Top 10 Worst Power Rangers Seasons
Power Rangers, just like any other television series that has lasted for almost thirty years at the time of writing, has had good seasons and bad seasons. While we already did another video here at the FanVerse about the best seasons of Power Rangers, it’s time to get our torches and pitchforks to attack the top ten worst seasons of Power Rangers.
This list has been compiled by looking at characters, themes, stories, and storytelling. So fair warning, a lot of the entries are Super.
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10. Power Rangers Wild Force
So, let us begin this list with a trope that has gone on in the comment sections and the ranger boards for years: Power Rangers does not know how to do an anniversary season. The first iteration of this comes from the 10th anniversary of the series: Power Rangers Wild Force.
Power Rangers Wild Force did not begin with the best circumstances, in between Saban and Disney productions. Couple that with even the Super Sentai counterpart, Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger being universally panned, the writing team had some work on their hands. The story is wooden throughout the season and most of the characters are flat. The winning aspect of this series is the stellar team-ups in “Forever Red” and “Reinforcements from the Future” as well as the Cole and Master Org storyline. Otherwise, ouch.
9. Power Rangers Operation Overdrive
Our second anniversary season is just as many entries; Power Rangers Operation Overdrive takes our number 9 spot. While the idea of a team of explorers protecting the world from villains who want the ultimate power seems good, the execution was poor at best. The 32-episode format at the time was not enough to flesh out the very flat characters in Power Ranger’s first foray into serialized storytelling.
The team is often considered one of the weakest teams of all time; an element compounded by the two-part anniversary special “Once a Ranger”, which saw the team has their connection to the Morphing Grid severed and being replaced by past rangers. What saves this season is the twist halfway through the season dealing with the Red Ranger, Mack Hartford. It is a redeeming quality that the Corona Aurora can’t give.
8. Power Rangers Mystic Force
Take a step away from the anniversaries as we will get to those later and let us dive into the magical world of Power Rangers Mystic Force. Even though they may have some of the best costumes of the series, really because of the capes, Mystic Force suffers from one major issue: too much Nick.
Even though the team will eventually have eight rangers, everything is Nick-centered, who is an uninspiring and uncharismatic character, unlike Xander. Most of the team gets little time to shine or present their skills, even though they are just as good if not better characters than Nick. What also doesn’t help is the fact that everything that happened in the ancient battle 3000 years ago is more interesting than the actual season. Maybe they should’ve done it on that than what they actually gave us. Shame.
7. Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel
Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel takes the coveted number 7 spot on our list of worst Power Rangers series of all-time. This may come to a shock to some of you, but many of the writers of this video actually enjoyed the first season of Ninja Steel and had high expectations going into the second season after the first one and Power Rangers Dino Charge’s two-season run.
What hurt Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel was not the cast or the acting, which was good to a certain extent as they did what they could with the story. The problem was the story. The Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel season proved why the previous seasons were successful: story arcs that advanced the characters and made them likable. This made no effort to do that in any way, which is the maddening element of this season with good acting. But hey, we got “Dimensions in Danger” and Tommy and Kat together, so let’s smile and be happy.
6. Power Rangers Turbo
It is time to get to the soul-crushing entries on the list with Power Rangers Turbo. After six years of Power Rangers kicking butt on our screens with dinosaurs, ninjas, and extraterrestrial mythical powers, the rangers went to cars. And oh, was it bad. Why the Zeo Powers were traded for the Turbo powers may never be fully explained, but damn, do I miss the Zeo years.
During the first eighteen episodes of the season, the Rangers were stuck in this loop of finding Divatox’s bombs and destroying the monster. In addition, if that’s not good enough, Instead of following the Power Rangers into college and the next steps of their lives as we grew up with them, we traded Tommy, Adam, Kat, and Tanya for rookies in TJ, Carlos, Cassie, and Ashley with Justin, a kid. With no experience and no help from Zordon, the rangers were promptly defeated and the Power chamber destroyed, chasing the rangers into space.
5. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Season 2
The worst of the Mighty Morphin years is upon us with the second season of the show coming in at our number five spot. The second season of the show was a sharp decline in quality, not because of the acting, but mainly due to behind the scene issues that affected the quality of the show.
Through a good portion of the season, we were stuck with the exclusion of Trini or the separation of the team, those being because of the late Thuy Trang’s leg injury and her, Emmanuel Jones, and Austin St-John’s (Trini, Zack, and Jason respectively) departure from the show and the team. No matter what one wants to say, Tommy as the white ranger, the Thunder Megazord, and the transfer of Power are not good enough to overcome the behind-the-scenes struggles within the show, landing it here.
4. Power Rangers Super Samurai
Power Rangers Super Samurai was a step up from Power Rangers Samurai, but not a great one. While I could sit here and praise how great it was in comparison, that’s not why we are here: we are here to compare it to the rest of the series, which is why it is number four.
Most of the second season is relatively useless filler until you get to the great Shiba secret, which explains Jaden’s attitude throughout the first season. All the while, you get to learn a bit more bout Dekker and the resolution to his arc within the story. The rest? Not important, nor do I care.
3. Power Rangers Samurai
At number three, and the reason I do not care for the rest of Super Samurai is Power Rangers Samurai. The premise of the show is bad and arguably one of the most ill-conceived seasons of Power Rangers ever. That is saying something when we had a full season about fighting orgs unleashed by human pollution and not a single cop or government authority ever showed up.
The characters, whether it be in Samurai or Super Samurai, are flatter than ever. It’s so bad that three of the six rangers have a defining trait and not even a full name. There is no development, nor story. The most we know is that Mia can’t cook for her life, but can kind of sing… that’s not enough for a season. But apparently, they won’t learn.
2. Power Rangers Megaforce
Power Rangers Megaforce Is on this list at the number two slot for a number of reasons, some of which were said in the previous entries, so let us call them out. its wooden story is reminiscent of Wild Force, centered on a central red ranger character like Mystic Force, the other characters flat like Samurai’s seasons, too long as well as too repetitive in the ways of Turbo and Super Ninja Steel to finish with the lack of execution reminiscent of Operation Overdrive. That’s a Power Rangers anniversary season in the works.
The redeeming feature of this season, and the reason why it was accepted at the time of release, was mainly because it was the lead-up to the legendary battle in honor of the 20th anniversary. That’s it. Nothing else. The final episodes led up to what was supposed to be great and saved it from being the number one spot. Oh, that and Robo Knight learning what humanity is.
1. Power Rangers Super Megaforce
The number one spot is Power Rangers Super Megaforce. Already beginning with the desecration of the English language, this did not start well. I’m going to mention that the Super Sentai base for the show, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger was based on pirates and this season of Power Rangers does nothing to explain the change in theme; it’s not starting out well.
What hurts the season the most was the aforementioned lead-up to the legendary battle, which was also plagued with behind-the-scenes issues and ex-Rangers being uninvited to the festivities, à la Mighty Morphin Season 2. The stories were bad throughout the entire season, other than Orion’s arc. But then again, it’s Power Rangers, it’s Power Rangers, what was I expecting.