POWER RANGERS BEAST MORPHERS Season 2 Has a Cool Start and Then Becomes Tame
I had to push pause on my visit to each series in the Power Rangers franchise. I recently had to push pause on my journey since the vast majority were removed from Netflix earlier this year. They’re being uploaded to YouTube at the moment, but it is an extremely slow process.
With the recent addition of the first part of Power Rangers Dino Fury to Netflix, I realized there was a season that I wanted to watch. While I’ve been doing my watching mostly in order, I decided to jump out for a minute to watch the second season of Power Rangers Beast Morphers. I’ve already done the first season, so I thought this would be fair game. After this, the next one will be going back to Power Rangers Jungle Fury.
Beast Morphers Season 1 was fun to watch and overall, the second season was okay. The season continues the storylines started then and even has a big crossover arc. At the end of season one, Blaze and Roxy were awakened and could be normal humans again. While I appreciate this development, these two characters are extremely underused in my opinion. I would’ve liked to see these two have more of a role in the lives of the Rangers instead of just appearing once every five episodes or so.
This is also a new season, and that means the bad guys are going to be stronger and the Rangers will need more weapons. Early in the season, they’re able to use the Beast-X Visor to don their Beast Bots as armor. This in turn gives them new powers like teleportation for Devon, the ability to glide for Zoey, and the ability to create objects to throw for Ravi. The armor becomes a mainstay pretty quick and is visually meh in my opinion. It doesn’t look bad, but I wish it didn’t look so bulky.
I think my favorite part of the season is the first 10 episodes. Most of those are just one-shots, but they all feature Evox disguising himself as Mayor Daniels (Devon’s dad). In episode 9, Evox reverts back to his form and shows the Rangers the truth. This understandably has an impact on Devon and he sets out to find a way to separate Evox and his dad. The rest of the Rangers are supportive, but they do have a mission (to stop Evox) and are busy working on that. Something I appreciate is that Devon is allowed to have these feelings and struggle, but in the end, he’s able to come up with a reasonable plan that doesn’t involve him becoming a puppet for the bad guy. He’s able to do research and find an answer. He then uses Ben and Betty to help him save his dad. I liked the two-episode arc that Devon went through.
Speaking of Ben and Betty, these two are still the comedic relief and are often subject to physical comedy aimed at four-year-olds (the target demographic). However, I felt like they were really utilized a lot more this time. While they weren’t always useful, it was nice to see them do more than get cheap laughs.
One thing that made me a little sad was the way some of the new weapons were utilized. The Beast-X King Ultra Bow essentially became a deus ex machina that could fit whatever the Rangers needed. Meanwhile, the Beast-X Spin Saber was used in all of two episodes I believe. Its entry is really cool as we see Zoey use it morphed and unmorphed, but according to the wiki it’s a US exclusive weapon which explains its absence later on. Zoey using it unmorphed was a highlight of the season though. That was awesome.
While Blaze and Roxy were awake this season and not really used for the good guys, Scrozzle revives the evil robot versions of the two. They have different looks, but still cause problems for the Rangers. You would think that this would allow for plenty of moments where the doppelgangers are used by Evox, but that doesn’t happen until the very end of the season. I think some very interesting stories could’ve used that. Missed opportunity.
Now, let’s talk about the big crossover episode. This was a weird one to me. Now, I understand that this is adapted from Sentai and is not an American episode. That being said, it just feels really weird to have all the dino-themed teams show up during Beast Morphers. It’s also weird how Jason shows up and has no questions about anything. Now, I do love the fact that they got Austin St. John to reprise his role as Jason and the return of some of the actors from Dino Charge. It’s just sad that not more people could return. It was also a weird crossover because I felt like the Beast Morpher Rangers did very little. It was cool to see some old Rangers, but it was not one of my favorite crossover episodes. Also, in the lead up to the episodes, we get to see clips from some of the biggest villains of Power Rangers and, for some reason, many of the voices were overdubbed and I hated the new voices provided. I don’t know why they had to change the voices, but I did not like them at all.
To round things out, let’s talk about the finale. It was anticlimactic to me. Evox is actually at his best for the finale, and I do love whenever the villain is actually shown to be powerful. Also, it turns out he’s Venjix from RPM somehow, and I got really confused there. Is it because I haven’t watched RPM yet? Anyway, Robo-Blaze pretends to be Blaze and sets up a big trap for the Rangers, pretending it’s a trap for Evox. Evox then gets into Grid Battleforce and does a number on them. Eventually, it just turns into a big fight and the Rangers have to run the Morph-X through their DNA before using it to blast Evox. Yes, that sounds very stupid. I will say, Devon does give a little speech when it looks like Evox is going to win and it’s actually pretty awesome. Other than that speech and Dr. Kay tricking Ben and Betty into making tea, the finale is a little lackluster. After defeating Evox, we get an epilogue and it raises all the questions for me. Devon is now the commander of Grid Battleforce, Steel is an action star (oh yeah, he turned human but has the same voice in worse quality for some reason) with Blaze as his stunt double, and it’s just weird. They end with a big dance party celebrating Steel’s first birthday listening to the musical number from an episode where Nate and Steel swap bodies for a day.
After the first 10-ish episodes, the season went downhill for me. More questions were raised with every episode it seemed as they tried connecting to previous iterations. Maybe the problem is that I haven’t seen all the previous seasons yet, but somehow Nate has access to tech from previous Rangers, but other Rangers are from different dimensions (I knew RPM takes place in a different dimension from all the others already). Also, this apparently takes place after SPD but there are no aliens? I’m just very confused by a lot of things. Plus, I thought the Rangers were still high-school aged and yet after a year Devon is a freaking Commander at Grid Battleforce!? Oh, not to mention that we learn Nate was a literal child and working for Grid Battleforce. What!? I’m just so very confused about a lot of things that I didn’t really think about until this season.
The theme for this season of Beast Morphers is a little hard to pin down. There’s definitely a message about green energy. Morph-X is sold as a green energy source (literally), but then it’s used for evil and we’re shown that they change to wind and solar. I’m pretty sure that it’s supposed to be a metaphor for nuclear energy versus wind and solar. However, I’m going to say that the real theme for the season is that being human is a blessing and a gift. We often talk about being human as a hinderance or an inconvenience. However, Steel longs to be human and when he has the chance to be human, even for a day, he makes the most of it. Also, the humans always defeat the robots. There’s also that time where Captain Chaku was sad he couldn’t see his daughter because he got turned into a cyborg and was stuck on duty. They made him 100% human again to be with his family. Not to mention the fact that they used the fact that the Rangers are human to defeat the big bad guy.
Beast Morphers Season 2 starts out with some cool stuff. Unfortunately, after the Rangers rescue Mayor Daniels, it mostly goes downhill. There are some cool moments here and there, but the trend is a downward slope in my opinion. It’s not the worst season though.
Current Power Rangers Ranking:
Power Rangers In Space
Power Rangers Zeo
Power Rangers Time Force
Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 1
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3
Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2
Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1
Power Rangers Wild Force
Power Rangers S.P.D.
Power Rangers Turbo
Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 2
Power Rangers Mystic Force
Power Rangers Operation Overdrive