Season 5, Episode 23: The Phantom Phenomenon

"The Phantom Phenomenon"
Episode 23
Air Date: September 17th, 1997

By introducing a new ally and mystery for the show, The Phantom Ranger becomes the unofficial 6th ranger of the team for a couple of episodes.  But I only have 2 problems with this episode. 1) Why the hell would Divatox want to rob a bank??? I get their pirates but their SPACE pirates!!! -_-  I doubt that American paper money would mean much in outer space.  And 2) Justin is under characteristically dumb this episode when he usually is honest and smart about things.  Why would he keep a secret about the Phantom's ship just because he promised Nico??? O_o  I mean he should have known that his duties as a ranger come first and he could have avoid him and Nico getting captured if he just told Dimitria and the other rangers about the damn ship but anyway, liked I said with Rocky last season during "Mondo's Last Stand", every rangers deserves their moment of stupidity once and a while.

So with the arrival of the mysterious phantom, the rangers investigate as he continuously stops Divatox's forces from stealing profit. First at Angel Grove National Bank and then at a gold mine.  Clearly the writers were setting up a romance between the Phantom Ranger and Cassie as when the rangers are investigating the Gold mine, she is the first to see him and is all intrigued by him by the end of the episode.  It's a shame the writers never do much with it besides some foreshadowing and moments of Cassie daydreaming/pinning for him.

Overall, "The Phantom Phenomenon" is a good episode that is only hurt by some glaring flaws in the script like Justin not just telling the other rangers the truth (didn't he learn anything from "The Whole Lie"???) and Divatox wanting to steal money. Either way, the episode nicely sets up the Phantom Ranger's mini-arc on the show.  Apparently, he is an Eltarian and there was some planning to elaborate on his backstory like having him be Zordon's son for instance but that never happened which is a shame because he's a pretty badass character so far. Oh well....

Final Morph: B