As a fan of Power Rangers, I forgive a lot of things. I don't scoff at the rubber monsters. I don't roll my eyes at the empty model buildings. I don't demand layered, thought-provoking content from the writers. But when you pull the "it was all a dream" trick on me? Uh-uh, no way, unacceptable, get out of my face. For Whom the Bell Trolls is an episode that takes up too much space in a season that is 80% space. It hardly deserves a review, but it's a part of the show just like any other. So whoop-de-do, yipee, here we go. To the wonderland of the strange, the dull, and the all-around pointless.
It's hobby week at Angel Grove High, and Trini starts off the festivities with her collection of cultural dolls. Her favorite (because it belonged to her mother) is Mr. Ticklesneezer. Spying from her moon palace as usual, Rita gets the idea to mess with Trini through her dolls since she never got to play with them as a child. She turns Mr. Ticklesneezer into a monster and he starts to capture things in his magic bottle. Nothing's safe, including... a motorcycle! A tower! Planes, trains, and an automobile that just so happens to contain Billy and Trini! Will the other Power Rangers be able to save them before the demented troll can give the bottle to Rita?
"GOODIES!"
Well who the hell cares, because it was all a god damn dream. Trini dreamed the majority of the episode up for no reason other than that the writers probably didn't know what to do with Ticklesneezer at the end due to him not really being "evil." Other than that, this isn't much different from other Power Rangers episodes in terms of weird content or danger, so pulling the dream nonsense on us is just baffling. This leaves the episode with a plot hole bigger than Ticklesneezer's grin; Rita implies that her next big plan is going to involve Trini's dolls IN THE REAL WORLD, but then the whole execution is done IN THE DREAM. None of it happened. I guess Rita was just making an empty threat. Lovely.
"It was all a dream..."
So let's talk about Mr. Ticklesneezer, who's name rolls off the tongue like a brick off a plateau. In his creepy toy form, he looks like a Troll doll infected with Joker toxin, and as a monster, he just looks like a really tired elf. I know that he's not really a "bad guy," but he's so doofy and silly that the threat never feels real. His gimmick is really unclear at first as well; is he capturing everything in one bottle and the stuff disappears? No, we find out at the very end that he actually has tons of magic bottles, but whatever. I really didn't care by that point. Also: a monster that blinks AND his mouth moves? Don't blow the budget, guys...
On the upside, I liked the bits of teen interaction throughout the episode, (Jason breaking boards? Bad ass.) and I always like Billy and Trini together for some reason. Bulk and Skull were pretty funny too, though it was nothing to write home about. The putty fight by the train station was pretty nifty; it's always good to see a new location and the action was great. Hobby week could have given us some more information about the rangers, but we kind of just get stuff we know about them already; Kim likes gymnastics, Billy likes science, Trini likes culture... although I have to say, Ms. Applebee was hilarious during that scene. Her face when Billy's volcano erupted! That had me rolling when I took the screenshot for this review. Also, does she not notice that her desk is covered in Billy's lava?
It's kind of everywhere. You see it? Right there? Never mind.
I always like little Easter eggs left in as a result of using Sentai footage, and this one is just nuts: there's a giant-size kid in the zord battle for just a few seconds, holding on to the Megazord's leg, and it is glorious in it's absurdity. They did a decent job cutting around it right until then, but man, once you see it you can't un-see it. It won't be the last Japanese kid that sneaks his/her way into Power Rangers, but this might be the most entertaining of them all. And thank God there was something entertaining about this episode, because it really stunk besides that. Terrible monster-of-the-week, un-exiting plot, and a giant middle finger to the audience at the end gets this episode right down to the bottom of the barrel.
Mighty Morphin' Scale: 2/10
Power Rangers Scale: 1/10
I can't bare to give it my lowest Mighty Morphin' score, because without it, I could never have made this meme:
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