So might as well put my two cents in as I got around to watching it last night. This episode had a lot of greatness, but there was also some things that need some work. I have to say that the thing this probably had going against it the most was the hype. It was made out to be vastly superior to PR and well it didn't work out quite that way.
First I want to compliment the action. It was pretty smooth for the most part. Especially the unmorphed fighting and they added some new dynamics that PR could certainly learn a few tricks. The special effects were stellar. The "Kamen Rider" sequence was sick. I also loved the theme song. I'm surprised to look back and see so much hate towards it. It's better than a good number of PR themes and captures the theme of the show, so yeah.. I like it.
Stephen Lunsford did a great job with Kit. He was definitely the strongest actor this week. Matt Mullins did a good job nailing his character. I've noticed a lot of people complaining about him in particular but I think he played the character well. I loved when he wrecked the girl's camera.
While the story is off to a slow start, you definitely get the sense that not all the cards are on the table. I know, pun intended. We don't entirely know what's going on and it looks like the story might actually go somewhere. I have a feeling we'll see a lot of cliffhanger endings. That'd be nice.
Okay, so now I have to get into some of the things that feel like they need work. Some of the acting is below par even for Power Rangers. There weren't really any winning character moments. The supporting cast while it looks like they could add a fun dynamic to the show - really haven't clicked. I think a lot that may have to do with poor ADR and I don't usually complain about this, but it really feels like it could use some work. You shouldn't be able to tell that there's ADR during the regular civilian scenes, but there were certain places where it felt too obvious.
A minor thing that stood out to me was how obvious it was that this was filmed in widescreen but edited to be not so when they showed the sign outside the hangout place - making it unable to read. I know this is mostly the fault of the network but it still caused an eye roll.
Someone else mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary silence during some of the action scenes and I totally agree. They said that there were several scenes where it felt like you could hear a pin drop even when they were fighting. I appreciate that they didn't want to insert a bunch of one liners all over the place, but something seemed lacking or maybe I'm just not used to it. It's hard to tell right now but I think it's the former.
That's all I can think of right now. Overall, I did enjoy it and was really pumped during certain parts, but I couldn't help coming away from it a tad disappointed. Maybe if they hadn't told us that it was at the level of Heroes and Lost, I would've enjoyed it more. I didn't feel this way when I saw the pilot so I'm probably right.
Bottom line: Good show so far, but room for improvement. Hopefully as we delve more into the story of Ventura and Xaviax things will get much more intense.
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