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fandomhigh_ooc2007-04-23 12:02 am
multiplez) wrote in fandomhigh_ooc2007-04-23 12:02 am
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Spotlight on Fandoms: Power Rangers: SPD
So, hi, I'm Z, and that's Bridge, and we'll be bringing you a spotlight on Power Rangers: SPD (complete with lots of parentheticals) (we really like parentheticals apparently).
General Overview
In the not too distant futurenext Sunday AD, the Earth has opened its doors to allow alien beings from distant planets to co-inhabit with humans. Commander Cruger, as the last surviving Sirian, the race that founded the Space Patrol Delta, must train the next generation of Power Rangers to protect the Earth against the evil Emperor Gruumm and his Troobian Empire.
When the A-Squad - the best of the best of Power Rangers - are captured, Cruger is forced to call upon B-Squad (so far consisting of cadets Bridge Carson, Sydney Drew, and Sky Tate) to take their place.
B-Squad's first mission? "Bring in the Parkington Market Thieves". Unfortunately, their first encounter doesn't go so well and the thieves manage to escape. The second time they meet goes a little better, and they arrest the thieves and bring them back to SPD Academy HQ. Where Commander Cruger informs them that the two street thieves are actually their new teammates. Well, one of them (Z Delgado) is, anyway. Jack Landors, the other thief, elected to stay in prison rather than join SPD (dumbass) (not that we don't like him or anything).
Of course, by the end of the series premiere, Jack has joined the team. Because unfortunately he's sort of needed for there to be a full team and all. He's also the red ranger, and therefore the boss, because the three people with years of specialized training aren't more highly qualified than the convicted criminal or anything (not that we're bitter or anything).
Throughout the course of the series, the Rangers learn (repeatedly) about teamwork, trusting your instincts, and... oh yeah, the history behind their freaky metahuman powers. They also eventually get around to saving the world from giant alien robots what would destroy it (OMG SPOILERS).
The Good Guys
Jack Landors: Jack sucks. The end. Next! (Oh we can't do that?) (I don't think so. As much as we'd like to.) Okay, okay, fine. Jack's a street thief who's been dragging Z along on his Robin-Hood-esque missions for... a long time. His parents were missionaries, except they also worked for SPD. Secretly. And while they were missionary-ing, they left him to wander the streets of Newtech City and steal stuff. He does this thing where he can phase through solid objects and stuff (it's totally not ripped off from anyone, really).
Sky Tate: Sky Tate is made of emo. He wants to be his daddy when he grows up, except his dad's dead (and Sky keeps hissevered head helmet on his nightstand as a reminder), so maybe not that part. But the red Ranger part? Totally. So when Jack gets made red Ranger instead, this causes friction and bitching. Sky's very 'by the book.' Occasionally the universe conspires to kick him while he's down. Also? He can make force fields. And he's really tall. Um.
Bridge Carson: Bridge's approach to... well, pretty much everything is unique. He thinks outside the box. He may not even be aware there *is* a box. He's got a grab-bag of psychic powers, which totally may account for at least part of his quirkiness. Because of his powers, he wears a pair of black leather gloves at all times, to block out the auras/thoughts/emotions of the people around him. He's got a fondness for buttery toast, and every time, every single time he says the word "buttery"? He will wiggle his fingers. It's like, ingrained in his cellular makeup. Also, he's Jewish and a master mechanic.
Z Delgado: Totally the coolest Ranger (says you) (I only speak the truth). Not much is known about Z's past. Her parents worked for SPD before she was born, and at some point something happened to land her in the foster care system. Z was ostracized for being a mutant and chased out of several schools. She eventually ran away for good and hooked up with Jack. Not like that, you pervs. Oh, yeah, as revealed in flashback, Cruger totally stalked her while she was on the streets, but never did anything about it until she and Jack got arrested. Then, what he did about it was make them Power Rangers. What this says about Sirian childrearing philosophy, we don't know. If you poke Z, emo comes out (not dirty). Z's power is that she makes copies of herself. Canon is kind of vague on how exactly this works.
Sydney Drew: Syd is Mary Sue. Essentially. World champion fencer, painter, singer, gymnast, dancer, her parents are absurdly rich (and teachers. Absurdly rich teachers. Yeah.)... did I leave anything out? (You forgot model) Her genetic power is the ability to turn her hand into any material she touches (JELLY HANDS!).
Commander Anubis 'Doggie' Cruger: OKAY SO (can someone pass the booze?). Commander Cruger is a giant bipedal reptilian blue dog-thing from the planet Sirius. His people founded Space Patrol Delta. At some point (er, before 2001 AD) Gruumm came and blew up Sirius and Cruger was, somehow, the only survivor out of the whole planet (supposedly OMG SPOILER). Then he came to Earth and took over their branch of SPD. And stalked Z. And failed to have management skills. Sort of. He does a lot of withholding information that later proves to be vital. He is also a Power Ranger and has a really cool four-wheeler he rides into battle at Ye Olde Abandoned Quarry. Also he and Gruumm have this whole archrivals thing going on due to the fact that Cruger lopped off one of Gruumm's horns way back when. So the guy's a little bitter.
Dr. Katherine Manx: Head of SPD Academy's science division, she's responsible for pretty much all the cool stuff the Rangers use. She was a Power Ranger for one episode. She spends a lot of time attempting to smack sense into Cruger. She's also an alien from some unnamed planet which is just kind of assumed by fandom in general to be another of Gruumm's conquests.
Boom: Boom failed out of the Academy after something like three days. Why? Well. Just look at his nickname. He's sort of accident prone, though he means well. He's also, you know, not half-bad when it comes to electronics and computers and stuff, which is why Kat elected to keep him around as her assistant.
Sam: When we first meet Sam, he's a little kid with teleportation powers. He looks at things and then they're somewhere else. The youngest of the children of the parents involved in OMG SEKRIT EXPERIMENTS WHAT WENT BOOM way back in the days of yore (or, erm, 2001), he's discovered and taken in under SPD's wing about eight episodes in to the series. Of course, later on, a future version of Sam travels back to help out the Rangers, only something went wonky with the wormhole he came through and now whenever he's not morphed as Omega Ranger (with his eight thousand modes), he exists as a little sparkly ball of floating light. Sam: like Tinkerbell in a way.
The Bad Guys
Gruumm: Head bad guy, of the 'shouting and waving his arms' school of minion management. Missing onephallic symbol horn thanks to Cruger. Plans to conquer the universe in the name of the Magnificence, though we don't actually find out about the Magnificence until, like, the last few episodes.
Mora/Morgana: Appears at first to be a creepy-as-hell small child with the ability to make her drawings come to life. Turns out, she's actually a grownup who took the whole "embracing her inner child" thing a little too seriously and agreed to work for Gruumm in exchange for being reverted to her child-self. As punishment for her creations failing to destroy the Rangers, she's eventually forced to grow up again. When she's little, she goes by the name Mora. When she's grown up, she's Morgana. No, they never explain why. Mora also has a creepy-ass doll named Cindy Sunshine. Cindy Sunshine will kill you in your sleep. (In Fandom, Cindy Sunshine is now property of M. Parker.)
Broodwing: Arms dealer with his own agenda. Which is basically (OMG SPOILERS) blow a lot of shit up and take over SPD Academy.
Assorted Robots/Aliens Including That One Guy What Killed Sky's Dad: Do what it says on the tin. Sometimes in other, bigger robots. This is pretty much the standard PR format.
Look, We Don't Know Either
Piggy: Alien associate of the Rangers. Eats trash. Opens a shockingly successful restaurant despite this. Double-crosses like crazy, possibly gets a message from God. Mystic Force copped out on the crossover (we swear we're not bitter) by having Piggy show up (the actor played one of their characters) instead of the actual SPD Rangers.
So... why should I watch this show?
We'll be honest. If campiness isn't your thing? You and SPD might not get along. SPD requires putting "suspension of disbelief" to good use. The characters are interesting (for the most part), and it's got a good storyline, but it's still, essentially, a show aimed at the 4-10 year old boy set. But really- the campiness is what makes it great. You just can't take it seriously. It won't work. "It's a half hour show, dont' ask questions," is, like, the Power Rangers mantra.
And where do I find it?
There's good news, and then there's bad news. The good news is, approximately the first half of the season is out on DVD and is readily available wherever fine DVDs are procured (Wal-Mart, Target, Netflix, the kids' section of your local Blockbuster). The bad news is that Disney sucks and the second half is never going to be out on DVD. We know. It sucks. Of course, there *are* encodes of the entire season available, if you feel like braving the wilds of the internets, either via BitTorrent or via the IRC channel #power-rangers on the blitzed.org server.
Just For Fun
Sky Really Really Really Wants to Zig-a-zig Ha!
Questions? Comments? Pie? *fingerwiggle* Buttery toast?
General Overview
In the not too distant future
When the A-Squad - the best of the best of Power Rangers - are captured, Cruger is forced to call upon B-Squad (so far consisting of cadets Bridge Carson, Sydney Drew, and Sky Tate) to take their place.
B-Squad's first mission? "Bring in the Parkington Market Thieves". Unfortunately, their first encounter doesn't go so well and the thieves manage to escape. The second time they meet goes a little better, and they arrest the thieves and bring them back to SPD Academy HQ. Where Commander Cruger informs them that the two street thieves are actually their new teammates. Well, one of them (Z Delgado) is, anyway. Jack Landors, the other thief, elected to stay in prison rather than join SPD (dumbass) (not that we don't like him or anything).
Of course, by the end of the series premiere, Jack has joined the team. Because unfortunately he's sort of needed for there to be a full team and all. He's also the red ranger, and therefore the boss, because the three people with years of specialized training aren't more highly qualified than the convicted criminal or anything (not that we're bitter or anything).
Throughout the course of the series, the Rangers learn (repeatedly) about teamwork, trusting your instincts, and... oh yeah, the history behind their freaky metahuman powers. They also eventually get around to saving the world from giant alien robots what would destroy it (OMG SPOILERS).
The Good Guys
Jack Landors: Jack sucks. The end. Next! (Oh we can't do that?) (I don't think so. As much as we'd like to.) Okay, okay, fine. Jack's a street thief who's been dragging Z along on his Robin-Hood-esque missions for... a long time. His parents were missionaries, except they also worked for SPD. Secretly. And while they were missionary-ing, they left him to wander the streets of Newtech City and steal stuff. He does this thing where he can phase through solid objects and stuff (it's totally not ripped off from anyone, really).
Sky Tate: Sky Tate is made of emo. He wants to be his daddy when he grows up, except his dad's dead (and Sky keeps his
Bridge Carson: Bridge's approach to... well, pretty much everything is unique. He thinks outside the box. He may not even be aware there *is* a box. He's got a grab-bag of psychic powers, which totally may account for at least part of his quirkiness. Because of his powers, he wears a pair of black leather gloves at all times, to block out the auras/thoughts/emotions of the people around him. He's got a fondness for buttery toast, and every time, every single time he says the word "buttery"? He will wiggle his fingers. It's like, ingrained in his cellular makeup. Also, he's Jewish and a master mechanic.
Z Delgado: Totally the coolest Ranger (says you) (I only speak the truth). Not much is known about Z's past. Her parents worked for SPD before she was born, and at some point something happened to land her in the foster care system. Z was ostracized for being a mutant and chased out of several schools. She eventually ran away for good and hooked up with Jack. Not like that, you pervs. Oh, yeah, as revealed in flashback, Cruger totally stalked her while she was on the streets, but never did anything about it until she and Jack got arrested. Then, what he did about it was make them Power Rangers. What this says about Sirian childrearing philosophy, we don't know. If you poke Z, emo comes out (not dirty). Z's power is that she makes copies of herself. Canon is kind of vague on how exactly this works.
Sydney Drew: Syd is Mary Sue. Essentially. World champion fencer, painter, singer, gymnast, dancer, her parents are absurdly rich (and teachers. Absurdly rich teachers. Yeah.)... did I leave anything out? (You forgot model) Her genetic power is the ability to turn her hand into any material she touches (JELLY HANDS!).
Commander Anubis 'Doggie' Cruger: OKAY SO (can someone pass the booze?). Commander Cruger is a giant bipedal reptilian blue dog-thing from the planet Sirius. His people founded Space Patrol Delta. At some point (er, before 2001 AD) Gruumm came and blew up Sirius and Cruger was, somehow, the only survivor out of the whole planet (supposedly OMG SPOILER). Then he came to Earth and took over their branch of SPD. And stalked Z. And failed to have management skills. Sort of. He does a lot of withholding information that later proves to be vital. He is also a Power Ranger and has a really cool four-wheeler he rides into battle at Ye Olde Abandoned Quarry. Also he and Gruumm have this whole archrivals thing going on due to the fact that Cruger lopped off one of Gruumm's horns way back when. So the guy's a little bitter.
Dr. Katherine Manx: Head of SPD Academy's science division, she's responsible for pretty much all the cool stuff the Rangers use. She was a Power Ranger for one episode. She spends a lot of time attempting to smack sense into Cruger. She's also an alien from some unnamed planet which is just kind of assumed by fandom in general to be another of Gruumm's conquests.
Boom: Boom failed out of the Academy after something like three days. Why? Well. Just look at his nickname. He's sort of accident prone, though he means well. He's also, you know, not half-bad when it comes to electronics and computers and stuff, which is why Kat elected to keep him around as her assistant.
Sam: When we first meet Sam, he's a little kid with teleportation powers. He looks at things and then they're somewhere else. The youngest of the children of the parents involved in OMG SEKRIT EXPERIMENTS WHAT WENT BOOM way back in the days of yore (or, erm, 2001), he's discovered and taken in under SPD's wing about eight episodes in to the series. Of course, later on, a future version of Sam travels back to help out the Rangers, only something went wonky with the wormhole he came through and now whenever he's not morphed as Omega Ranger (with his eight thousand modes), he exists as a little sparkly ball of floating light. Sam: like Tinkerbell in a way.
The Bad Guys
Gruumm: Head bad guy, of the 'shouting and waving his arms' school of minion management. Missing one
Mora/Morgana: Appears at first to be a creepy-as-hell small child with the ability to make her drawings come to life. Turns out, she's actually a grownup who took the whole "embracing her inner child" thing a little too seriously and agreed to work for Gruumm in exchange for being reverted to her child-self. As punishment for her creations failing to destroy the Rangers, she's eventually forced to grow up again. When she's little, she goes by the name Mora. When she's grown up, she's Morgana. No, they never explain why. Mora also has a creepy-ass doll named Cindy Sunshine. Cindy Sunshine will kill you in your sleep. (In Fandom, Cindy Sunshine is now property of M. Parker.)
Broodwing: Arms dealer with his own agenda. Which is basically (OMG SPOILERS) blow a lot of shit up and take over SPD Academy.
Assorted Robots/Aliens Including That One Guy What Killed Sky's Dad: Do what it says on the tin. Sometimes in other, bigger robots. This is pretty much the standard PR format.
Look, We Don't Know Either
Piggy: Alien associate of the Rangers. Eats trash. Opens a shockingly successful restaurant despite this. Double-crosses like crazy, possibly gets a message from God. Mystic Force copped out on the crossover (we swear we're not bitter) by having Piggy show up (the actor played one of their characters) instead of the actual SPD Rangers.
So... why should I watch this show?
We'll be honest. If campiness isn't your thing? You and SPD might not get along. SPD requires putting "suspension of disbelief" to good use. The characters are interesting (for the most part), and it's got a good storyline, but it's still, essentially, a show aimed at the 4-10 year old boy set. But really- the campiness is what makes it great. You just can't take it seriously. It won't work. "It's a half hour show, dont' ask questions," is, like, the Power Rangers mantra.
And where do I find it?
There's good news, and then there's bad news. The good news is, approximately the first half of the season is out on DVD and is readily available wherever fine DVDs are procured (Wal-Mart, Target, Netflix, the kids' section of your local Blockbuster). The bad news is that Disney sucks and the second half is never going to be out on DVD. We know. It sucks. Of course, there *are* encodes of the entire season available, if you feel like braving the wilds of the internets, either via BitTorrent or via the IRC channel #power-rangers on the blitzed.org server.
Just For Fun
Sky Really Really Really Wants to Zig-a-zig Ha!
Questions? Comments? Pie? *fingerwiggle* Buttery toast?
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Wait, I have a better icon!
Re: Wait, I have a better icon!
Re: Wait, I have a better icon!
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Suffice to say that out of the Dekaranger team, Jasmine (Yellow) is the only one who has powers -- the powers that Bridge ended up with, actually -- and in the flashbacks from the two-parter that became "Sam" Doggie Cruger (yes, that's his name in Deka also) (I can totally match you for parentheticals) hauls her straight off to the academy instead of stalking her and leaving her on the streets for years.
Seriously, SPD sticks so close to the Deka storylines that every time the characters' new backstory doesn't jive with the story arcs, it kinda really makes for the WTFery.
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Seriously, SPD sticks so close to the Deka storylines that every time the characters' new backstory doesn't jive with the story arcs, it kinda really makes for the WTFery.
Oh, you mean, "My parents are missionaries...but I don't know when my birthday is"?
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since I watched it about 18 times this month while making screencaps) that her homeworld was destroyed by the Troobians.no subject
You also forgot to mention how incredibly hot Kat is.
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*TWITCH*
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(And yeah, he can. I'm in the 'OMG you are such a jerk 90% of the time' camp on Jack as a character, but I read him as a deliberate, year-long training exercise for Sky, so...)
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