Much like SPD, there was potential, the opening story, an hour long, was a bold move for the series as usual, giving it the appeal it needed, the episodes following it ranged from mediocre to good to excellent, and the quality seemed to really get better, could this beat SPD's record of crap?
No, following "The Gatekeeper", MF managed to succeed and accomplish the impossible, it made SPD look like Lost Galaxy. It was actually WORSE than the last season.
Bad acting, and a large amount of both minimal, and poor characterisation with the main cast. The background characters got most of the attention, maybe because there much easier and original to work on than translating a Sentai series and robbing PR of it's real appeal.
Unlike SPD, this time there was no star among the main Rangers other than Nick, as his mystery took center fold, heck, by the time the season was ending, it seemed Leanbow's arc was the writing team's favourate and he got everything the Rangers did'nt, character, a reason to care, a tragic history, and a very good actor. John Tui, who had done a marvelous performance as Commander Kruger, became "Daggeron, useless Dragon feeder" with an annoying Genie character and such a phoned-in portrayal, you could tell he knew they were'nt doing anything with him.
Bruce can write and produce a great first chapter, as demonstrated by the earlier episodes of SPD and MF, and his dialouge is really good for any character, but when it comes to a long term route for the season, he runs dry around the thirteeeth episode and can't follow it up, all he does is rely on the characters he's made to interact with the Rangers and those who oppose them. Not that every episode after "The Gatekeeper" was bad, we had gems such as "Heir Apparent" and the originality of "Mystic Fate Part One" [hide]featuring a battle scene that could have redeemed MF if it had been the centerpeice of the whole story and not just an excuse to destroy Rootcore[/hide] showing the season could of been as good a PR season as anything else.
So here's to Mystic Force...a second strike against the Vince Russo of the franchise, and much like Russo, he can produce a lot of good, but much more ****.
