First Impression: RPM

I don't see much about R.P.M.'s actual premiere yet. Does this mean I'm early?

Yeah, right.

Anyway, just saw R.P.M.'s first two episodes a couple of hours ago.

Two words: Stupid awesome.

We get this really repetitive thing at the beginning of the intro that basically talks about how all of humanity has retreated to the domed city of Corinth. Don't worry if you miss it-it appears more or less in full in both the first two episodes' intros and again at the actual beginning of the first episode. (You've heard a bit of it before if you've seen the promo.)

Then, well...

I suppose I should mention that I'll get very spoilery at times; while my other "first impressions" was spoiler-low, I could understand what these guys were saying. Fair warning.

Okay, the first thing that struck me was the guy in charge of the Corinth defenses (Colonel Truman, unless I'm mistaken); when a guy asked what he was supposed to do after the shields were going to be put up before any more survivors could arrive, he says casually "Go shoot something." Now that's leadership.

Then, a guy drives up in a schoolbus and drops off a little kid to a desperate mother (after throwing out half of a grunt robot, which had apparently been cut in half by the bus door). And he is really freakin' Scottish. He's so Scottish, if he disna get an opportunity to say "The engines, Captin! They canna take the strain!" I will be sad. And yes, he gets to be a Power Ranger. Awesome. (He also gets to say "crap," which is a little more cussy than I'd expect from Power Rangers.)

The pacing, by the way, is very good. After the initial fight followed by the forcefield activation, we get a little more exposition (Colonel Truman is the Red Ranger's father, by the way, and before he was the Red Ranger, he was Eagle Two... Eagle One, his brother, is "gone"), followed by a cutaway to "1 year later..."

Anyway, if any of you had doubts that a "gritty" Power Rangers series is actually possible, well, there sure was a lot of grit... in the toxic desert. (rimshot)

By the way, Corinth looks like it's somewhere on the northeastern shore of Australia. There was this radio transmission blaring out of Corinth at all times relating that it was at this and that latitude and longitude, although I can't remember it precisely, and Google Maps isn't being helpful. Anyway, that was a surprisingly nice touch. (Edit: It turns out that the coordinates, 75 degrees north and 25 degrees west, go through Greenland. Oh, my, things have certainly changed there.)

And so we see this guy driving around in a muscle car while some music referencing hot cars and women's long legs is playing (I kid you not), and we see that he likes flowers, because when he sees a single tiny flower in the middle of the huge desert, he comes to a stop and gives it a bit of his precious water. Then he gets ambushed by grunt-bots, but counter-ambushes them much harder, leaving one to stumble to its knees and then fall to the ground... without anything above the waist.

More grunt dismemberment. Awesome.

Anyway, he's drivin' round, looking for Corinth, when some guy comes up behind him and starts threatening him. This is Ziggy. Ziggy is funny. Especially since Ziggy was using a muffler and exhaust pipe as a faux weapon, and this guy could tell. ("Four and a half inch blah blah blah... Probably pulled off that wreck over there.")

Then he threatens to beat Ziggy up, but Ziggy offers to take him to Corinth. "If you knew where it was, you'd be there." "Ah, well, that's an interesting story-" Ziggy has a lot of interesting stories, but the mysterious guy isn't too interested. Ziggy doesn't have anything useful but a Corinth city ID to prove he's actually been there.

So he's heading to Corinth and Ziggy's really annoying him, and Ziggy asks his name. "I don't know." Ziggy asks what he means, and he says "I don't know my name." Orly. About half a minute later he says "You can call me Dillon." Whatever you say...

By the way, "Dillon" has a penchant for lollipops. Take that how you will.

I mention it because Dillon decides he'll run the Venjix barricade... in broad daylight. Oooooh.

Nobody's ever done that before! (This sounds a lot like a lot of the "Super Impressive Intro" things they do for teams like this.)

Anyway, the barricade looks pretty pathetic at first. Just some of the grunt-bots riding lasercycles (they have more than one model, too...), chasing them. Then, a set of hundred-plus foot tall wall turrets with thirty-foot long cannons mounted on them pop up around the city. Oh, snap!

Of course, hyperbolic as it is, it stands no chance against "Dillon's" fast driving and lollipop-eating skills; he uses a lollipop to stick a thermal charge to a motorcycle, blowing it up, and then just starts chucking the things like grenades, eventually blowing a hole in the cannon wall which has enough smooth ground in it to drive through. (Ahhhhh logic.)

They get into the city, pursued by grunt-bots and more because the shields take a while to fire up... and then the Power Rangers show up.

"Dillon": What's a Power Ranger?

Heh heh heh. It's so funny seeing that after all these seasons of "OMG! Powar Ranjars! AWSUMSAUCE I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A POWAR RANJAR!"

And that's the first episode.

Part two aired thirty seconds later, of course.

Part two has a prison fight scene. No, really. It also has Ziggy being "broken" by interrogators (in response to the click of a pen), which means he gives them his life story. Which is funnier than it sounds, because the guards/interrogators actually seemed to be having a good time. (Also, a lot of stuff is implied by what he says that they would not have been allowed to actually say.)

And then, when they decide mysterious awesomesauce man must become a Powar Ranjar, he says "Do I get to pick a color?" even though they've chained him up and are holding him at gunpoint. Awesome.

Anyway, I have to say this is the most fun I've had watching a season intro... well, ever. Whoever is writing this (something Guzelian... Guzelian the alien?) is in my happy book. He somehow made it Teh Serius Bizness while making it really fun at the same time.

It could be that my low expectations for the season are helping this along, but this was seriously like the best first two episodes of any Power Rangers series I can remember. (That little POWER RANGERS: RPM thing they did every couple minutes was awful pretentious and annoying, but I'll allow it. [It was a little bit funny, I'll admit-but it's gonna get old fast if they keep it up.])

So now my expectations are high for the season. Darnit. It'll be fun anyway.