This is a post I've been mulling over for a while. I haven't done this in the past because well, I know how much the fandom likes Tommy and JDF. After seeing Dimensions In Danger, I figured it was about time I did this one because oh boy that was way too much Tommy.
Let me just clarify something before I get into it: I don't hate Tommy Oliver as a character. I like him a lot. I'm simply tired of seeing him. The dude went through a lot during the Zordon era and came out on top. He earned his retirement from ranger duty by the time Turbo rolled around. My issue with Tommy is that arguably since Dino Thunder, he stopped being a character and purely became a marketing gimmick. Oh sure, he had an arc in Dino Thunder, but aside from being the mentor for the season, he didn't change very much once it wrapped up. It felt like he was there simply for a ratings boost. I like Dino Thunder but honestly, you could've replaced Tommy Oliver with anyone else and the story wouldn't change all that much outside of the episodes where its revealed he has a database on all the ranger teams and the episode where he fights his past powers in that coma dream.
.png/revision/latest?cb=20180829082903)
Now I'm also gonna provide a small review of Dimensions In Danger since it was the thing that sparked this. This is the most Tommy glorifying thing I've ever seen. This isn't a bad episode, I don't hate it or anything but it really needed a lot of work. The pacing moves way too fast and the fight scenes were so choppy they were sort of hard for me to follow. The old/new balancing of the cast is almost non-existent. You could legitimately remove every veteran except for Tommy and nothing would change. I legitimately forgot the Ninja Steel rangers were even in it until it cut back to them. Now for the Tommy stuff. He is god-moded throughout the whole thing. He gets captured, escapes from the villain's base with no assistance before the rangers sent to rescue him get close to the base, destroys the villain's robot making machine on his way out, and even saves the other rangers from an ambush. I'm sorry, thats too much even for Tommy Oliver. He crushed half of the villain's plan all by himself. It pretty much kills the tension when he does that. Oddly enough, the way its handled makes it feel like the exact opposite of the issue I had with the Legendary Battle. The major threat of the villain's plan was rendered irrelevant first and it felt like they were just cleaning up the leftovers when all they had to do is beat the big bad and his army of robot duplicates. I'm gonna be honest, the Master Morpher isn't that big of a deal to me. Its an ok idea but personally, I'd have just made it so that it combined all 4 of his powers into one. Yeah it would basically have been similar to Drakkon from the comics in that regard but at least it would give us something new and maybe more interesting to look at than just seeing him cycle through all of his suits and it might have saved time. While I don't dislike the idea of the Master Morpher, I really wish Tommy hadn't said "You may look like me but unless you've got a Master Morpher, you're just cheap copy". It just sounded kinda lame and only served to remind us just how outclassed the robot duplicate was. On top of that its a really blatant way to promote a new toy. How he escaped the villain's base also felt like it was done just to give him a way out. If you're gonna try to capture Tommy Oliver, you'd plan to counter his invisibility. Overall its a better anniversary than the Legendary Battle but thats not saying much.
Don't get me wrong, Tommy is powerful but not that powerful. Every big thing Tommy did in his seasons was possible because he had his team behind him. It feels like the special forgot that or ignored that just to say how cool Tommy is. Honestly, its that sort of glorifying that makes it feel like he has just become a marketing gimmick to me. Heck, even during the Legendary Battle all the promotion for that episode centered around the fact that Tommy was going to cameo. I get it, the dude is the face of Power Rangers and JDF is always willing to reprise the role. However, there is a fine line between iconic and overused, Tommy arguably crossed that line during the Legendary Battle. If I'm being totally honest, it irks me simply because Tommy stopped being relevant a long time ago. The special felt like it was trying to make him relevant again. The dude got more lines and screen-time than anyone else and he got to finish off the big bad in the Falcon Zord while everyone else simply shot at it with their blasters. Its a mistake to have one character out of sixteen involved in a team-up be the only one that matters at all. I honestly think its time for Tommy to take on the Zordon role now. He should purely be guiding newer rangers instead of fighting on the front-lines. Also for future reference, I'm not gonna review Ninja Steel because I missed a lot of episodes and have no plans as of yet to catch up on it.
