SPD! Emergency! Uncanny Fox reporting for duty, here to continue my review of the Power Rangers Team-Up episodes with a look at not one, but two episodes featuring the Dino Thunder Rangers joining forces with the futuristic law enforcement operation, Space Patrol Delta. Yes, they teamed up twice: once with only Conner, Kira and Ethan, and the second with the full team.

After Dino Thunder wrapped up, Doug Sloan and Ann Austen left the show to pursue other interests. In their place were Bruce Kalish (writer of such shows as The Incredible Hulk and Mork & Mindy, as well as a live-action Dennis The Menace TV movie) and Greg Aronowitz (prop designer for films like The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Batman and Robin – I’m not going to hold that last one against him, as well as directing a children’s movie named Labou, which would actually feature some actors from SPD), with Jackie Marchand staying onboard as a writer.

At first, the new creative team received high praise for bringing superb acting talent and creature effects on par with Henson, but as SPD went on, fans began to try foul over inconsistent writing, an over-reliance on pyrotechnics (leading to the fan term “Kalishspolions,” although the booms were more the doing of Koichi Sakamoto), and a tendency to rely on Sentai-lifted filler episodes (with Kalish himself under the impression that he “was paid to translate, not tell original stories,” which is odd given how he’s departed from the source material plenty). All this, added with Disney’s increasing disinterest in the franchise (I’ll talk about that more next week), led to Kalish’s run being one of the most derided in the history of the show, with Jonathan Tzachor’s Neo-Saban run being neck and neck with it as far as which one is the worst.

But as for the show itself, SPD takes place in the year 2025, where humans and aliens have come to live in harmony in the peaceful Newtech City (that’s… probably not going to happen in 6 years), under the protection of the titular intergalactic police force, Space Patrol Delta. At least, until the evil Troobian Empire invades, under the rule of the skeletal Emperor Grumm (played by Rene Naufahu, who went on to play a jerk mentor in Samurai, and then be a jerk mentor in real life. What is it with Samurai and actors doing bad stuff?). And to make matters worse, SPD’s elite Power Ranger unit, A-Squad, goes missing (they would later be revealed to have defected) prompting the blue canine alien commander, Anubis “Doggie” Cruger (played and voiced by John Tui, who would go on to play the sixth Ranger in the next season, Mystic Force) to gather a team of young cadets, including a pair of reformed criminals and the son of a deceased Red Ranger, to form the back-up B-Squad, the last line of defense against Grumm’s evil robot army in a verity of futuristic adventures.

And two of those adventures would bring them in contact with the Dino Thunder team. So, without further ado, here are those two episodes, “History and Wormhole,” starting with the former.

We begin with the intro song, which is awesome! It’s sung by the man himself, Ron Wasserman (who also did a couple of demos for Mystic Force before leaving due to disagreements with Disney), and it has a rocking beat that really fits the police theme of the season. The lyrics contain cool lines like “Heroes on your side/heroes for all time/out to save the universe” and “no matter where you are/if it’s near or far/ you can always call out Space Patrol Delta” that give the message any good theme song should: the Rangers are here, they’re awesome and they’re going to save the day. I can picture SPD actually rocking out to this while they’re on patrol.

The episode proper starts at the Newtech City Observatory (and they must be strapped for cash considering how generic the sign on the side of the building is), where a scientist named Professor Cerebros has agreed to meet with the bat-like arms dealer, Broodwing. The professor, who kind of looks like that shrimp dude on The Muppets, is worried about dealing with him behind Grumm’s back, but Broodwing points out that he’s paying the doctor top dollar. He then produces the Red, Blue and Yellow Dino Gems, which he purchased on Onyx. Geez, first the Mega Voyager key cards, then Pink Quasar Saber and now this. That Onyx Tavern really has good luck with finding Ranger McGuffins.

The scene then cuts to Reefside High in the year 2005 (aka “The Year When Nothing Happened.” No seriously, SPD took place in the future, meaning that for all we know 2005 was a time of love and peace with no monster attacks in the Rangerverse), where the kids are celebrating their High School reunion. Conner catches up with Ethan in the hallway, and the two chit-chat about how “brutal” Ethan’s courses at Reefside Tech are, and how Conner is trying to start a soccer program for kids. You know, a safe place they can go to avoid shady ooze-dealers and robots that want to kidnap them to lip-sync Christmas songs. They discuss how Kira’s moved to New York in pursuit of a recording contract, and that she might not make it to the reunion.

But it turns out she does, and she warmly greats her former teammates. And she’s already got a gig on the radio, singing a jingle for kitty litter. Hey, gotta start somewhere I guess, and Emma Lahana can literally sing my tax returns. The three friends head off toward the gymnasium…

Only to be teleported through space and time, landing in Cerebros’s lab. Broodwing welcomes the three Rangers to the future, and proclaims that they will help him destroy Earth. But the teens have a different idea, and knock him back with a kick before grabbing their Dino Gems from behind them and making a break for the door.

Over at SPD Headquarters (which is also a Zord, go figure), tech expert Kat (an alien cat girl, in the anime sense) is picking up the Dino Rangers’ energy signal. She tells Doggie that this intense surge in the Morphing Grid is coming from the Downtown Sector, and Doggie points out that he didn’t deploy B-Squad.

Speaking of, the B-Squad team walks in, and Red Ranger Jack asks Doggie “what’s new in the SPD Zoo?” And disappointingly enough, Doggie and Kat don’t respond with a sarcastic “Ha-ha.” Kat tells the Rangers about the energy reading she’s picking up, leading Bridge to ramble about how they’re not downtown… or at least, he’s not downtown… he doesn’t think he is. His thing is that he rambles, a trait I can relate to all too well. Like last week, I was talking to someone about how Avengers: Endgame is going to end, and I just kept going on and on, veering way off topic, and not stopping even after the person left…

Oh, Z tells everybody that she hasn’t send any of her clones there (everybody on the team has a Civilian Power, due to a science experiment involving their parents, and hers is making copies of herself. She literally was all of her friends growing up), and Sky suggests it might be the missing A-Squad, which gets everyone excited. Ironically, given how that situation turned out…

Downtown, the Dino Rangers find themselves begin chased by Broodwing’s Krybots, until they reach a dead end. Literally backed against the wall, the three muss over their new enemies, with Kira pointing out that they aren’t Tyrannodrones, “but definitely up there in the creepy department.” Conner asks if they have any ideas on how to get out of this mess, but Ethan’s still trying to figure out how they got in it.

The Krybots push to attack, and the Dino Rangers defend themselves in the usual way. Conner lands some sweet kicks, Kira does some kind of chopping windmill thing, and Ethan goes to work with a picnic umbrella. They even bust out the Civilian Powers too, and it isn’t long before they gain the upper hand. Ethan busts a Krybot open and sees that it’s a machine, much to his amused curiosity.

But the observations will have to wait, as Broodwing arrives and hits them with a devastating blast that sends them tumbling to the ground. The bat creature advances upon them menacingly, bragging about how they couldn’t escape him that easily. Ethan fires back that they’ve run away from a lot worse than him, which didn’t come out right at all. After Kira presses him, Broodwing explains that the Dino Rangers’ power is “legendary throughout the galaxy,” and he offers to let them join him in bringing down Earth.

Naturally, the Rangers aren’t going to go along with this, and Conner responds with this gem of a line: “Maybe you’re suffering from a lack of oxygen from being in that punch bowl too long, but in case you didn’t notice, we’re the good guys.” If Spidey doesn’t bust out something like that to Mysterio in Far From Home, I’m going to be disappoint. But Broodwing thinks they’ll come around to his way of thinking with a little persuasion…

Which he doesn’t get to enact because SPD arrives at that moment in their jeep and motorcycle to investigate Kat’s reading. They run out and go to work on the remaining Krybots, as the Dino Rangers watch on, enjoying what they see. Jack takes a few out with an impressive blaster shot/flip combo, Sky lands a few trip kicks, Bridge fights some on a stairwell, and Z and Syd take some out with kicks and chops.

Eventually, all that’s left is Broodwing, who takes off flying after cursing SPD for always getting in his way. Once he’s gone, the B-Squad checks up on the Dino Rangers, who Sky thinks are just ordinary citizens being attacked for no good reason. Jack explains that fighting Broodwing is “all in a day’s work” for them, and that he and his squad mates are Power Rangers. Which leads the Dino crew to point out that’s not possible, because they are the Power Rangers…

Over at SPD HQ, Ethan and the others get the rundown on being transported to the future, there being a government organization training people to be Power Rangers (not the first – *cough* Lightspeed Rescue – or last – *cough* Beast Morphers), and Earth being under attack by aliens and giant robots. At least there’s still pretty girls in the future, as Conner is all too quick to notice.

They head into the Command Center – which Ethan notes is a step-up from a cave in their teacher’s basement – and are instantly freaked out by Doggie, who Conner thinks is an enemy monster. Jack assures them that aliens now live on Earth peacefully, and introduce their Commander and Kat. Pets as authority figures, they’ll get used to it.

Doggie welcomes the Dino Team, and Kat pulls up archive footage of their past exploits as Rangers, explaining that they “faced off against the most treacherous villains in history.” I’ll say, Mesogog and Zeltrax were tough customers to be sure, and they had Tommy on their team, with all the baddies under his belt. Plus, Kira would come back for the anniversary crossover next week, the whole team would take on the leftover X-Borgs with the Megaforce Rangers, and Trent and Tommy would team up once again to deal with Lord Draven. So yeah, Dino Thunder’s got one of the hardest working teams in all of Power Rangers. But Jack points out that all happened years ago, and asks how the Dino Rangers got to the future. Kira explains that things are fuzzy, but they were on their way to the Reunion when they were zapped over to 2025.

Doggie points out that Broodwing went to great expense to bring the Dino Rangers to his time, and won’t give up on capturing them easily. Conner’s all raring to go to take him on and anybody else that comes along, but Z brings up Broodwing’s boss, Grumm, who she says is as nasty as they get. The Dino Crew’s still not fazed by this, but Sky fires back that his team’s been specially trained to take on Grumm and his army.

An argument breaks out when Syd snarks that “fighting Dinosaurs is so over,” (tell that to Dino Charge and whatever Ryusoulger gets adapted into), leading Ethan to fire back that “weren’t you guys taught to respect your elders?” Jack assures them that they just don’t want the Dino Rangers getting into any more trouble, since SPD’s got enough problems to deal with…

And then the alarm goes off, and Kat points out that the Team-Up Quarry’s under attack. Again. I mean, there’s literally nobody there, what do the bad guys think they’ll accomplish by blowing it up. “Yes! We’ve ruined the beautiful New Zealand countryside!” Doggie suspects that Broodwing is trying to draw the Dino Team out, and Jack orders them to stay at the base until he and his team deals with it, despite Conner’s objections.

With that, the B-Squad strikes a pose and morphs, with an abbreviated sequence that skips straight to their helmets being formed. They then drive over to the quarry in their SWAT Truck (basically a big tank thing), where a starfish-looking monster is wreaking havoc. The Rangers jump up onto a light structure (?) and activate their SWAT Mode, a special power-up the team had that gives them armor and stronger blasters. After the monster fires a shot at them, they rappel down the structure and return the favor, with Jack going one-on-one after an impressive dodge-flip.

But the monster proves too strong for Jack alone, forcing him to regroup with the others so they can perform a finishing volley of blasts. But Monster Guy gets out of the way and digs down into the Earth below, leaving the Rangers to fume about how they lost him.

Up in space, aboard Emperor Grumm’s ship, The Terror, the skeletal alien mumble-growls (a problem that would carry over to Naufahu’s other Power Rangers character, Ji) about how he didn’t order that monster attack, meaning that Broodwing is going against his orders. Morgana, his assistant and Monster Maker of the season – at least when she’s in her child form of Mora, tells him that he’d be the laughingstock of the galaxy if the bat destroys the Rangers before him. I mean, he’s already got that whole “sounding like an evil Cookie Monster” thing going against him…

Grumm’s not about to let that happen, and orders a full-scale ground attack on the planet, using every robot in his arsenal to show the Rangers and Broodwing “who has the true power.”

Back on Earth, Jack orders everyone back to base to see if Kat can track down the monster. Unfortunately, that full-scale attack army has already made it down to the quarry, and is standing in wait for them up ahead. All around the Rangers are Krybots, both in their normal variety and stronger variations like Blueheads and Orangeheads – that was something I liked about the Krybots, that they had different versions that served as generals and elites – as they jump down to engage our heroes. The Rangers charge in blasters blazing, and an all-out brawl ensues.

Over at SPD Base, the Dino Rangers watch the battle on the viewscreen and insist on going down there to help. Doggie refuses, despite him saying he’s never seen this many troops before, due to the fact that if something happens to the Dino Team in 2025, time itself would be irreparably damaged. Conner fires back that if the Rangers lose, then none of that matters anyway, which makes the old dog pause.

To make matters worse, the monster is back… as a giant attacking the city. Kira sees this and mutters that she wishes they still had their Megazord, and Doggie orders Kat to dispatch the Omega Ranger (aka Sam, aka a freaking ball of light. Seriously, when he wasn’t in Ranger form, he was the hint orb from Sonic Adventure. Even Bruce Kalish admits this was a mistake, but they didn’t have the budget to hire another actor full-time) to deal with this latest problem, before reasserting that this isn’t the Dino Rangers’ fight and going off to help the others.

He morphs, and we see his morphing sequence into the Shadow Ranger, where he pulls off his coat, jumps down to a platform while his suit forms, then stands as his large doggy head and muzzle somehow squish into his human-shaped helmet. His whole Ranger career must have been spent in agonizing pain.

Meanwhile, the Omega Ranger races to the scene of the monster attack in his Omegamax Cycle Zord, blasting at it before switching over to Megazord Mode. He then uses the Zord’s wrist blades (not unlike the ones the Time Shadow from Time Force used) to duel with the spikey creature.

Back at the quarry, the B-Squad has its hands full with the Krybot army, which overpowers our heroes with sheer numbers before Shadow Ranger arrives on his ATV to even the odds. But he soon finds himself ambushed, and the others rush to his aid as Grumm and Morgana roll up on the former’s motorcycle (it’s not every day that villains get vehicles. There’s pretty much just this and Vypra’s buggy thing). Grumm gloats that he couldn’t let his solders have all the fun, and goes on about how the Rangers have stood in his way long enough before unleashing a lighting blast from his staff that sends the Rangers for a loop.

The Dino Rangers are still watching this unfold over at Delta Base, and Conner decides that enough is enough: it’s time to get prehistoric on Grumm and his goons. Kira reminds him of what Doggie said, but Conner fires back that he doesn’t care what happens to the past or future; the others need them now. Kira and Ethan agree, and Kat concedes that if they’re going to fight, they should at least go prepared. She takes their Dino Gems…

Back in the city, Spikey Monster starts spraying some kind of acid foam at the Omegamax, which melts through its blades as Omega goes “Unreal! Whoa!” in a voice reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog (the references just keep on coming today, don’t they?). The monster then knocks the Zord down for the count.

Over at the quarry, Grumm attacks Doggie on his bike, firing off massive explosive lasers in slow-motion. The Krybots follow suit with the other Rangers, leading to a lot of booms and people flailing in the air. Jack tries to even the odds with his Battlizer, charging at them in his Battle-Thong… I mean, his Cyber Mode (got to hand it to him, he’s the first Ranger to think to wear a cup to battle), slashing away at bots left and right with his Electo-Saber. At least he doesn’t just shoot a little blast at them. But he still proves no match for Grumm, who goes as far as forcing him to demorph.

The others are demorphed as well, and things are looking bad for the B-Squad as they are forced to regroup and Grumm gloats that they will soon be no more… at least until the Dino Rangers arrive to help even the odds. The SPD team runs up to them and says that this isn’t a good idea, and that Grumm is too powerful, but Conner assures them that they brought a little power of their own: their Morphers, which Kat was able to restore. Kira points out that B-Squad would have done the same thing, and Doggie concedes their point.

He orders the Rangers to suit up, and everybody morphs, just as Grumm tries to blast them, which just gives them a nice explosion in the background. We see the full version of the SPD morph here, complete with the Rangers backflipping as their suits form. After they morph, the Dino Rangers activate Super Dino Mode, and the SPD crew goes SWAT. Once everyone’s good and powered up, they share the traditional Team-Up pose with colored smoke and explosions.

Grumm orders his minions to attack, and the fight is on. Jack rallies the troops, and everyone splits off by color and gender. Sky and Bridge blast at some Krybots before giving Ethan a boost for a pouncing attack, the girls go to work on Morgana and another group of bots, firing at them as the Dino Thunder theme plays, and Jack, Conner and Doggie (whose riding atop the SWAT Truck) cut through yet another group until Grumm jumps into the scene on his motorbike. And while this is going on, I can’t help but notice that this is the point in the Disney Era where the fighting gets a bit over the top, with excessive flipping, slo-mo and explosions going off every minute. I’ll explain the problems with this in next week’s review, where it all reaches its zenith.

Grumm tries to take Doggie one-on-one, and the two have a sword fight atop the SWAT Truck, which Cruger manages to win without even bothering to stand up. Because of course he does. Grumm gets knocked off the truck, leaving him open for the Red Rangers, who land a couple of shots. The others catch up with them, and Doggie tells the B-Squad to go help the Omega Ranger in the city.

They hurry over to the scene of the battle in their Delta Squad Megazord, arriving just in time to save the Omegamax from the Spike Monster’s final blow. Together, the two Megazords combine into the Delta Max Megazord, shrugging off the monster’s blasts as it marches in close enough for the finishing strike, where it rockets over to the monster and delivers a series of rapid punches, with the final one sending it flying into the sky until it lands and explodes. The combined Megazors does the standard “turn away from the monster as it blows up” maneuver, all to the tune of the SPD theme.

Back at the Quarry, the Dino Rangers make short work of the remaining Krybots, and Shadow continues his duel with Grumm. He knocks the Emperor back, and Grumm tells him that using Rangers from the past may have won this battle, but he has a surprise of his own in store for the future. He’s not going to get a chance to tell what it is though, as the Dino Rangers combine their weapons into the Z-Rex Blaster, forcing the green-skulled tyrant to retreat after getting hit with its blast.

The B-Squad makes it back just in time for the victory celebration, and Doggie thanks them all for their bravery and teamwork. Jack and Conner even share a handshake.

Back at Delta Base, the Dino Rangers offer to stay in the future and help with Grumm and Broodwing, but Doggie says that they need to go back to preserve the timeline. Syd tells Kira that she goes on to become a huge music sensation in the future (and that she apparently listened to her songs growing up. In real life, Emma Lahana would give up her singing career to focus on acting, which is a shame considering how good she was), Sky tells Conner that he starts a chain of soccer camps, and Bridge tells Ethan that the software he goes on to develop is still being used by SPD to this day. In short, while they certainly did great work as Rangers, they would go on to better things as civilians. This convinces them to go back, and Kat uses the Dino Gems to erase their memories of this event and return them to 2005.

They find themselves back at their reunion, with no recollection of what they’ve just been through. Kira asks if Tommy’s at the party (if he is, we don’t get to see him), and they hurry inside the gym.

Back in the future, it’s night, and Broodwing stands over the city as he monologues (I think he’s confused himself with that other bat-themed character), ending the episode by telling the Rangers that there’s another monster where that one came from, even more powerful than the last, and it’s drilling its way under the city…

So, now that we’ve finished talking about the story, on to Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Getting to see what the Dino Rangers get up to after retiring was pretty neat.

We actually get a Megazord battle here, even if it only involves the SPD team.

The fight between Doggie and Grumm on the top of the SWAT Truck. Further cementing the Shadow Ranger’s place alongside Tommy Oliver and Carter Grayson in the hall of Power Rangers BAMFs.

Cons:

Tommy and Trent not appearing, even for a cameo.

The rivalry between the two Ranger teams was a bit rushed.

This is another solid Team-Up episode, providing a nice look into the future of the Dino Thunder cast and delivering some fun, if a bit outlandish, action. It would have been nice to have Tommy and Trent along for the ride, but that would be taken care of in the next episode. Kind of. Despite that, if they had left the Team-Up to just this episode, I would have been satisfied.

But they didn’t, and now we move on to “Wormhole,” the episode featuring the entire Dino Ranger team (well, almost all of them, but I’ll explain later). This one holds the dubious distinction of actually airing after the season had run its course, due to being originally planned as a DVD exclusive. As a result, it was sort of rushed through production, and this would show in many areas.

After the intro, the episode begins with Emperor Grumm onboard The Terror, mumbling to an unseen entity he refers to as “the Magnificence” (which we latter find out is Omni, the brain-like true Big Bad of the season) about how strong the Rangers have proven to be as he gets shocked by lighting for doubting his master. He goes on to mutter that “preparations are in place to leave” and that they have formed a plan to conquer Earth. Outside, the ship flies through a green wormhole…

Over at the Delta Base, Doggie and Kat call the B-Squad over to tell them that both Grumm and his ship have left Earth. Which the Rangers take as a sign that they’ve won, and start cheering and celebrating. But Doggie’s not quite ready to bust out the confetti yet: he knows Grumm (they’ve been battling each other for quite some time at this point, ever since the Troobians invaded his homeworld of Sirius – get it?), and he doesn’t retreat.

Kat picks up the wormhole on her scanners, out in the Tenarian Nebula. She explains that there are traces of Troobian energy coming from inside the rim, meaning that Grumm went through it. Doggie adds that since the wormhole is temporal in nature, the question isn’t where Grumm went, but when. Or, as I shall add, why? It’s a Drax joke…

The scene changes to Reefside High in the year 2004 (when the Dino Rangers were active), where said Rangers are chilling out with the crew in the schoolyard – finding trouble, never looking too hard. Trent is working on a sketch, Kira’s practicing on her guitar and Ethan is playing some kind of handheld console that looks like a PS1 controller with a PDA glued to it. There’s no way that thing can practically function as a portable gaming system that can fit in your pocket.

Nonetheless, he just lost the boss fight with the “Dreaded Maxodrone,” and his friends rib him for taking it too seriously. Ethan starts spinning a conspiracy theory about the game being a historical account of an ancient space battle in a distant galaxy far, far away. And I’m sure they’ve already made about 8 movies about it, too.

He then stops Conner’s stray soccer ball with his foot, prompting the Red Ranger to walk up and ask how things are going down in their neck of the woods. We learn that Ethan’s console is called a “Geekboy” (I see Soulja Boy’s still up to his old tricks, and he’s managed to get people to actually buy his stuff now), and he admits that his game isn’t a historical account… it’s a prophecy. You know what, this is Power Rangers, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was actually the case.

Without warning, The Terror flies over the school, causing mass panic save for the Rangers, who just look up in confusion as it zips by. You’d think everybody on Earth would just be desensitized to stuff like this by now, kind of like how civilians in the Marvel Universe just shrug when Doc Ock comes to town. And just watch that old lady from “Trakeena’s Revenge” just deny it all…

Onboard, Grumm notes the year and describes his latest evil plan: conquer Earth in a time where SPD doesn’t exist yet, then return to the future where his rule is unchallenged… if there’s anyone left to rule over. Except for the fact that there are still plenty of Rangers to stand in his way, as “Forever Red” demonstrated.

Morgana, who was recently de-aged into her child form of Mora, shows her latest drawing: a monster with tentacles for hair, which soon comes to life via Mora’s powers to serve Grumm. She says she wants to go to her room to play, but Grumm orders her to draw more monsters, as he’s going to need an army to ensure he prevails this time.

Back in 2025, Kat explains what a wormhole is, with Bridge bringing up Einstein’s Theory of Relativity as a shorthand. Doggie believes Grumm has grown frustrated with battling the Rangers, and decided to go into the past where victory will be certain. *cough*“Forever Red”*cough* So, he plans on sending Jack, Bridge and Z after him, since the present will still need Rangers to protect it if Broodwing attacks. He gives them 5 minutes to say their goodbyes and get ready for the trip. As Jack and Z leave, Bridge asks Doggie if by “goodbyes,” he means “see you later” or “goodbye as in… goodbye.” Doggie has no words for this, and Bridge doesn’t want him to answer that…

Sometime later, the away team arrives at the wormhole in an SPD ship, as Jack gives Bridge and Z one last chance to back out of this. They don’t take it, so Jack sends the ship through…

Back in 2004, the Dino Rangers head off to investigate the ship they just saw, with Kira telling Ethan that next time he wants to predict the future, at least make her a pop star. But as Trent suggests they go find Tommy, Zeltrax (Dr. O’s former college-turned-cyborg-enemy with a strong resemblance to Snide from Dino Supercharge. Also, he’s voiced by James Gaylyn, who’s been around the block when it comes to Power Rangers) appears with a pack of Tyrannodrones. But didn’t he use the Triptoids as his personal army after breaking loose from Mesogog?

The evil cyborg prepares to attack the Rangers, only to get beamed up by Grumm. The Rangers head off to find Tommy, all the while wondering why Zeltrax was taken. Kira and Ethan are just happy he’s gone, but Conner notices something else up in the distance…

The SPD Rangers, who step out of their ship and welcome Connor, Kira and Ethan, while noting that they’re meeting Trent for the first time.

Up in the sky, Grumm welcomes Zeltrax to his ship, but the cyborg isn’t too happy to be shanghaied like this. He tries to attack, but Grumm counters with a lighting blast from his hand. He issues Zeltrax an ultimatum: he and his drones can help Grumm defeat the Rangers, or Grumm can keep on blasting him. Zeltrax soon caves, and admits that destroying the Rangers will be his pleasure.

Back on the surface, the B-Squad explains how they are Power Rangers from the future, and how they chased Grumm to the present, and how he wants to conquer Earth in 2004, and how the Dino Rangers were once brought to the future to help them, and that they had their memories erased, which Bridge explains in a rapid voice. Uh, isn’t it that from where the Dino Rangers are standing, that didn’t happen yet? “History” happened a year after the Rangers defeated Zeltrax and Mesogog, but here they’re still at large.

Jack’s scanner goes off, and he picks up three separate Krybot readings. He and the other SPD Rangers split up to deal with them, telling the Dino Rangers to stay there since it “isn’t their fight.” Kira points out that Grumm’s teamed up with Zeltrax, meaning that it is.

Back in 2025, Kat discovers some bad news: the wormhole is closing, meaning the Rangers they sent back only have three hours to return before their stuck in the past forever. And unlike Turtles In Time, this deadline is actually relevant to the plot.

In 2004 Reefside, Jack interrupts an Orangehead’s attack on a café. He proceeds to go one-on-one with the elite Krybot, trading blows for a bit before “getting mad” and whipping out his blasters. Eventually, he ends the bot with a jumping, flipping barrage of laser fire, ending this impressive display by doing the classic explosion victory pose.

Over at Team-Up Quarry, Bridge detects a pack of Krybots and Blueheads, naturally taking a while before realizing he’s walked into them. He morphs and takes them on, slashing through them with a flying sword attack before bouncing off the side of the cliff and finishing them off.

He soon gets ambushed by an Orangehead, with the evil bot blasting him off a cliff. He soon picks himself up, and he the Orangehead have a Sentai footage swordfight that ends with the Green Ranger whipping out his blaster and annihilating the baddie, as he thanks him for “playing.” And remember: winners don’t use ooze.

Back in the future, Doggie tells the rest of B-Squad that he’s going through the wormhole to warn the away team that they’re running out of time. Sky, Syd and Sam offer to go with him, but Doggie insists they stay behind in case the unthinkable happens. Sky then points out that if Grumm wins in the past, then there won’t be a point in anybody staying guard in the present. Say, didn’t we have this conversation in the last episode? Doggie concedes the point, and agrees to let them go with him.

In the past, Z and the Dino Rangers follow a Krybot signal, being joined by a returning Jack and Bridge who explain who their fights went. The others haven’t found anything, however, despite the Troobian energy signals going off the charts.

They’re then interrupted by a battle between Zeltrax and Tommy, who spends the whole episode in Ranger form, despite being cured of being stuck in it at this point in the timeline. The real reason for this is that Disney didn’t even bother to contact Jason David Frank to reappear in this episode (not even to record his lines morphed, which as a wise reviewer once pointed out can literally be done over the phone), so his voice work is done by Trent’s actor, Jeffrey Parazzo. He tries, but it’s not even close. Regardless, he beats back Zeltrax as the others find themselves surrounded by a joined squad of Krybots and Tyrannodrones.

And as Z points out that things couldn’t get any worse, Mora’s monsters arrive to join the number of baddies currently piling on. After a commercial break, the Rangers find themselves outmatched and outgunned, and worse yet Zeltrax gains the upper hand in his fight against Tommy. The Black Ranger joins up with the others, and Jack notes that he’s read all about him. Yeah, and according to the Soul of the Dragon graphic novel, ol’ Tommy’s pretty tight with SPD. His son is even a member.

But they still have the matter of the evil forces to deal with, and from The Terror, Mora complements Grumm for his plan to use the T-Drones in conjunction with his own forces.

Still not ready to give up, the Rangers all morph, and Zeltrax orders his legions to attack. An all-out battle ensues, with Tommy and Zeltrax resuming their fight and the former losing… until Sky, Syd and Sam jump in to make a save. As they take on Zeltrax, Doggie helps Tommy to his feet and apologizes for being late, a meeting between two of the greatest Rangers of all time that would have been much cooler if JDF was actually there.

As they join the battle, Grumm watches from his ship and gloats about how he’ll get a chance to destroy Doggie as well, and how victory will be his. Uh, the reason you went back in time was that you could conquer Earth without any Rangers to stop you, and now there’s a whopping 12 standing against you here. I think Omni might have fried your brain with the lighting back there at the beginning.

Back on the battlefield, the Rangers gather in a circle, with the villains surrounding them. Doggie gives a rousing speech about how Zeltrax and Grumm may have greater numbers, but “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog” (get it? ‘cause he’s a dog) and declares that “no one gets inside our circle!” This leads to every Ranger yelling “no one gets inside,” which is more than a little cheesy after about a solid minute.

Zeltrax orders his minions to attack, and the Rangers hold strong in their circle… until they break off about a minute later. So much for no one getting inside… Kira and the SPD girls take on a clawed robed monster, with highlights including Kira and Z performing a double flipkick before all three blast the clown with their blasters.

Trent and Omega go to work on some Krybots, with Trent tossing his Drago Sword like a boomerang (rather low key) and Sam One-Punch Man-ing everything in sight with his Omega Morpher. His character’s as bland as plain Cheerios and we only see his face for one second at the end, but he’s got a sweet arsenal. Making him all the more frustrating. The two then try to one-up each other with their super-speed slashing and an Electro-Mode ground attack, tearing down swathes of enemies.

Elsewhere, Ethan, Sky and Bridge take on a boogle-eyed insect monster, finally bringing him down with a pair of laser shots after many, many explosions and slow-motion jumpbacks. In another part of the fight, Tommy and Doggie team-up on Zeltrax, with the three dueling in midair before Tommy knocks the baddie into the air with a trip-kick/upward slash combo and Doggie jumps up for an aerial attack. Zeltrax retreats, stating that this is no longer his battle and vowing revenge on the Black Ranger. As he usually does.

Faced with the last monster and a group of Krybots, Jack and Conner break out the Battlizers, first starting small with Cyber and Triassic Ranger Modes for a brief skirmish and bullet time session before switching to Sonic and Battlizer mode respectively for the finishing blast on the monster. Big explosion and pose ensues.

Up on his ship, Grumm bemoans the loss of his monsters, and threatens to go down and finish the Rangers off himself. Mora stops him, explaining that the wormhole’s closing, which mean that they’ll be stuck in the past if they don’t go back through it soon. Grumm doesn’t care about this, until Mora points out that if he stays in the past, he’ll have to recapture all the worlds he did before coming to Earth, since none of that happened yet in 2004. I can relate: one time, I was in the middle of loading up a game on my Gamecube, and the power surged for a split second. Long enough to corrupt my game data and force my brother and I to start everything over from scratch.

Faced with this, Grumm breaks down and orders a full retreat back into the wormhole.

With only a small handful of Krybots left, Jack orders RIC to form Canine Cannon mode, and the Dino Rangers form their Z-Rex Blaster, complete with Brancho and Drago weapons. The two teams take aim with their weapons and let loose a double blast that wrecks the remaining baddies. It’s pretty low-key for what’s supposed to be the finishing attack. Honestly, I think I would have ended it with the Battlizer scene.

Anyway, the Rangers do their roll call, pose and explosion scene… after the battle is finished. Uh guys, we’ve already seen how awesome you all are. You don’t need to hype us up anymore. Seriously, this is just weird.

They all head back to Reefside High, where the SPD Rangers say their goodbyes. Bridge says that he wishes he could stay, he was born last week and he was hoping to meet himself and become his best friend… unless he already did and didn’t like himself. I… have nothing. Anywho, the Dino Rangers understand, and thank the B-Squad for their help, with Trent saying that he’ll never forget this.

Which leads to the next order of business: SPD has to erase the Dino Rangers’ memories of this incident to preserve the timeline. Doggie pulls out a memory eraser and tells them to say cheese, zapping them like the pen in Men In Black before telling the confused teens to go home. Which they do, despite seeing a large, blue talking dog, unless they think he’s the school mascot or something (which has now got me thinking about the talking dachshund in Jumpstart: First Grade that chews lemonade). Not to mention the fact that Tommy isn’t there to have his memory erased, or that everyone still saw The Terror flying overhead in the beginning…

Bridge complains that it doesn’t seem fair that they’ll remember this and the Dino Rangers won’t, leading Doggie to wipe their minds as well. He tells them that they’re on a mission, and orders them to get in the shuttle to take them home. After they do so, he takes the flashy thing to himself, saying “cheese” in the most delightfully deadpan voice before Z calls him back to the ship. Why he didn’t just do that on the ship is beyond me. And where the heck is Sam?

The episode ends with Grumm talking to Omni about his recent failure, mumble growling some more about how he will prepare for his master’s arrival, setting up the endgame of the season.

So, now that we’ve finished talking about the story, on to Pros and Cons:

Pros:

Getting the whole Dino Thunder team back this time.

Doggie and Tommy teaming up was pretty cool.

Cons:

Not even getting JDF back to do at least the voice work.

“No one gets inside!” Half a minute later, the circle gets broken anyway.

The whole memory eraser scene doesn’t begin to cover everybody who witnessed Grumm’s arrival….

Honestly, this one’s kind of “meh” for me. Sure, it’s cool to see Tommy, Trent and Zeltrax again, but the whole episode feels unnecessary since “History” covered this so well. Plus, the plot itself seems a bit all over the place, with Jack and Bridge’s solo fights amounting to little more than filler and an excuse to burn some more Sentai footage. And the climatic fight itself didn’t really feel that exciting, sure there were a few cool spots here and there, but for the most part it felt two crowds of enemies in a melee with some slo-mo explosions thrown in for good measure. I can see how this episode was put together at the last minute.

So, there were the two Team-Up’s between Dino Thunder and SPD. One was good, the other… not so much. Perfectly balanced, as Thanos says. These two would be the last full-team crossovers to date, as from here on out the Team-Ups would be reserved for Anniversary specials and guest appearances featuring a single Ranger from a past team. And speaking of anniversaries, next week we’ll be looking at the 15th one, skipping a season to reviewOperation Overdrive’s two-parter, “Once A Ranger.” This is going to be awesome! A whole team of Rangers from various past seasons, joining forces with the current team to battle an enemy with ties to the Mighty Morphin days! There’s no way this could suck! Right… right? *Sighs* ‘Till then, I’ve been The Uncanny Fox. Live long, stay gold, and seriously, how did Doggie’s snout fit in that helmet? Does it, like, disappear when he doesn’t need it anymore like Michael Keaton’s eye shadow? We may never know the truth…