Power Rangers Operation Overdrive

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"Overdrive, Accelerate!"

The fifteenth anniversary season of Power Rangers, taken from Go Go Sentai Boukenger. Legends speak of the Corona Aurora, the Crown of the Gods; an ancient jeweled relic with inconceivable power. According to the myths, millennia ago, two brothers warred with each other in their pursuits of the crown, only for the crown to turn them both into monstrous forms and seal them into planets. Afterward, the crown was taken and its jewels removed, all being sent away to an Insignificant Little Blue Planet...

In the present day, Adventurer Archaeologist Andrew Hartford has at last found the crown - but the discovery frees the brothers, Moltor and Flurious, from their respective prisons. Realizing that they and other villains would come seeking the crown's power, Hartford uses his wealth to assemble and equip a team to track down and claim the crown's five gemstones before they fall into the wrong hands.

Operation Overdrive has a few quirks compared to a usual Ranger season. For one thing, instead of using mainly self-contained Monster of the Week adventures, the season tracked the Rangers and villains as they followed a trail of clues around the world to the location of the jewels. It also had a Big Bad Ensemble instead of just one Big Bad, and they tended to fight each other as much as they fought the Rangers.

One of the more interesting episodes was the 15th Anniversary special "Once A Ranger" where a new villain comes into play, the son of Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, Thrax. Targeting the Morphing Grid itself, they manage to cut the Overdrive Rangers off from their powers. To stop their plan of decimating the entire grid and eliminating all power rangers, the Sentinel Knight commissions Rangers from previous seasons to form a new team (all of the Disney era shows, with one before they took over) Xander Bly, Bridge Carson, Kira Ford, Tori Hanson and Adam Park (most characters were Ensemble Darkhorses, the return of Johnny Yong Bosch especially was appreciated). In addition, Alpha Six takes on a role. The two-parter involves the Overdrive Rangers worried about being replaced. While not quite as popular as "Forever Red," "Once A Ranger" has far fewer continuity snarls in part because of Sentinel Knight's involvement.

The season is generally considered one of the weakest seasons, but still not without some merits. Making such a dramatic shift in the formula with traveling the world and multiple foes made it have a less involving Story Arc.

Succeeded by Power Rangers Jungle Fury.

Has a character sheet.

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Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:

• Action Girl: Ronny and Rose.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us
• Big Bad:
  • Big Bad Ensemble variant: Moltor, Flurious, Kamdor, and the Fearcats Mig and Benglo (themselves a Big Bad Duumvirate).
• Chest Insignia: Team compass logos on the chest.
• Chrome Champion: Tyzonn
• City of Adventure: San Angeles, though the Rangers are just as often out on missions.
• The Dragon: Miratrix, to Kamdor.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero: Mack
  • The Lancer: Will
  • The Smart Guy/The Chick: Rose
  • The Big Guy: Ronny
  • The Heart: Dax
  • Sixth Ranger: Tyzonn
  • Assist Character: Sentinel Knight
• Five-Token Band: The Red and Yellow Rangers are Caucasian, the Black Ranger is Afro-Carribean, the Blue Ranger is Chinese, the Pink Ranger is Filipino, and the Mercury Ranger is a space alien.
• Home Base: the Hartford Mansion; partly an Elaborate Underground Base
• Humongous Mecha
  • Combining Mecha: the DriveMax Zords
  • Mecha Expansion Pack: Drill, Shovel, Cement, and Crane Drivers
• The Mentor: Hartford
• Mooks: Chillers for Flurious, Lava Lizards for Moltor
• Never Say "Die": Par for the course, but it's notable here in which the "SUICIDE" label is blurred out in the Flashpoint Megazord.
• Recycled in Space!: Power Rangers as ADVENTURER ARCHAEOLOGISTS!
• Stock Super Powers:
  • Super Strength: Mack
  • Super Senses: Will (hearing and sight)
  • In a Single Bound: Dax
  • Super Speed: Ronny
  • Invisibility: Rose
    • With Catlike Tread
  • Elemental Shapeshifter: Tyzonn (mercury)
• Weapon of Choice
  • Swiss Army Weapon: Drive Defenders
  • Grappling Hook Pistol: OO Zip Shooters
  • Blade on a Stick: Mack's Drive Lance
  • Drop the Hammer: Will's Drive Slammer
  • Blow You Away: Dax's Drive Vortex
  • Shovel Strike: Ronny's Drive Claws (a pair of scoops)
  • Kill It with Water: Rose's Drive Geyser
  • Improbable Weapon User/Swiss Army Weapon: Tyzonn's Drive Detector (a metal detector\lance\blaster)
  • BFG/This Is a Drill: Drill Blaster
  • BFS: Exelsior the Sentinel Sword
• Word Power
  • Invocation: "Overdrive, Accelerate!"
  • In the Name of the Moon/Transformation Name Announcement:

(each)"Kick into Overdrive! [Color] Ranger!" (all)"Call to adventure! Power Rangers Operation Overdrive!"

This subseries contains examples of:

• Adventurer Archaeologist
• Airplane Arms: Miratrix
• Artificial Human: Mack
• Ascended Extra: Zuban the Team Pet becomes the Big Good Sentinel Knight.
• Avengers Assemble
• Avenging the Villain: Thrax, avenging parents Rita and Zedd.
  • Who are, notably, not actually dead, per se. But they pulled a Heel Face Turn and he didn't, so they're dead to him.
    • Well, their Heel Face Turn was forced onto them by Zordon's good energy. So, technically, the good guys "killed" who they once were, and what they were clearly like when Thrax was born, given his appearance.
• Badass Normal: Lampshaded by Adam in "Once A Ranger", as the only Ranger without a civilian superpower.
• Become Your Weapon: Sentinel Knight merges with the sword Exelsior. Later both merge with Mack for his Battlized mode.
• Big Fancy House: the Hartford mansion
• Big Damn Heroes: The old rangers in "Once A Ranger" when the current rangers lose their powers. They forced the baddies to retreat in less than 2 minutes!
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Norg the Yeti, his cousin is called sasquatch.
• The Bro Code: called "Man law!" in "Both Sides Now"
• Cain and Abel: Moltor and Flurious
• Chekhov's Gun: The mummy case in the Hartford's living room, which is where the last Corona Aurora jewel is conveniently hidden.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Dax
  • Also Bridge in "Once A Ranger", when he mentions that the S.P.D. Rangers were mentored by a dog, and that his superior was a bird. Only Dax thinks it makes sense.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: Of course, the audience only knows the explanation was entirely accurate because we watched Power Rangers SPD.
• Continuity Nod: When making the Defender Vest, Hartford says he acquired a dragon scale from a guy in Briarwood named Toby.
• Cool Crown: The Corona Aurora.
• Cool Plane: the SHARC, and later the Sonic Streaker
• Cosmic Keystone: the Corona Aurora
• Crimefighting with Cash: Hartford kind of makes a big deal of his funding the team.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Norg in the finale, able to fight off six Chillers to protect himself and Tyzonn's fiance Vella.
• Deadpan Snarker: Spencer
• Disney Death: Mack. Justified as it is was made by Disney.
• The Ditz: Norg
• Death Seeker: Mack, once he learns of his true nature. He doesn't use the "d" word, obviously. Never Say "Die".
• Despair Event Horizon: The Rangers themselves, after Thrax cuts them off from the Morphing Grid in "Once A Ranger". Seemingly subverted when they're reminded that they still have their genetic powers to fight, but fall into this when they prove to be ineffective. And then there's Mack finding out he isn't human.
• Does That Sound Like Fun to You?: When Rose explains why her mods to the Sentinel Sword aren't compatible with biological beings. Dax still has to think about it.
• Drill Tank: Drill Driver
• Elaborate Underground Base
• Enfante Terrible: Thrax, who is quite the evil mastermind for someone whose age is between seven and nine.
• Everything Is Online: Kamdor zaps the Drive Max Megazord with a computer virus, which spreads to the base and to Mack.
• Eviler Than Thou
• Expy: Flurious and Moltor seems to be based on The Miser Brothers, since they are brothers who hate each other as well as the fact that Flurious is ice and Moltor is fire.
• Fake Defector: Will in "Both Sides Now", complete with Shoot Your Mate (though what Kamdor doesn't know is that he's shooting a teleportation beam).
• Fake Memories: Mack
• Fun with Acronyms: The Special Hydro Aero Recon Craft is just one Xtreme Kool Letterz away from it.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Norg.
• Human Aliens: Tyzonn and Vella.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: as Bruce Kalish's third season, every title had three words.
• If It Swims, It Flies: Sub Driver uses Dump Driver to cleverly avert this.
• Ineffectual Loner: Will, at first. He ends up becoming an Effectual Loner.
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Tyzonn copies Will in "Just Like Me"
• The Jeeves: Spencer
• Jumped At the Call: Mack
• Law of Inverse Recoil: Averted for once; the Drill Blaster requires the Defender Vest to counter its recoil.
• Legion of Doom: Thrax, son of Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, uniting the four villain factions in "Once A Ranger".
• Linked-List Clue Methodology
• Lotus Eater Machine: The "Home and Away" two-parter has Tyzonn put into one of these by Crazar. He's made to believe that his fiancé is still alive, he was never mutated into a Lava Lizard, and the entire season never took place.
• Master of Disguise: Spencer
  • Latex Perfection: Gets ridiculous when he impersonates Ronny.
• Meaningful Name: Rose the Pink Ranger
• Milestone Celebration/Reunion Show: "Once A Ranger"
• Mook Promotion: Moltar holds a deathmatch between his Lava Lizards. The strongest one turned into the Monster of the Week, Volcan.
• The Mountains Of Florida
• Mr. Exposition: Rose, the genius, is Ms. Exposition.
• Multinational Team
• My Biological Clock Is Ticking: male example with Hartford
• Mythology Gag: All of Boukenger's monsters were homages to previous seasons' Humongous Mecha. It doesn't fully translate to Operation Overdrive, between homages to seasons that never made it overseas and American-designed monsters that don't homage anything, but still.
  • The One With... Mjolnir seems to have one involving actual mythology: One Norse tale has Thor crossdressing and posing as Freya to get Mjolnir back. Operation Overdrive has Ronny posing as Freya Spencer crossdressing and posing as Ronny-as-Freya to get Mjolnir back.
• Nerdgasm: In-Universe example -- Ronny seems to have a "zordgasm" seeing the zords for the first time. And then another one when she checks out the Drill Blaster. All for the sake of adapting Natsuki's genkiness into her...
• The One True Sequence: Used and abused.
• One-Winged Angel: Almost all the villains. Flurious gets the funky chess-piece-looking thing, Miratrix becomes a giant monster bird, the Fearcats get their armored forms, and Kamdor... uh... opens his face mask to reveal another one. Hey, they can't all be winners. But if we don't count Norg as a real villain, Moltor is the only Overdrive villain who never gets an upgrade. Then again, you might consider his usual form the upgrade of his apparently-human form from flashbacks.
• Operation Blank: Of course.
• Orcus on His Throne: Flurious does next to nothing for most of the season.
• Pinocchio Syndrome: Mack
• Public Domain Artifact: Thor's hammer Mjolnir (originally in Boukenger as Uchide's mallet, another Public Domain Artifact)
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A race car driver, a stuntman, a Classy Cat Burglar, a perpetual grad student and a Rich Idiot With No Day Job team up and save the world. Then joined by the Elemental Shapeshifter Human Alien from Mercury.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Will. I think we're supposed to assume he's a Reformed Criminal, but it's never spelled out.
  • During the ten-minute retirement in Once A Ranger, he's shown working as a security consultant. It takes a thief and all that.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: is Mack ever one.
• Robotic Reveal
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Moltor, Flurious, Kamdor, the Fearcat race, and Thrax (at least the Fearcats stay sealed for the most part)
• She's a Man In Japan: Crazar, from the episode "Red Ranger Unplugged", was originally a male Ashu named Ouga who appeared in Tasks 40 through 42 of Boukenger (the "petrified Eiji" min-arc).
• Single-Stroke Battle: Kamdor's last stand vs. Will. At least, it came down to one of these after an entire episode of fighting it out.
• Shout-Out: Every monster is designed to look like a previous Megazord, albeit in abstract (this is a carry-over from Boukenger, which was a big milestone celebration series).
• Super Re-Powering: Sentinel Knight, at least in "Once A Ranger".
• Survivor Guilt: Tyzonn
• Take My Hand: Mack to Will.
• Talking to Himself: David Weatherley and Kelson Henderson double as the Fearcats' voice actors.
• Teen Genius: Rose
• Ten-Minute Retirement: The Rangers, ALL of them, after fully reaching their Despair Event Horizon (having to be saved by veteran Rangers) decide to go back to their lives (save for Mack) in the first part of "Once A Ranger".
• Theme Tune Rap: Complete with such nonsensical lyrics as "Five fingers pointing to the sky in five ways! Five Rangers walking through the sun for five days!"
• They Call Me Mister Tibbs: Mr. Hartford Andrew
• This Is a Drill: the Drill Driver and the Drill Blaster.
• Time Abyss: Power Rangers has long had aliens who talked about thousands of years ago as if it was yesterday, but the Sentinel Knight takes the cake: the continents were one when he scattered the jewels, which means he was known to be active 250 million years ago, and lived until at least a few years back when he sealed Thrax; doubtlessly a series record.
• To the Batpole
• To Make a Long Story Short: Bridge in "Once A Ranger"
• Tomato in the Mirror: Mack, again
• Truly Single Parent: Hartford
• Villain Team-Up: not frequently, but it's still there. Almost immediately followed by...
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
• Volcano Lair: The villain Moltor heads his operations inside one of these, in sharp contrast to his brother Flurious, who resides inside of an icy cave lair.
• Wham! Line: "We decided to leave Operation Overdrive."
• What Would Zordon Do?: Alpha in "Once A Ranger"
• Wrench Wench: Ronny
• You Are Already Dead: The aforementioned Single-Stroke Battle ends with Will seemingly collapsing and Kamdor walking away... only to explode on the spot.
• You Look Familiar: Subverted; Kelson Henderson returns yet again, as confirmed in the opening credits, but thanks to the Yeti suit and yet another vocal characterization (he's Norg), it's impossible to recognize him.
• Younger Than They Look: Mack, being an android, has had the physical appearance of a 17 or 18 year old since his 'birth' (or in his case, design).
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle: or rather, Your Jewel Is In Another Location.