Season 17, Episode 22: The Dome Dolls

"The Dome Dolls"

Episode 22

Air Date: September 5th, 2009

It's really a shame that this episode is severely hindered by this insatiable desire to shoehorn in your face feminism through our eyes and ears.  The thing is, Killobyte's introduction is far more interesting than Tenaya's latest plan against Corinth and the rangers....especially when the new villain is smart enough to point out of...how well...pointless your plan is when there are still people there to stop you.  One wonders what Tenaya 7 was thinking with such an elaborate plan that doesn't make a lick of sense but only seems there to serve the obvious agenda here of making women look badass and superior!!! -_-  I'm all for feminism when we have a plot, not to mention characters that are strong because there is no feminism  emphasis within it.  Like say shows like Xena and Buffy in the 90s, while sometimes they referenced them being women/girls, the reason they were such strong, riveting characters was because they were real despite their over the top skills and powers.  They had vulnerability, made tons of mistakes, making the audience root for them everytime they went into a fight and succeeded after.  But the plot as well as seeing the female rangers as well as supporting characters working to save the day seems too coincidental to NOT be a message about female empowerment.  It would have worked better say if Killobyte was an intimidating, misogynist without Tenaya having to be the underdog of the villains here and having to make a statement about women being just as strong because the plot demands her plan have the females on both sides at odds against each other.

Honestly, I really liked Killobyte right off the bat from his ominous, slow panning intro with him walking through the watseland to return to Venjix's lair after thought to be destroy.  He's smug, overconfident but definitely has the deadly skills and scary efficiency to make Tenaya look inadequate several times despite her being the strongest, most competent and interesting general of Venjix's army up to this point.  It just shows how excellently crafted a new villain like Killobyte is being written and portrayed when he makes such a huge impression in a handful of scenes in his first appearance.  Like I said, the only real highlight of the episode that kept the plot moving in a very exciting way, especially when he shoots at Tenaya for trying to cheap shot him earlier in the episode.  Lol, dude's such a smug bastard! I LOVE IT!!!  Also, while it was once again cool to see an unlikely match up between two rangers that never interact too much together, Summer and Gemma don't really develop or show building of their relationship here at all.  It's just all for the sake of showing how badass the girl rangers can be because....GIRL POWER!!! O_O Not to mention, even Ziggy's joke seemed so forced and nonsensical when he tells Tenaya and her forces to stay away from "their women"!!! Uhhhhh...so you want Ziggy to make himself look sexist in an episode where you want all the female characters to be shown as so empowering?! Huh??? O_o Jeeze, maybe I liked this alot less than I original though actually. -_-

Also, the incorporation of the character Vasquez didn't help matters either, only seeming to be there for the other girls to make fun of her for being a basket case and to make that lighting storm as well as tornado to stop Tenaya, her Attackbot and Grinders.  But one thing of note that is worthy of mentioning outside of Killobyte's charming debut, is that he and Venjix are apparently keeping a secret about Tenaya's origins....making me wonder this was kind of obvious looking back where this sudden development was going with another ranger's own story arc. Or maybe in hindsight, it seems that way of what I know now??? O_o  Anyway, "The Dome Dolls" is condescending in its plot and convenience of women saving the day while the men are literally knocked out for a good portion of it.  The only thing that saves us from this patronizing half hour of feminist hijinks is the fact that a promising new villain has arrived already to shake things up and move the plot forward in intriguing new ways.

Final Morph: C-