The Charge

"Leave my mother out of this!"
—Kamdor

The Case

Volume 5 brings the final seven episodes of the Operation Overdrive saga. Fight back those tears!

"Red Ranger Unplugged"
The Rangers square off with a female dog-monster named Crazar, an enemy the Mercury Ranger appears to have an intimate knowledge of. But that's not the worst of it—some sinister magic leads to Ranger clones, forcing our heroes to battle themselves. Meanwhile the Red Ranger is grappling with the news of his true identity and embarks on a voyage of self-discovery.

• "Home and Away, Part 1"
The Fearcats are on the march and have secured something called the Octavian Chalice, which they're hoping to use to become all-powerful (shocker). The Rangers will have to defeat them without the help of the Mercury Ranger, who finds himself on a wacky flashback trip, reunited with his formerly dead girlfriend.

• "Home and Away, Part II"
Having received a major trouncing at the hands of the Fearcats, now juiced up on the powers of the Octavian Chalice, the Power Rangers crawl back to home base and work on their dilapidated Zords. Will the Mercury Ranger find his way back to Earth in time to help his hopelessly overmatched pals?

• "Way Back When"
The Rangers forget what the heck's been going on for the past few months and decide to catch up on the details. Translation: lame clip show!

• "Two Fallen Foes"
The Rangers can almost smell the remaining jewels for their magic Corona crown and head off to Greece with the Chalice and unleash a series of special effects to find out the where the jewels are. Then one of the bad guys turns into a humongous blue jay.

• "Nothing to Lose"
The forces of evil are dropping like flies and Moltor decides to bring the fight to the Rangers. But how to retrieve the crown from Moltor's lair, an active volcano that—as Spencer the helpful butler notes—is uninhabitable for humans? Send in the Red Ranger for the mother of all one-on-one fights! With Moltor weakened and desperate, he reluctantly asks his brother Flurious to help. but Flurious a dick and betrays him and ends up with the crown and the Mercury Ranger's girlfriend and—it's on!

• "Crown and Punishment"
The Rangers locate the final jewel, but Flurious shows up at their headquarters uninvited and manages to escape with the fully-jeweled Corona crown, setting up the final confrontation for the fate of the world.

And that's all, folks. After five volumes worth of screaming and hyperactive martial arts and lumbering plastic nightmares and obtuse storytelling and plot devices and more pyrotechnics than all Whitesnake concerts put together, the tales of the Operation Overdrive Power Rangers have come to an end. There's enough brain-blistering sensory overload to wire the young viewers, and, combined with a steady infusion of chocolate cereal, possibly generate a clean, renewable energy source.

As ludicrous and cheesy as the series is, I have to confess, I kind of enjoyed it. And if I were 9 years old, I'd probably think it was the greatest thing ever. The series wraps up predictably (the Pinocchio comparisons will be unavoidable), but satisfactorily.

Full frame and 2.0 stereo continue to be the technical specs and a featurette on the Rangers' life lessons and the final installment of the interactive trivia-based "training course" game complete the extras.

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