reason Bangley came to Earth in the first place. He's
actually a beast hunter at heart and was merely entertaining himself
with smacking around superheroes while he searched for clues about
his big prey.
At first the prescience of the
Gokaigers leads to conflict because....reasons. We get that old
cliché where the older team was probably just here to lend a hand
and history lesson for the new cubs but decided to fight first for
the sake of entertainment. Honestly there wasn't even much of a
reason for a team-up in the first place as this plot progression
could have happened without the extra group in play. Still the point
of the 2000th episode was pure spectacle and on that front
they succeeded.
Once everyone was on friendly terms it
was time for a double treat of Yamato's new whale form and both teams
battling copies of big bads from previous Sentai series. It's all a
big shiny birthday bash for this franchise and thankfully the writers
were smart enough to keep the main plot moving forward instead of
hitting the brakes for the sake of an anniversary special.
Getting back to normal we find
ourselves in another two-part adventure as the team attempts to find
and enlist the aid of cube whale. A task which turns out to be more
complicated than it would seem. Cube whale is not only an illusive
creature but also entrusting as it lashes out while everyone fights
for control over it. Even Master Genis gets involved, sending down
Naria in a newly updated G.I.F.T. While Kubar teams up with Bangley
to poison the sea.
During the big three-way battle for
whale supremacy we finally get a sub-plot for Misao and Sela. For
whatever reason these two have been kept apart but they end up thrust
together since each has an aquatic robot. Getting caught up in the
aforementioned poison leaves them bedridden with a chance to bond.
Misao has been screwing up more than usual due to repeat attempts at
being more useful. Sela can relate due to her own attempts over the
years to be a stronger person. Alright, so it's not a huge
development, at least they tried to establish something between these
two. It's not as substantial as the awkward guy friendship between
him and Tusk or the love/hate standing with Leo, still it's
something.
Something that is becoming an issue is
Bangley. When he first arrived it was refashioning to have a villain
other than the core group yet other than his dealings with Kubar he's
become something of a one trick pony. That wouldn't be so noticeable
except he's been at the forefront of villainy lately with the other
baddies sitting back and taking a breather.
As the show stands right now, it can
pretty much go wherever it wants too. The crossover special is over,
the team has new robots, forms, etc, and there's a hint Master Genis
might get off his ass and be a threat again. One dangling issue is
the bird guy and Lari who were shown meeting in the woods like 5
episodes ago only to be quickly forgotten in favor of the anniversary
antics.
All that will have to be straightened
out come November cause from here on out it's all Halloween, all the
time. Hell, I'm already into my first horror flick of the month.
Sadly I've gotta start the month with work which means I'll be held
up in a tiny guardhouse during a rainy weekend. Getting through that
with all my sanity should be an achievement in itself.
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