Time For! Time Force! Uncanny Fox here, carrying on my look at the Power Rangers crossover episodes with a review of “Time For Lightspeed,” the 1 episode Team-Up between Lightspeed Rescue and Time Force.

At this point, Power Rangers had begun to resemble its source material, Super Sentai, more and more via its themes and casts being totally separate from year to year, as well as sharing those themes with the given Sentai. In fact, Time Force had almost the exact same storyline of its Japanese counterpart, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, with a few differences here and there, most prominent being its main antagonist. You see, the main villain from Timeranger was merely a minion in Time Force, and an original one was created in his place.

While this practice would cause seasons like Samuari and Megaforce to be scorned by the fanbase, Time Force is the one “copy” season to be beloved by it, being considered one of the best seasons in the show’s history. Maybe Timeranger’s themes of controlling one’s destiny and not letting the tragedies of the past define one’s present resonated with American audiences better than, say, those of Goseiger or Shinkenger, maybe it was the darker tone that handled topics like death, prejudice (the main villain, Ransik, was the product of a genetic experiment that created mutants, and was ostracized by society because of it), and the thin line between Right and Wrong, or maybe it was the superb acting (the interactions between Wes and Jen, or Wes and Eric, being the highlights). But for whatever the reason, Time Force stands head and shoulders above the other seasons in the post-Zordon Saban Era, even going as far as to almost be brought back for another season, nearly have a tie-in movie produced, and be considered for a slot on Prime Time television, right after The X-Files. That last one didn’t happen because at the end of the day, Power Rangers is still a kid’s show and that would have been weird, but just think: In another timeline, I could have reviewed a Power Rangers/X-Files crossover…

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. This season would bare the unfortunate “honor” of airing the same year as the 9-11 attacks, which forced several of the episodes to be edited in the wake of the tragedy to remove scenes of buildings exploding and the villains showing traits similar to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, such as giving demand videos. Sadly, the unedited versions of these episodes were lost in the move to Disney, meaning that all that’s left is the post-9-11 cuts.

As for the plot itself, in the year 3000, mankind has evolved into a high-tech utopia (*sigh* if only…) with an organization named Time Force charged with maintaining peace. Unfortunately, a mutant gang leader named Ransik (played by Vernon Wells, known for such movies as Mad Max 2, Weird Science and Commando. You can find a deeper look at his career here) breaks into a high tech cryo-prison and sends it back in time to rewrite history, but not before killing the current Red Ranger (or so it seems…). This leads four Time Force agents, acting against orders, to take a timeship and a few Morphers after him, straight to the year 2001. There, they join forces with the ancestor of their Red Ranger, a local rich kid named Wes in a rocky relationship with his corporate big-wig father, to become the Time Force Rangers, a team of heroes fighting against Ransik and his band of mutant criminals. Eventually, Wes’s old classmate and anti-hero rival gains Ranger powers of his own, and acts as a sometimes friend, sometimes enemy in the team’s quest to save the future.

Which, of course, leads us to the subject of today’s review, “Time For Lightspeed,” which features the return of a villain from Lightspeed Rescue… and it’s Vypra, aka one of the worst villains in the franchise, much less that season. You know it’s bad when you show worse acting skills than the stock footage demon who spent the whole season hammered. Alright, I guess we better get to this, then…

The episode begins a cold open of graveyard on a dark and stormy night. The camera pans over to a grave marked “Vypra” (Wait, how’d she get buried? I thought Bansheera absorbed her? How’s there even a body to be buried?), where a hand rises from the dirt. After a series of rapid cuts, Vypra has completely dug herself up and woodenly declares that “the time has come for revenge.” I mean no disrespect to Jennifer L. Yen here, but she spends the whole episode on the level of “Too bad yoooooouuuuuuu willdie” from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Around her, a band of Slipnot cosplayers (with different-colored markings to tell them apart) called Demon Warriors rise out of their graves and bow before her as she flatly states that “even the Rangers must face the fire.” What, you’ve never heard of ICP’s “Face The Fire?” The music video’s got a villain from Lightspeed Rescue in it and everything.

We then cut to the Silver Hills Museum, which Vypra breaks into. She slips past the African masks and little dinosaur models until she finds what she’s looking for: a yellow flame-shaped crystal on display behind glass. As she walks up to it, she triggers the security alarm, but she pays it no mind. She phases her hand through said glass to get to the crystal, but she can’t pull it back through. Seriously, she tries multiple times with no success like she’s in a cartoon, while I’m left thinking “just smash the glass with your sword or something. You’re already breaking the law.”

But she just leaves in a huff after a brief mutter of “curses!” (thwarted by a fragile plate of glass), only to be met with a squad of the local PMC security force, the Silver Guardians and their leader: Eric Meyers, aka the Time Force Quantum Ranger, as played by Daniel Southworth. Gamers will probably recognize him as the voice of Vergil in the Devil May Cry series, which coincidentally also features Johnny Young Bosch as Vergil’s son, Nero. Oh, and in the reboot, Vergil was voiced by David de Lautour, aka RJ from Jungle Fury. And Dante himself is voiced by Reuben Langdon, who played the Japanese counterpart to Dragonborg in B-Fighter Kabuto. Heck, the main reason I got into that series was because there’s so many Power Rangers/Toku actors in it.

But back to the show, Eric gives Vypra the classic “Stop, with your hands up” routine, but the demon woman responds by conjuring down lighting from the sky (see, you could have just destroyed the glass with that) and summoning her minions. She then blasts at the Guardians, causing a massive explosion that sends Eric and company flying, and when they come to she’s gone.

The other Time Force Rangers then arrive on the scene via their Time Cycles. Wes runs up to Eric to see if he’s okay and to ask what happened, but Eric’s more upset that Vypra and her goons got away than anything. He calls for a perimeter sweep of the museum, which the Rangers are more than happy to help with despite their current rivalry with the Guardians. After all, they may not like each other, but stopping the evil demon lady is more important at the moment. All except for Wes, who looks up at the sky and says he’s got a bad feeling about this…

The intro hits, showing the Rangers off in various time periods fighting evil, which they only really did in one episode despite it being the original premise for the show. You see, like In Space, the writers misinterpreted the Sentai footage at first, until they found out that said show took place almost entirely in the present day. So the intro sequence is a reference to their earlier plans of having the Rangers traveling through time every episode.As for the song itself, it’s pretty good, with a catchy rock beat and some cool lyrics about “timeless wonders” and saving the world. Like Lost Galaxy, it does get a little repetitive at the end with the “Time, time, time for Power Rangers Time Force” bit, but the epic rock rifts make up for it. Not to mention that cool shot of the Megazord shooting at a monster in midair like The Matrix.

We then cut to Ransik’s prison base in the middle of the woods (a shot from Timeranger, even though the inside is original footage), where his often-pampered daughter Nadira senses a shadow sweeping over her as she sleeps. She then wakes her dad up, who tells her that there’s no such thing as ghosts as he follows her back into her room, where Vypra is waiting for him. How did she even find out about him, anyway?

Ticked that Vypra’s in her chair, Nadira makes a lunge at her, but only passes through, causing the easily scared mutant to faint. Ransik asks what Vypra wants, and the mutant replies that she needs his help to summon a powerful demon with the Solar Amulet, the crystal from the museum. Which was most definitely not an amulet of any kind. In fact, it looked way too big to be put on one.

Anywho, Vypra tells Ransik that the Sun will soon be in perfect alignment to activate the crystal and release Quarganon, the aforementioned “super demon.” Ransik asks her what he needs with a demon when he’s already got a prison’s worth of mutants to do his bidding, and Vypra answers that this demon can do something none of his mutants could by this point: destroy the Power Rangers. This gets Ransik’s attention…

Over at the Rangers’ clock tower HQ, Green Ranger Trip looks up the crystal in his future history records, and Pink Ranger Jen (the leader of this team, even though Wes was still technically the main character) deduces that Vypra will try to steal it again.

This leads to the Rangers staking out the museum the following night, waiting for the demons to appear. Instead, Ransik, Nadira and a gang of Cyclobots (the robotic grunts for this season, and pretty cool looking I might add) teleport and head inside the building after one of the ‘Bots shifts his hand into a lock-picking device and unlocks the door.

The Rangers try to hurry after him, but are cut off by Vypra and her cronies, who she orders to attack the heroes. As the fight goes on outside, Ransik’s crew makes their way to the crystal, and the Lockpick Bot does his thing on the display case, causing it to open. Ransik then picks it up and has a nice long evil laugh. The contrast in the acting of the visiting villain vs. the current one is striking. You’ve got one that refuses to emote, and another that emotes the very moisture from the air.

Back outside, things aren’t looking too good for our heroes, as they’re currently being blasted in a large explosion and forced to demorph. Vypra stands triumphant over them as she rejoins Ransik and his goons, now with the crystal in hand. The Rangers can only watch helplessly as the baddies teleport away.

Blue Ranger Lucas asks what Vypra and her minions were, but Jen can only say that they’re not mutants. At that moment, an-all-too-familiar yellow hummer drives up behind the Rangers, and who should step out than Mr. Red Lightspeed Ranger and slayer of Queen Bansheera himself, Carter Grayson.

Back at the Clock Tower, Carter explains that Vypra wants the crystal because it contains powers from the Shadow World (which one, the place people go to when they lose at Duel Monsters or the place that contains the gateway to Kingdom Hearts?) and now she can use said powers to raise the Super-Demon. He says that it won’t be easy to stop her, but he has some friends who can help. Take a guess who they are…

We then cut to the other Lightspeed Rangers at their various jobs since their season ended: Dana’s working as a Pediatrician, Joel is married to Angela Fairweather (the Rangers’ technician, who he had a “will they/won’t they” relationship with during the season) and is headed to Hawaii for their honeymoon, Kelsey is at some rollerblading competition, and Chad’s performing lifeguard duty at the beach.

They all get a call from Carter to drop everything and head to Silver Hills, with only Joel being reluctant to go. Fairweather then grabs the phone and says he can make it, because she’s not the kind of superhero wife who hides her husband’s costume in order to keep him around for dinner.

In an abandoned subway station (better make sure there’s no Ninja Turtles living there first, we know how well the last crossover went), Vypra lights some torches at a shine in preparation to summon Quarganon. Ransik yells at her to hurry it up: he hasn’t got all day. He’s got places to go, Rangers to destroy, the works.

Carter and Wes arrive at the scene in Carter’s hummer, with the latter calling his friends and telling them they found where Vypra and company are.

Inside, Vypra calls out to the “Gates of Darkness” (it is the place from Kingdom Hearts. Okay, how many copies of herself does Vypra need to make for this plan of hers to work, cause one’s difficult enough to watch as it is) to “hear her spell” and summon the Super-Demon. And again we see the contrast in the acting of the visiting villain vs. the current one.

But Carter interrupts the spell before she can finish via a kick to the back, causing her to drop the crystal as the Red Ranger lays waste to everyone else in the room. Carter Motherfreaking Grayson, everybody. Oh, and Wes helps out, too.

Carter picks up the crystal and tells Vypra that she’s “still keeping bad company,” to which Ransik gloats that they share the common desire to destroy the Rangers. The mutant then grabs his bone sword (that he usually pulls out of his leg. This show is amazing) and blasts Carter with some Sith Lighting, sending him flying against a wall. Wes helps him to his feet and the two run outside to regroup.

They jump into the hummer and drive off, with Wes telling Carter that he thinks they lost the bad guys. But he spoke too soon, as Vypra is chasing them down in her Demon Buggy (yes, she has that. It’s really just the Silver Space Ranger’s buggy redecorated). She fires off a few shots from her top-mounted guns like it’s Mad Max (funny, considering who she’s teamed up with), eventually causing the Rangers to swerve to a stop.

Carter and Wes hurry out of the hummer and try to run off, but Vypra blocks their path. Wes tries to lead Carter in the other direction, but Ransik is waiting to grab Time Force Red by the shirt before tossing him into some nearby crates. Because these fights always go down at a warehouse.

Carter helps Wes up, but the two are surrounded by the villains, who demand that Carter hand over the crystal. Not really keen on doing that, Carter gets ready to smash it into the ground instead, but Nadira stops him: turns out she’s got the other Time Force Rangers hostage with the help of Vypra’s demons, and threatens to kill them if he doesn’t hand the crystal over.

Jen tells Carter to go ahead and break it, but of course he can’t. Reluctantly, he lets Vypra take the crystal, which she uses to finish her ritual and bring forth Quarganon. She finishes her chant, and the Super Demon breaks free from the crystal, a sort of winged dragon thing. In the Japanese Timeranger Vs. GoGoV movie, he was actually a powered-up form of Jinxer, the monster maker for Lightspeed Rescue.

The demons toss the captive Rangers back to their friends (for some reason) as Vypra orders Quarganon to destroy them. But before he can advance on them, a group of laser blasts strike him from a distance. And those blasts came from… you guessed it, the Lightspeed Rangers, who Trip recognizes right away from the history archives. Guess he watched that video journal Tommy left behind in “Legacy Of Power.”

The Lightspeed team runs over to the Time Force crew, and they share a few handshakes as Ransik laughs off the fact that he now has 10 Rangers to deal with. Or rather, 12 Rangers, as Eric rides up in his SUV, alongside the Titanium Ranger, Ryan (guess he hitched a ride), who I can now talk about. Here’s a funny little side story: when I was a kid, I got a Titanium Ranger figure with a Lightspeed Cycle for Easter, and my brother and I used it to play wrestling. So, in another universe existing solely in our imagination, the Titanium Ranger used to Tag Team with Stone Cold Steve Austin.

United, the 2 whole Ranger teams (a first for these crossovers) walk up and morph, the Lightspeed team doing the morphing sequence I described last week, Ryan doing the same thing except for his visor symbol coming down from above, and the Time Force team doing their sequence of pushing the large button on their morphers, a strand of DNA appearing, then the Rangers flashing into their morphed forms. Once fully morphed, the Rangers pose, call out their team names, and the background explodes. Because of course it does.

Vypra flatly orders her henchmen to show the Rangers “what demon power can do,” and a fight ensues, with the Rangers pairing off: Eric and Ryan blast at the red demon with their weapons, Chad and Lucas taking the blue one down with sword weapons and kicks, Kelsey and Katie doing likewise with the yellow one, Joel and Trip kicking the green one into submission, Jen keeping the pink one distracted so Dana can deliver the final shot with her blaster, and Wes and Carter going toe-to-toe with Quarganon.

The Super-Demon proves too tough for them though, forcing Eric to make the save with his Mega-Battle Armor (a kind of Battlizer for non-Red Rangers), delivering a rolling slash on his… rocket skates. Power Rangers be weird.

Chad and Joel activate their own Mega-Battles (I had a toy of the Green one, along with a Red one that never made it to the show) to take down what’s left of the Demon Warriors, combining their laser cannon and buzzsaw weapons with Kelsey and Dana’s blasters. The Time Force team joins in on the fun with their cannon weapons, blasting the last of the Warriors into oblivion. Overkill much?

Soon all that’s left is Quarganon, who’s still handing the Red Rangers their helmets when Vypra joins the battle. She makes short work of Wes, knocking him to the ground after a brief sword fight. Carter runs to his side as Quarganon declares that “it’s been fun, but I’ve had enough!”

So has Carter, who activates his awesome Trans-Armor-Cycle Battlizer, which is a motorcycle that converts into armor for him. Wes responds with his own Battlizer: the Fire Battle Warrior, which is a suit of knight armor that’s not as cool as a motorcycle that turns into armor.

They, along with all the Mega-Battled Rangers, take aim at a charging Vypra and Quarganon, unleashing… a tiny little blast that somehow destroys them. Seriously, all that armor and firepower and all you can muster is a tiny little fireball? Suddenly I’m getting flashbacks to the Masked Rider’s Electro Saber… Nonetheless, Vypra and her Super-Demon are no more, and the Rangers stand triumphant, posing and calling out “Power Rangers!”

After a commercial break, the Time Force crew gives the Lightspeed Rangers a tour of the Clocktower. Joel gives the best remark during this: “I though you guys came from the future. This place looks kinda… old.” Circuit, the Time Force’s faithful robot owl assistant (who’s voiced by Brianne Siddall, who played Prince Sprocket in Zeo, as well as Koromon in Digimon Adventure and Tommy – no, not that one – in Digimon Frontier), takes offense to this, firing back that some old things are good, and they like it.

Jen thanks the Lightspeed team for lending a hand, and Wes offers them a gift to remember them by: the team’s Time Force uniforms, to which the Lightspeed Rangers respond by giving the Time Force team their jackets. They try them on, and give the “Lightspeed Rescue” battle cry before the episode ends with the Time Force Rangers escorting Lightspeed Rangers back to Mariner Bay on their cycles.

The Next Time segment plays, showing a monster taking the Rangers to his “Mirror World,” where they have to battle old monsters.

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

Pros:

Having the full teams, including Sixth Rangers, this time.

The scene with Joel and Angela.

Carter still being awesome.

Cons:

Vypra’s return. Of all the Lightspeed villains, they picked the lamest one to return.

The weak destruction of Vypra and Quarganon. All the Rangers’ combined weapons and armor for a little fireball? The Team-Up pose had more pyro in in than that…

There isn’t a whole lot of mingling between the two teams, which probably has more to do with this being a 1-parter more than anything…

It’s kind of ironic that one of the best seasons of Power Rangers has also produced one of the weakest crossovers, but here we are. I wouldn’t call “Time For Lightspeed” bad, it’s just that it… sort of happens. It’s all pretty straightforward: Vypra wants a crystal, Ransik steals the crystal, the Rangers destroy a so-called “Super-Demon” in about 5 minutes, the end. It just feels like a normal episode, like they were going through the motions to make an obligatory crossover episode than anything else, and the episode suffers for that.

But things would be looking up, at least in the Team-Up department, with the next season of Power Rangers Wild Force, which would feature not only the traditional crossover with Time Force, but a special 10year anniversary episode bringing together Rangers from the entire series. And next week I’ll be looking at the former, the much beloved 2-parter, “Reinforcements From The Future.” ‘Till then, I’ve been The Uncanny Fox. Live long, stay gold, and stay tuned this Sunday night for my mini-review of the premiere of Power Rangers: Beast Morphers. Hard to believe that’s literally a sleep away at the time of this posting. Here’s to Hasbro, your trailer was awesome, your theme song kicks butt, and I hope the show is good too. As long as there’s no random Super Sayian punching, I’m sure it’ll be fine…