Season 26, Episode 13: Tuba Triumph

"Tuba Triumph"

Episode 13

Air Date: October 12th, 2019

I'm actually have absolutely no words for this episode! Usually Power Rangers episodes centered around child guest stars are rather awful and notorious for being so loathe because the child are either terrible actors, take away from the plot/other characters or just BOTH! -_-  May I remind you of the infamous Lost Galaxy/Lightspeed Rescue team up episodes where the Galaxy Rangers nearly completely sidelined because of a little girl being used to pull a fire alarm!??? Oh boy! Anyway, fortunately for us, "Tuba Triumph" is an extremely solid episode with a shockingly more solid performance from said child actor! O_O  I don't know where they found this kid but young Lukas Maher is spectacular in the role as Joey.  He manages to have nice enough chemistry with Jazz Baduwalia as Ravi and even covers his NZ accent surprisingly well.  Ok, maybe I'm stretching out a bit and making it sound like he gave an award winning performance but in terms of previous child actors, he comes right at the top of the list! :)  The story at hand is also a nice story for kids to learn from with Ravi taking the young boy under his wing when he gets picked on and wants to prove himself so Ravi decides to teach him some karate.  It feels like a classic MMPR episode because of it....except for that moment he uses a tuba to outfight a Robotron???? O_o  Apparently, all he has to do is match the frequency of the sound waves so the rangers don't get blasted....leading to both Joey and Tubatron coming to a stand still do to their simultaneous blasting of music.

Ummmmm, last time I check or maybe I'm not the brightest when it comes to sound waves but that monster's blast were giving the rangers a serious challenge; not to mention sent Blaze crashing through a wall thanks to  Scrozzle's upgrade.  But it can be negated because the music matches the frequency of Tubatron's sound waves!???  i makes completely no sense and feels like that unreal science that PR has been laughed at by the fans over the years (No need for suits on the moon because it has normal gravity and breathing in space is possible!)  But outside of that bizarre resolution to the main plot, the human story is still well written enough to entertain and builds on Ravi as a character himself.  He clearly has a passion for drawing but because of Grid Battleforce's strict polices, he can't have any distractions??? What!??? O_o  Can I see that handbook that Ravi has??? -_-  Come on Commander Shaw, give you son a break! You're giving him a harder time over this than when he gave the neural aligner to the villains because of Roxy! O_o  I really want to see more of Commander Shaw and Ravi's relationship than just that one scene.  I mean, outside of quickly mentioning their relation in the premiere and that joke about his launder in the second episode, we haven't seen much of anything between them having to do with their mother/son relationship. Hmmmmm...I HOPE we do Beast Morphers! :P

But even still it makes for an odd but beautifully realized connection between the two as they help them to appreciate their true talents and who they are as well as Ravi inspiring him to stand for himself as well as what's right! :)  Sure, there was more plot movement with the data chip stuff and stealing the rangers' beast abilities that I'm honestly forgetting about by needed to be reminded that's still a thing! lol  But the story with Ravi and Joey had so much more heart and depth than the crush, kill, destroy antics of the villains this week.  Nothing wrong with them or their plan(s) at all considering they have been very consistently plotting and attacking the rangers head on but it really came second fiddle to the REAL story here. :) Pretty great!

 

Final Morph: B+