Season 5, Episode 30: The Robot Ranger

"The Robot Ranger"
Episode 30
Air Date: October 3rd, 1997

After a heavy story mini-arc, we return to a lengthy run of episodic episodes starting with this one.  And man, does this episode STILL creep me out!!! O_O  I mean the scenes of the Robot Ashley cleaning her wires, T.J. charging himself up in his locker and especially Carlos getting up off the ground with no face....YIKES!!!  Why does something tell me this stuff wouldn't fly in the post-20th Century era we live in now.  But you gotta give it up to the new cast though for selling the whole thing.  Ashley, Cassie, T.J. and especially Carlos, after the no face reveal, come off so menacing and disturbing in this episode. But it's also Blake Foster's near grating anxious and fearful performance as Justin tries to figure out what's going on that really sells this episode for me.

Meanwhile, Divatox is up to her old tricks (NO not the damn detonators!!! -_-) I mean sending out her latest monster Flashhead when Bulk and Skull are teaching Cassie and Ashley how to play tennis....terribly I might add! -_- It leads to the rangers morphing and having to deal with him, Elgar and a school of Piranathron.  The fight soon leads else where as the rangers manage to beat him up to the point Divatox orders to fire the torpedoes already.  As Flashhead grows, the rangers call on the Rescue Zords and form the Rescue Megazord.  This is the first time in a while we've had a megazord fight so soon in an episode as the Rescue Megazord first struggles to defeat Flashhead.  But the rangers manage to win the day by summoning their artillery power and firing at Flashhead destroying him.  With Divatox eager to hit the rangers again with another monster, Porto summons  Voltmeister who can electrocute the rangers into a crisp.

Meanwhile, the Robot Rangers talk among themselves as Justin is getting closer to the truth.  After he realizes Cassie and T.J. are also robots, he literally runs into Carlos and hurts him with a door.  Thinking he's not a robot, he tries to tells him about the others until T.J. contacts him about another monster attack.  They morph and help the others to Justin's disbelief at what's going on.  Voltmeister gets the best of the rangers and forces them to demorph as they tumble down a hill.  After the aforementioned disturbing face sequence, T.J. tells Alpha to teleport them back to the Power Chamber, to Justin's horror.  Back at the Power Chamber, we quickly learn this was all a test as the real Turbos were using the Robot Rangers as a test on Earth.  Apparently, they were made on Eltar by Alpha 5 and Zordon to protect their world but needed to make sure they were ready for the battle against evil.  Of course, Robot Justin was programmed to lose his memory as part of the test as the real Justin and T.J. tell him.

Meanwhile, Voltmeister grows as the real Turbo rangers morph and head out to defeat Votmeister.  We get another cool megazord fight between a monster and the Rescue Megazord before the rangers once again call on their artillery power and fire all weapons on Voltmeister; destroying him.  As T.J. and Justin prepare the Robot rangers to be teleported to Eltar, the two Justins excitably say goodbye; hoping to hang out one day again. Overall, this was a great episode! Lots of action and disturbing imagery for a kids show! Seriously, those Robot Rangers can stay away!!! O_O

Final Morph: B+