Recap: Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, Episode 3 – The Underwater World
Mr. Hartford sends the five Rangers to pick up a book. Will doesn’t think all five of them had to go when he could’ve gone by himself. Mack says his dad probably has a reason for asking them all.
While Dax shows them some cool stunts in the plaza, Will hears someone crying for help. He sees it’s a window washer who is about to fall from the scaffolding so he morphs and quickly catches the man to bring him safely to the ground.
The others hurry over. Ronny asks why he just ran off without them. Will says he’s just used to working on his own like “a one man show.”
Back at the mansion, Mr. Hartford says he’s found some important information. Will notices Mr. Hartford is holding the exact same book he asked them to retrieve. Mr. Hartford apologizes for thinking he misplaced it.
Anyway, Mr. Hartford believes he has found the Lost City of Atlantis and there is a faint jewel signature emanating from there. Will says he can go alone, but Mr. Hartford says they will all go.
Just as the Rangers head out, the window washer from earlier casually walks into the command center. Turns out it was Spencer in disguise. He and Mr. Hartford are testing the Rangers’ teamwork. And unfortunately, they failed this time.
In S.H.A.R.C., Ronny says she can’t wait to switch on autopilot one of these days. Will suggests they should do it now, but Ronny reminds him Mr. Hartford told them to stick to the flight plan. Will says he’s not used to people telling him “No.” But Ronny tells him he better get used to it.
Despite that, Will does turn on autopilot and they zoom across the world.
Meanwhile, Flurious calls Norg to scold him for not finding any jewels yet. Norg just wanted to enjoy his ice cream. Later, he brings back a lump of coal he thinks he can sit on so it can turn into a jewel.
Flurious can’t take this nonsense. But Norg suggests they follow the Rangers. Flurious asks how in the world they’re going to do that.
Lucky for them, the Rangers come zooming above their heads.
Flurious summons a severe snowstorm that forces Ronny to crash land the ship on a beach.
Moltor calls in to his brother to ask for updates, but Flurious pretends to know nothing.
Will calls to ask Spencer to send the zords. Will and Ronny join Rose in her zord underwater as they search the ruins of Atlantis. Will suggests he take over from here, but Rose will not have anyone else driving her zord.
Mack and Dax remind them to be careful of the fragile ruins as well as making sure not to upset Neptune.
Will and Ronny swim into the ruins and stumble into the temple. They find a strange puzzle which ends up triggering something that raises Atlantis from the water.
Mack hurries in to save Will and Ronny.
Will says he had everything under control. Dax comments that he’d hate to see what it’s like when he’s in trouble.
Rose suggests they go into the temple together since it may be booby-trapped. Will decides to run in first himself with Ronny following. The others chase after them.
Will and Ronny find a secret door that leads them to a cavernous room. There is a stone bridge crossing over a pit of lava. Will and Ronny try to race across, but the bridge begins to crumble. Will almost falls over, but Ronny grabs him.
The Rangers continue to run across the bridge as it completely collapses.
They find something in the wall. Dax scans it and it gets a high jewel reading. Before he can grab it, it multiplies. Will thinks he can easily figure it out. But Mack remembers a situation like this from one of his books. He starts a chain reaction that blows up the copies.
Will is annoyed that Mack stole his thunder and he ends up accidentally knocking Ronny over the edge. He leaps to catch her and shoots a cable that allows them to swing to the other side, all while Ronny is able to grab the cocoon-like thing.
Will says the others are cramping his style so he grabs the cocoon to open himself. He runs off.
Mack tells Rose and Dax to find another way out while he goes to talk to Will.
Will tries smashing the cocoon on a rock. He wants the others to understand that he works better alone.
Mack says he can’t save the universe all by himself, but Will tells him to just watch.
Just then, Will loses grip on the cocoon as it flies over the edge. He leaps for it. But before he dies in molten lava, Mack grabs his hand. Will says he can save himself, but Mack insists to help him.
Mack reminds Will that they are a team and one day, he will probably have to lean him on him too.
“We’re only as strong as our weakest link. We need you.”
Dax, Rose and Ronny reach the beach. But Flurious is waiting for them.
The Rangers take care of Chillers before Flurious uses the temple ruins to create a large monster. The Rangers hop into their zords to take it on and then combine into the DriveMax Megazord.
The Rangers work together to defeat the monster and head home.
Mr. Hartford asks Will if they had any problems. Before he can answer, Mack says they did, but they were able to work them out as a team.
Will hands Rose the cocoon which she opens.
But inside the cocoon is a scroll.
Episode Thoughts
This was definitely a pretty standard teamwork episode. But there were definitely some parts of it that felt off. And it stems from the use of Boukenger footage. (Something that I would have never noticed when I watched OO as it first aired since I had not started watching Sentai yet at that time.)
What helps here is that it was still a very fast-paced episode. And the adventure scenes are not something you usually see on Power Rangers. So if there are some lines or scenes that may feel a little too forced or even jarring, other stuff in the episode made up for it a little.
The Atlantis scenes were definitely a little hard to match with the Rangers’ personalities. The positive is that the Rangers have their own personalities and are not just carbon copies of the Boukengers. The negative is of course trying to match the Boukenger footage to the Rangers. The scenes here aren’t easy (or cheap!) scenes to recreate in New Zealand. So they have to use the original footage and make it work any way they can.
So I’d say the weakest parts of this episode were the obvious differences you can seen between the morphed and unmorphed scenes. The unmorphed scenes where it’s the OO actors themselves, they are allowed to be the characters as intended. When they shift to Sentai footage, the Boukengers seem so different from the Overdrive Rangers that it’s noticeable.
Anyway, this episode really begins the serialized nature of the season. Each episode leads into the next. There’s hardly ever filler. And when there is, there’ll still be something that connects it with the rest of the season. I think that is a huge plus that keeps the season moving forward instead of screeching to a halt like other (RECENT) seasons.
I’ve seen comments from TPTB at Power Rangers over the recent years that say they can’t serialize the show because the kids can’t deal with it somehow. Umm… as far as I know, kids binge watch just as much as adults. And if anything, having a serialized series with cliffhangers keeps the audience coming back for more.
There is definitely a way to keep the episodes serialized in nature while still making them accessible as a standalone episode for anyone just tuning in for that one half-hour.
Overall, this was a solid episode.