Timeranger is the Super Sentai series that heralded the new millennium – and what a season it was. With a plot that gets deeper as time goes on and interesting characters, this season of Super Sentai (and the closely adapted Power Rangers version, Time Force) is highly regarded by most fans.
Our story begins in the year 3000, where the sky is kinda orange-ish and lots of doves are flying around for some reason. Maybe they are the only species of birds left on the planet, I don’t know. Anyway the Time Police or whatever is doing some sort of meeting when suddenly something big happens – Don Dorneiro, a notorious future criminal boss, and two of his subordinates, manage to travel 1000 years in the past along with a prison full of future criminals (it makes more sense in context.)
In the process, four individuals are hurled into the past along with the Don. They encounter a poor schmuck that just happened to be jogging nearby and thanks to some weird circumstances, recruit the guy into their group and become TIMERANGEEEEEER!!. Yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but nothing in this world happens by chance – destiny plays a large part in how the characters develop.
You see, that’s the theme of Timeranger: is destiny locked in place or can it be changed by one’s own actions? There’s a difference of opinion between the guys from the future and the guy from the past (who happens to be the Red ranger of this season), and that shapes a lot of interpersonal conflicts. Unfortunately some characters are developed better than others and that leads me to want more development out of TimeGreen or TimeBlue.
We also get a very strong willed female lead in Time Pink, who is effectively the leader of the group (Red still leads in battle and is a major force in the way the Timerangers fight, but he does not call all the shots.) This season’s red is a careful balance between the hot blooded idiots of other seasons and the stoic serious reds of others.
Like some other seasons the main villains are not as overtly evil as other Super Sentai villains, but they are still evil enough. And people die in this series. Civilan deaths are mostly implied but do happen instead of other seasons that gloss over them. Most of the characters, friend of foe, have their own stories to tell and their own personal pains. Also, enemies of the week are not completely destroyed when defeated in their giant forms: their giant forms are actually a consequence of their method of incarceration backfiring: a method of cryogenic stasis ala Demolition Man that leads to super inflation once you take off a special sticker that controls the process.
Timeranger is one of the earlier series to use CG, notably during the transformation sequence. At first glance this is done in a way that it isn’t noticeable, but careful viewers will be able to see the difference. The mecha transformations are made way more simple here, with two robots and a limited range of transformations.
Despite its relative seriousness, Timeranger still has the occasional silly episode, including a trippy episode that pits our heroes in different genres like westerns or samurai or whatnot. It still ends up being one of the ‘darker’ seasons of Super Sentai, and an enjoyable way to start the decade. The intensity of the last 10 or so episodes is well worth the price of watching the show.
A little postscript: the opening song, Jiku, is my single most favorite Super Sentai Opening ever.
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