Adventure of the Galaxy Rangers

Best sci-fi show ever!

That little snippet without the song used to play as commercials on VHS tapes my family had as kids and for some reason this stuck with me until I started at the university and was searching through Youtube one day and found... The Adventure of the Galaxy Rangers! One got to hear that awesome intro music in full. And then I watched the whole show. Fantastic show. Of course it wasn't till now I actually got it for myself as a combined Christmas and birthday present. So me and one of my sisters spent most of Christmas and New Years Eve watching all 65 episodes. And it was a great. Although I gotta say the first episode is a bit on the slower side. Instead of introducing each and every character in the episode we are pretty much left with the intro which tell us that it is the year 2086 and two peaceful aliens have given us access to a hyperdrive that opened our gateway to the stars, but as always the final frontier is a dangerous place so mankind assembled a team of unique individuals with the highest ideals of justice, the Galaxy Rangers. And then they hit you with the song No Guts No Glory. And our four main characters is a cyborg, a psychic, a technician and a sharpshooter... or at least I get it from the intro. And then we are taken to the planet Kirwin where the humans and Kiwis are installing a planetary shield to protect the planet from the Crown Empire. Which of course attacks and kidnapps the humans. Meanwhile we see Zachery Foxx and his family (wife Eliza, son Zach jr and daughter Jessica) escorting the Kiwi ambassador Zozo and Andorian ambassador Waldo. They get attacked by the space pirate Captain Kidd who is only able to kidnap Zach's wife while blasting Zach's left side so that after the escape they installed him with cyborg implants and made him the captain of the Ranger 5-series unit they assembled. And that's pretty much it for the first episode. The second episode introduces the rest of the rangers like Doc Walter Hartford, the technician and I believe medical doctor as well? Niko, the psychic archeologist and Shane Gooseman, the super trooper soldier turned ranger with biodefences to adjust to any situation. Zach we already met and his special skill is turning his bionicarm into a cannon named Thunderbolt as well as receiving extra strength.They follow Kidd to Tortuna, a desert planet with the galaxys shadiest criminals to find the captive humans and Zack's wife. After a trip to the Queen of the Crowns psychocrypt they rescue most of the hostage except Zach's wife who is turned into a slaverlord, the queens "zombie"-projections that leads her robot armies against the League of Planets. And this is the set-up for the series. Fighting villains and trying to get Zach's wife back. And the occasional silly episode.

I REALLY like that song

So why do I like it? First the animation at times are really amazing. Especially on episodes where they really put the money where it's at. Easiest is the the only two-parter with the Sundancer. The first part, "the gift of life", isn't much in animation, but they really put effort in to the following episode as the same character that was introduced in the previous episode really got a change of emotions. And the space scenes were really well done, for example the Star Wars-homage in "The Edge of Darkness" or the giant space battle in "Armada". Secondly the music as mentioned is really good. But then again it might be my taste for 80's hard rock synthesiser. Thirdly, the writing is rather good. It isn't as cliched as these types of shows could be, villains and heroes are smart. We have a supposed timeline through the series and they didn't feel the need to always remind us what everything is or who everyone is (for the most time). Also it's one of the darkest kids show I've ever seen. You have several deaths that can't be explained away since they died in space, the episode "Rouge Arm" even takes it time showing two red shirt rangers opening an air lock to investigate destroyed robots on their ship and then proceeds showing the culprit closing the door, then press the button under it, it cuts to an outside view of the space ship with the open air lock and screams. People are forced to touch an alien relic the main character describe as an emotional electric chair. 

Even the song about the villain is good

Is something bad then? Well, there are episodes that are bad, like the "Mothmoose". Not the beginning since a kiwi that goes rambo on Tortuna to find the mothmoose is rather fun, the problem is the ending where Zach jr, Zozo and his brothers kids perform "Don't mess with the mothmoose" together with Buzzwang, the ranger robot that just complains and hardly does anything useful. No one likes Buzzwang. Usually Buzzwang episodes are the worst. Overall the episodes feels somewhat to short. This should have been 1 hour episodes like the live-action show "Stargate SG-1" to flesh out more of the characters and settings, or even the political workings of the different planets and their history. And the final complaint is that as stated the show has a timeline so you can follow the episodes (although I haven't found anyone that gives the correct order sinces the box clearly has some episodes out of order) there is no definite end. The last episode is just Doc restoring an ancient machine on the planet Tarkon so it can activate it's defences against the Crown armada. They don't save Zach's wife, they do hinder the Crown Empire and destroys much of their resources, but the queen is still the biggest threat against the League of Planets and Shane who has a special mission to catch the other super troopers don't catch them by the end of the series. I can except that, but the Eliza situation is a bit harder to swallow. Also, I don't get if it takes place in 2086 or if its a later date since it seems humans have colonised several planets outside our solar system. At least it's still far enough into the future that it might be possible that two aliens just land and hand over a hyperdrive to us. Also, isn't it a bit stereotypical that the first aliens we encounter is one hobbit like race that feeds the galaxy while the other is a elvish type philosopher/inventor race. And you gotta ask why they need humans, but the answer is obviously the sheer numbers and recklessness to be the military force of the League. Which is shown in that the soldiers and officers are all humans. At least I got 65 episodes to watch over and over again, although if I find an english version without forced german subtitles I might be inclined to double dip. Speaking of sci-fi shows.

Good god, what is that?

There were two pilot-episodes for other shows that came from King, the company publishing them. The first being "Defenders of the Earth" from 1985 with Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Lothar and the Phantom which I've seen before, but now I actually saw the rather poor animation job. Didn't help that it only was in german so I couldn't get most of what happened. And then it was Flash Gordon from 1979. Boy, what an experience. Rotoscoping and reused stock images and sequences. Character barely moving while struggling against a plant monster... and of course in german so I didn't get anything. That picture above is Ming doing his awful laugh. You gotta see how he jolts upward and starts laughing the most pathetic evil laugh I've ever heard. I'm not getting that series I can tell you know.

Still out there in space

Moving back to the better show its rather interesting to see that it was a lot of shows centered around wild west in space, Saber Rider and Bravestarr is two other shows I know about, only watched Saber Rider. Although I said earlier it's a bit stereotypical about the different aliens introduced first, farmers, philosophers and inventor and an evil robot empire they still have interesting bits about them. For example even tough the kiwis are farmers they are also great inventors in the field of genmanipulation for plants and foods as well as very aggressive when need be so they don't need to be saved all the time. The Andorians on the other hand is still pretty vulcan like, even though occasionally entering a state of primitive beast-like mentality if certain conditions are triggered, the Andorians for example turns into beast-like creatures as soon they are caged. And the Queens robot armies... are they really robots? They take bribes as any other living being and one of them even escaped the queen in the episode "Lord of the Sands" and stayed with some stranded human children as their mentor and guide and even was about to blow himself up since he knew as soon as his existence would be known he would be hunted down and the children he had protected would be turned into Slaverlords. Although certain question still arise, especially how long humans have travelled across the galaxy. Or are they not humans even though they look like it? It would really have been nice if it at least could have gotten an animated movie to end the whole series and now it's really no point. Cause now you gotta somehow reboot stand nothing good can come out of it even if I would wish. Doesn't help that Jeremy Orbach that played Zach died in the early 2000's. At least fix a dvd/blueray release where I don't have to watch german subtitles with the english voices as the only option to watch the show.