Season 24, Episode 18: Abrakadanger

"Abrakadanger"

Episode 18

Air Date: October 18th, 2017

Hmmmmm, I'm starting to see why fans of the franchise found this iteration of Power Rangers so bad.  Not that I think Ninja Steel has been a complete mess, because there have been some good, even great elements sprinkled out over a series that is desperately trying to fight through the mediocrity and bizarre stupidity being thrown at it. O_O  Unlike Dino Charge, Ninja Steel is feeling like a live action cartoon at times or even, dare I say, a parody of Power Rangers sometimes. O_o  Sure,  Power Rangers has ALWAYS been a silly, over the top goofy show with childish elements but that's because the main audience that the show is always targeting are kids since it's a kids show.  But Ninja Steel is taking the lunacy of the show a bit too far.  I mean......is it comparable to how terribly juvenile Turbo's first half got??? Well, not really, the rangers themselves are fine and are probably the best part of the show, it's just certain aspects like the magic motif with Preston, how people just casually accept it and not to mention, Victor and Monty continuing to get away with their schtick when even Bulk and Skull would have been expelled by now is.....I just.....I have no words.  It's just making the show appear dumb at times juxtaposed to when it is taking itself seriously and is pretty decent overall.

I just couldn't buy into Hayley and Victor's tennis rivalry....especially when Victor has shown to be so obnoxiously incompetent I find it hard to believe that he could be some all star champion.  I mean this is the same guy who got trapped in a web full of....ummm...."gas" and completely made of fool of himself by falling for his own water balloon prank!!! -_-  Suddenly, Hayley is now worried about being embarrassed, let alone defeated by him!??? O_o  Hasn't Victor cheated on everything he said he did at this point!???  Also, how everyone just casually accepts Preston's magic is bizarre at this point.  You have Sarah who is this technological genius STILL in high school, while Preston can literally perform magic tricks that can turn people invisible and yet......he's not getting major fame or focus for it??? No, he gets in trouble for it because he accidentally turn Hayley invisible because of learning a new spell from his gift from Princess Hideous Attire.  Yes, Princess Veira gives the rangers the lion fire stars for the Lion Fire Zord and Lion Fire armor so the rangers can use it in battle.  Tho one wonder why she took them in the first place and is deciding to give it back to them now all of a sudden...???? O_o

Anyway, she also gives Preston a wand and a sacred magic book from a treasure vault from the Lion Galaxy but tells him he must learn the spells in order and NOT skip ahead because it would be dangerous too.  You can see where this is going of course as the episode delivers one of the most predictable moral lessons of the show so far,  Preston somehow becomes an idiot and in trying to skip ahead to master the invisibility; turns Hayley invisible.  It takes Mick having to cleverly make Preston realize cutting corners to master something is wrong and won't help you master it before he realizes "Wow, what I did was dumb??!!!"  No kidding, when Levi even reminded Preston of this before he did the spell and STILL did it. Ewwwww!!! There's also a new monster after the rangers named Abrakadanger, hence the episode title and pun! :P  He becomes Preston's personal rival for the episode since he is a master of magic and only Preston's magic can reverse his spells, especially when three of the rangers are turned into inanimate objects....cause POWER RANGERS! 

Of course, Preston master each spell in the book in order and manages to reverse the spells aka save his friends.  It leads to the typical ground fight before finishing him off with their megazords.  Still, not a great episode by any means.  Also, Victor hitting tennis balls like he's freaking Superman didn't make anyone bat an eye until the Principal discovered it was fake!???  O_O  Seriously, what the hell is going on.  Abrakadanger was an abrakafailer! 0_0

Final Morph: D-