Season 8, Episode 2: Lightspeed Teamwork

"Lightspeed Teamwork"
Episode 2
Air Date: February 19, 2000

I consider this more of the second half of the premiere than the actual second episode of the season.  It's almost a directed continuation of the premiere as Captain Mitchell gives 4 of the new recruits a tour of the Lightspeed Aqua Base.  It's really cool having a team of rangers added by a large government facility filled with personal ready to assist them at any moments notice against their fight against the demons.  Noticed I said 4 of the new recruits....sigh...meanwhile, Joel is roaming around the Aqua Base and literally runs into another important character this season, Ms. Fairweather.  Ms. Fairweather is the brilliant scientist behind the rangers' morphers, weapons and zords as she eventually shows them the Rail Rescues.  Each Rail Rescue carries each of their individual zords inside like Carter's Pyro Rescue zord, Joel's Aero Rescue zord, etc.  Of course, when Joel and Ms. Fairweather meet, Joel immediately falls for her and begins to try to impress her with his arrogant, self centered behavior.  One wonders why Ms. Fairweather did just TELL Joel who she was right off the bat inside of letting him flirt with her and try so hard as this will become their shtick all season but clearly she likes him, which you can tell.

Meanwhile, our villains are plotting again to get rid of Mariner Bay as Diabolico order Loki to send a monster to the city again to destroy but this time, a more massive one.  Also, I forgot to mention in my last review, that the demons are anxiously waiting for their leader, Queen Bansheera to return as they must look after her son Impus, a baby demon.  There is also Jinxer, who will be the demon who makes the monsters grow this season.  After Joel get some flowers from a flower shop for Ms. Fairweather, he arrives while the rangers are called to save the city from a massive asteroid that has landed in it.  Captain Mitchell scolds Joel before sending him out with the others.  The rangers morph and head into their Rail Rescues.  As that Rail Rescues take forever to reach the surface, I guess I'll talk about the suits this season.  They remind me of one of those candies with the swirls and strips....I'm forgetting what they're called! Someone help me out if you could.  I like how they don't have a mouth piece to them, the first suits not to have that particular feature on the helmet.  Makes them more unique than previous ranger suits before them.  Anyway, as the Rail Rescues take off and head into the city; they arrive to deploy the rangers' individual zords like I said.

I like how the rangers work together using their zords to save a mother and a child in a building surrounded by lava.  It really shows how these team of rangers in particular are a rescue squad than just supernatual superheroes like they have been presented in the past.  We see that as they use various weapons like the Rescue Bird and their zords to put out the fire as well as save civilians. I love how during this, Joel is trying to go solo but get screamed at by Ms. Fairweather at one point.  Anyway, as Carter, Kelsey and Dana make their way out of the building with the civilians, the monster of the week, Magmavore begins attacking again.  They manage to escape but Carter's zord gets stuck thank to the multiple debris that falls on it.  Joel comes over with his zord to pick him up as Captain Mitchell orders them to form the megazord.  The Lightspeed Megazord, as usual, is a cool looking machine in design but it just doesn't capture the awesomness of previous zords like the Mega Voyager or even the Galaxy Megazord power up with the Lights of Orion.  Anyway, after hitting Magmavore multiple times with it's latter arms, the rangers decide to just pick up up and throw him over to destroy him....and it works??? O_o  Ok whatever.....not the most impressive first outing for a megazord but it gets the job done anyway. Also, Ms. Fairweather's reaction is priceless so you go me there.  To conclude the episode, Joel complete ignores Carter's forced message of working together as he tries to woo Ms. Fairweather.  I love how she gets upset about Joel bad mouthing her when he still doesn't know who she is really.  Also Joel asks why she's in the lab??? Clearly she works there dude, the hell??? Long story short, Joel is a dick for talking about her like that and he finds out the hard way from the rangers that she's the one whole made everything from their morphers to their zords.  Great job jerk!!! :) Overall, the second episode was alright, once again, this are handled rather quickly while we get more character bits from Carter and Joel.  Other than that, meh!

Final Morph: C