Power Rangers RPM/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: For the series as a whole; badly needed after the Dork Age of Bruce Kalish. The return of Judd Lynn—the showrunner responsible for the string of seasons many considered to be the show's peak, also brought about rejoicing.
  • Author's Saving Throw: After a long line of Dork Age silliness, RPM is funnier, smarter and pulls out all the stops in an attempt to convince Disney to continue the series - or at least finish it with a bang. The attempted rescue didn't work on Disney, but the series was saved anyway.
  • Base Breaker: Gem and Gemma. There is a good reason fans call them the Marmite Twins.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Remember the bombs strung up all around Corinth?
  • Broken Base: The season is a fan favorite. The theme song, on the other hand is very polarizing, especially considering that there was a contest to see which song would be used, and this song was the more popular choice and the song used wasn't even one of the choices. (Although the actual theme song did arguably better fit the theme of the series).
  • Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: A lot of people who didn't watch RPM don't believe that the cartoony designs work well in the setting.
  • Complete Monster: Venjix. Destroying computer systems was part of his programming. Destroying humanity and turning the world into a barren wasteland? That was all him.
  • Crazy Awesome:
    • Dr. K keeps a laser cannon in the fridge - not stored, but primed and ready to fire. She also made an experimental weapon which turned out to blast clothing off, and can control the base's ventilation systems with her violin. And yes, all of these get used against bad guys multiple times. She also once simply plugged her violin into an amplifier to create an impromptu sonic cannon at one point, and is so lacking in social skills that most of her statements come out as so bizarre they're awesome.
    • Gem and Gemma, emphasis on CRAZY, but still awesome in their own way.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Flynn, also despite because of his comparative lack of spotlight episodes.
    • Dillon and Ziggy seem to be set up as this at the beginning, but they vault way past this status. (Dillon even has Supporting Protagonist on his character sheet.)
  • Epileptic Trees: "Venjix" was the name of the baddie back in the tenth anniversary episode. Fans are wildly speculating that that Venjix robot and this Venjix virus are one and the same. Not to mention various bits of Ranger history that people suspect are connected the year 3,000 wastelands in the Time Force/Wild Force teamup...).
    • Jossed: Dr. K created the Venjix virus and later released it to hack into Alphabet Soup's system so she could escape, but she was caught before she could install a firewall to prevent its spread beyond Alphabet Soup. By series end, no apparent direct connection between the Venjix virus and General Venjix of the Machine Empire was made. Could still be considered a possible Internal Homage though, given both Venjix characters are machine-related in some manner.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Tenaya 7...who dresses like an action figure and looks like a model. It's kind of hard to hate an antagonist that looks like Tenaya 7.
  • Fan Nickname: Terminator: the Power Rangers Chronicles
    • Clusterf*!k Megazord for the RPM Ultrazord. (Note: this is also given to Samurai HaOh from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, which has the same number of components and similar awesomely cluttered design.)
    • Commander Leeroy Jenkins for Cmdr. Murdock from "Heroes Among Us".
    • The Marmite Twins for Gem and Gemma.
  • Hell Is That Noise: If you're in this series, and you hear a whistled instrumental version of "The Farmer in the Dell", and you're not a Ranger, run.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Gem is played by Mike Ginn. Which was the catchphrase of the silver Tiger zord back in Go-Onger. Hmm.
    • Another one involving Gold and Silver - the space-shuttle dagger they use was called Rocket Dagger in Go-Onger, but renamed in-universe to Rocket Booster in light of a recent fatal stabbing incident in Japan. RPM takes it in a different direction by naming it the Cloud Hatchet.
    • One of the demo themes contained a certain line that, at the time was quite sad, considering the show was facing cancellation. But now that the show's been renewed, the line "Don't they know we'll find a way / Power Rangers are here to stay", seems almost prophetic.
    • Another Mike Ginn example: He starred in this Mazda ad. Now take the theme of the current series...
      • ...and the PaleoZord's glowing dragon motif making it intact from Go-Onger in 'Ancient History.'
    • When James Maclurcan visited the set of Go-Onger in Japan, taking pictures with the actors while posing with his helmet from Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, people were expecting a formal Sentai-and-PR collaboration - instead, we get that very helmet being dug up from the ruins in 'Ancient History.' Of course, this could be Harsher in Hindsight, if that's something left over from other Ranger teams' attempts to stop Venjix.
    • The little-known Kiwi show Maddigan's Quest, starring Rose McIver and Olivia Tennet, with a guest appearance by Milo Cawthorne, has several examples:
      • The show had an episode in which Rose McIver's character had to rescue Milo's and Olivia's characters from an underground toxic waste dump. Guess who rescues Ziggy and Dr. K from the cave in "If Venjix Won"?
      • Even earlier in that episode, Milo's character Bolek throws a tomato at Olivia's character Lilith. It seems that the two actors have experience giving each other's characters a difficult time.
      • In another episode earlier in the series, the traveling circus troupe stay overnight at a place called Greentown. The tunnels look exactly the same as the Alphabet Soup complex Dr. K, Gem, and Gemma grew up in. And, yes, a character played by Olivia Tennet spends some time in that complex.
      • Rose's character Garland falls in love with a tortured and mysterious boy from the future named Timon who, like Dillon, has been infected by the Big Bad.
    • A couple of Olivia Tennet examples:
      • Remember all of those "Odin's beard" comments from Flynn? Olivia recently appeared as a one-shot character on the Kiwi comedy The Almighty Johnsons as a potential mate to the show's main protagonist named Axl, who is the human incarnation of the Norse god Odin. Sadly, he has no beard.
      • And remember the scene in "The Dome Dolls" when Ziggy wakes up from the male-specific sleeping gas and then mentions his dream to Dr. K about being on a date with her? Well, it turns out that Olivia has been dating Milo Cawthorne. The Kiggy shippers rejoiced, natch.
    • This wasn't the first time a parody Super Sentai series was adapted into a Darker and Edgier plot. But this one was much better received.
  • Hilarity Ensues: Ziggy is a lovable coward, comic relief guy who accidentally becomes the Green Ranger. He proceeds to be...A lovable, slightly less cowardly, comic relief Power Ranger who bumbles his way through fights. And usually win.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Scott and Dillon. Particularly in "Dome Dolls", notice where their hands are after succumbing to the "XY sleep agent"...then again they did spend an episode chained to each other so it's not that surprising.
    • Also, if the pool stick in the "Dome Dolls" scene were a little bit more to the left...
  • Holy Shit Quotient: Several.
    • The season opens with the entire world being destroyed by a sentient computer virus and the last major battle in a Robot War. Although other planets may have been destroyed by villains in past seasons, the near total destruction of Earth has never happened before on Power Rangers.
    • Then, in "Ranger Green", we find out why Ziggy has a problem with the Scorpion Cartel: He took a bus filled with black market medicine and, instead of driving it to the designated location, he risked his life by delivering the supplies to an orphanage of children struck with gamma sickness.
    • Then, in "Ranger Red" and the "Ranger Yellow" two-parter, we find out that Scott and Summer lost people close to them in the war. And they don't come back.
    • In perhaps the biggest example, in "Doctor K", we find out that Dr. K, the creator of the Ranger Series technology, was captured at a young age by a government organization named Alphabet Soup, and was made to work on experiments for many years. Then, we find out that she was the one who programmed Venjix in the first place while she worked in Alphabet Soup. And she released it when she tried to escape captivity, along with her friends Gem and Gemma. Worse yet, Alphabet Soup did absolutely nothing to stop it and even contributed to its spread by not allowing her to install the firewall that would have kept Venjix inside the compound. The handlers even tried to assassinate her when she tried to escape again after Venjix forces began attacking in order to cover up Venjix's origins.
    • Then, in "Blitz", Dr. K mentions to Dillon and Summer that the Sat-Bot triggered an initiation code which activated the Venjix virus previously dormant inside of his robotic parts. It is slowly taking over, and there is no way to reverse it.
    • Then, in "Brother's Keeper", Dr. K enters the base code for the Venjix virus before Dillon falls completely to its control. Then, to everyone's horror, she drops the bombshell revelation that she was the one who wrote and released Venjix.
    • Post-"Belly of the Beast", Dillon gets flashbacks of his time as a Venjix captive, including one in which he woke up in an operating table next to his sister, along with a dozen or so other people--all of them having received robotic upgrades. Human experimentation. On Power Rangers.
    • Then, in "End Game", we find out Venjix's true plans: Remember all of those attack bots which attacked Corinth? All just a distraction. Venjix has been sending hybrids into Corinth. In fact, over half of Corinth is comprised of hybrids. Then, Tenaya 15 activates them, allowing Venjix to walk in and take over Corinth.
    • Finally, in the "Danger and Destiny" two-parter finale, Venjix "deletes" Gem and Gemma . . . only for Dr. K to gain them back later, thus letting them drop a giant building on top of Venjix in the second part's climax. At the end of the episode, we see a glowing red light as a familiar tune plays in the background...
  • Memetic Mutation: Say it with me now: "THAT IS NOT SPANDEX!" Or, if you prefer, "AH'M SCOTTISH!!!"
  • Moe: Dr. K.
  • Needs More Love: Disney doesn't love this one (see the main page)...and yet you know you need to love this more when freakin' Saban tries to distance from it. In this interview related to Power Rangers Samurai, Elie Dekel, President of Saban Brands, mentioned that their newest installment would restore some of the "humor" that had been missing from Jungle Fury and RPM. Also, in their first promo since the reacquisition, hardly any scenes from RPM are shown.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: The list includes Diggy, Dummer, Kiggy, and Flemma.
  • Recycled Script: "If Venjix Won" is a new episode written around the same premise as "Legacy of Power" back in Dino Thunder - the mentor is somehow separated from the team, whose attempts to find her lead to unlocking past footage for a Clip Show.
    • Similarly, there's an enhanced human all alone before meeting up with a preexisting team of Rangers. He's looking for his long lost sister who had been taken from him. A major villain is a pretty girl who despite being young is a trusted Dragon. As the enhanced human begins a romance with the Yellow Ranger, he figures out through his necklace that the Dragon girl is his sister and she switches sides to help him. She is then kidnapped and programmed to be dedicated to evil alone. Near the finale he is able to both save his sister from evil and be a couple with the Yellow Ranger. Sound familiar?
    • Green Ranger falls in love with the techie chick. Shades of Lightspeed Rescue, anyone?
  • Retroactive Recognition: Yet another aspect of RPM that is unique among Power Rangers: The Rangers' actors all had substantial prior acting experience before becoming Rangers, as opposed to the majority of the other seasons where the show serves as the first big job for many young actors.
    • Ari Boyland of The Tribe as Flynn
    • Rose McIver from The Lovely Bones as Summer. She filmed scenes for that movie before joining the cast of RPM.
    • Li-Ming Hu and Olivia Tennet from Shortland Street as Gemma and Dr. K respectively.
    • Dan Ewing from Home and Away as Dillon.
    • Adelaide Kane from Neighbours as Tenaya 7.
    • Prior to RPM, Rose McIver and Olivia Tennet starred in a little-known children's post-apocalyptic fantasy series titled Maddigan's Quest as Garland and Lilith respectively. Milo Cawthorne appeared in one episode as an important one-shot character named Bolek. Here is a clip of all three of them in the episode "Newton".
    • Plus Olivia had a bit part in The Two Towers as the girl who flees with her brother when Orcs invade Rohan. Now all we need is for someone to have been in The Return of the King and we'll have the whole trilogy.
    • Olivia Tennet and Rose McIver appeared in episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys respectively.
  • Scapegoat Creator: Judd Lynn, coming in to replace Eddie Guzelian midway through the season. Even before the episodes he actually created had aired, some fans had him pegged for stuff he could possibly do to screw up the season.
  • Ship Tease: Summer and Dillon, Summer and Scott, K and Ziggy, Flynn and Gemma. Really, Gem was the only one out of the loop.
  • Stoic Woobie: Dr. K.
  • Tear Jerker: The last scene of the episode "Ghosts". Doctor K's reaction was sweet and touching.
    • The last few scenes of the series has two. One where they were returning their morphers and Ziggy quietly, and not just a little bit sadly, says "Get in gear". And the second where Dillon returns to a flower we saw in the first scene. I....I think I have something in my eye.
    • "Doctor K" could well count as a Tear Jerker episode. Someone please give her a hug.
  • They Just Didn't Care: Ironically, this is probably the only reason that RPM worked as well as it did. Disney had been trying to kill Power Rangers since Wild Force and the show's options had finally run out. They had canceled the show after Jungle Fury but they decided to do one more because of contractual obligations. Disney told Eddie Guzelian that the show was already dead and he had nothing to lose. This led to Guzelian swinging for the fences and making the best season in a long time (if not ever.)
    • Apparently, Alphabet Soup cared more about keeping themselves secret than to provide the world with the only means of keeping Venjix from spreading.
  • They Wasted A Perfectly Good Battle: Dillon had his Venjix virus surpassing 50% of infection level and we didn't get a Black vs. Red (or Yellow, or Green) battle.
    • The final battle of Go-Onger was pretty dang epic for how comical the series was. Venjix doesn't even grow himself to giant size at all and gets blown up by a building getting dropped on his head. They couldn't have used the Go-Onger footage for a true final battle?
      • Well, it's possible they couldn't edit the footage as the Go-On rangers appear without their helmets.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Barring Gem and Gemma (who are nuts) and Koichi's wife, most Asians seen in the show appeared in the pilot's prison brawl.
    • Add to the list that there is only one woman in all of Corinth who has clearance to operate the HQ.
    • They made an active attempt to avert this in "The Dome Dolls", making it a point that the problem was losing a portion of their defense force and not losing men specifically.
  • The Untwist: It took twenty-five out of thirty-two episodes to confirm that Tenaya is Dillon's sister. Everyone Knew It. No, literally, Everyone knew it...The fact that this particular subplot was done before made the whole thing completely obvious.
    • The Un-Reveal: Until then, most obviously in "Prisoners", the series seemed to be playing keep away with the secret.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Everything that's happened so far is because Dr. K wanted to go outside the Alphabet Soup facility, where she had been imprisoned (under the pretense of a sun allergy) for the last decade. Since it was never intended for the Venjix Virus to spread beyond Alphabet Soup, this also crosses with Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds.
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