Well, Megaforce has begun and the first episode has hit the fans. After two years of Samurai, the fans were hanging out for something with a bit more substance, and "Mega Mission" delivered that along with the MMPR homages that were expected of the episode.
Theme Song
I guess I'd better start with the theme. It is awful, mainly because it's obscenely messy. Firstly, the beginning and end are different to the rest of the theme, it's like they got bits from another song and jammed them in as bookends. The transition to and from the body of the song is awquard and clunky, especially at the beginning. After the line "all together", there's a skip to the tapping part, and it feels like they cut ahead in the song but didn't cover the edit very well. The song is also far too busy- from the rangers yelling their names (on top of lyrics, of course), the singer doing his bit, and backing vocals coming out of nowhere to yell "MEGAFORCE!" just makes the song sonically cluttered and busy. Combine this with the music being overcompressed as to be a wall of sound with no dynamic texture (I'm not asking for anything massive, but hearing a transient in there somewhere would be nice) and you have a difficult to listen to theme. I would have been happier with a barely changed version of the Samurai theme.
Sound Editing
I don't normally talk about this, but it's so dreadful in this episode that it needs to be brought up. There are two big issues- firstly, during the fight scenes the music is ducked* to give room for the rangers' lines. This I have no issue with, because it's common practice. However, it's far too obvious and the drop in volume that happens when they speak is incredibly noticeable. I thought there was something wrong with the encode the first time it happened, it was so bad. One small point is Emma sounded like she was leaning a little too close to the microphone in a few of her lines, such as "You're so beautiful". That could be a product of the mixing though.
Story
The story is roughly a copy of "Day of the Dumpster", and I'm fine with that. Not only because it's a good back reference but because it's a good story structure. They dumped the scene where the rangers are all "pfft yeah right" but had the rangers accept their place pretty damn quickly. The rangers' characters were established quite well (thought Jake seems a little stalkerish) and the basics of the plot, though a little simple, were laid out. The villains didn't get much of a look in, but it's the first episode, that's the episode that's all about the rangers, so that's no problem. When Troy said that he thought that people will outlast everything anything else, my first thought was "because people will destroy everything else" but hey that's just me.
Small Points
I dislike the set for the base, it feels like a well dressed corridor. Perhaps after building the other standing sets they ran out of room on set and crammed the base into the space they had left. It seems odd that there would be a reference to Zedd's base, and I wonder why they included it. There are a few unanswered questions (which I tackle in the PIP) but that's not a big issue, there's plenty of time. The episode is really packed and could well have done with having more time to let the story breathe, but we have a lot of story to get through in 20 episodes, so it makes sense.
The Episode Overall
I really enjoyed it. The acting has improved, and the characters have... well, character. It's a little one dimensional right now, but there's plenty of time to grab what's been given so far and flesh out some interesting characters. What really brings me in here, is that the episode was a lot of fun. One reason I watch PR is that it's fun to watch and "Mega Mission" achieved this. There are some issues with this episode that I merely gloss over (Troy disappearing... for some reason) because as a whole it's an enjoyable, fun episode. Which is why I like it.
* In audio engineering, the effect where background tracks are pulled down in volume for the talking is called a 'ducker'. It's commonly used in supermarkets where the musak is brought down so people can hear announcements, price checks, etc
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