Watching That's So Raven in my underwear, why do you ask?

I somehow watched a full hour of Power Rangers Mystic Force this morning. I'm not sure what caused this, I didn't plan it, but I've been sick and also on painkillers from my dentist, so I think I kind of zoned out. I'm actually pretty sure, it was about 20 after the hour when I realized it had come on after whatever else I was watching and I hadn't done anything about it.

Not that I have anything against kiddie shows, or superhero shows, or even cheesy costumes; I'm a fan of all three. I can watch an hour of "That's So Raven", although that is pushing my limit, I don't think I could take a third episode in a row. TSR is probably what ended and led me into PRMF, now that I think of it. Not probably, definitely; I just read the title of this post.

I have to give the producers credit, the Power Rangers have been around for a long time, and they have managed to change the format over a dozen times without changing the content all that much. I noticed much better production values since the early days when I first checked it out. They are limited in what they can show; they have to show battle scenes that are exciting and action-filled, all the while being sure to show that no one is seriously injured, including the bad guys. This requires a lot of explosions followed by people (or creachtures of some kind) flying through the air, and the requisite 'I'm Okay' sitting up and shaking their heads. "Yikes, what a whollop!" The choreography and camera work has got to be painstaking, it looked as good as the average Jackie Chan or Jet Li thing. The acting and script, unfortunately, were also as good as the average Jackie Chan or Jet Li thing.

This particular twofer of episodes was the last two of a several parter, something about a bad guy wishing that they had never become Power Rangers thus taking all the color and music from the world, enslaving Humanity, etc. The PRs ventured to some council of genie-wish-reversal-capable entities in red, black, and white flowing robes. One color each, they looked a bit like some nice chess pieces I used to have, other than there being three colors, of course. Oddly familiar, probably stolen from a forgotten film I've seen. They denied the request, leading to the episode where they, of course, reconsidered based on the determination of the PRs to continue fighting even without their magic. Gumption rewarded, ah the lessons we learn. I'm not really sure what happened after that but I'll venture a guess that it was all back to normal for the PRs. I won't know for sure since by the time they got their powers back I had realized I was watching the Power Rangers and found something else to do.

It reminded me a lot of pro wrestling, except without all the gay. NTTAWWT, I am very pro-gay rights, but that doesn't mean I want to watch thinly-to-not-veiled-at-all homo-erotic storylines featuring oily men in underpants and boots beating on each other. It doesn't make it any more appealing that they have oily superbabes as well; I have access to porn. I'm actually a little skeeved out by the heavy-handed mixture of violence and sex, so maybe I'm not as jaded as I thought. I know a lot of folks enjoy the hokey storylines and the athleticism, and I remember watching in the mid-seventies, when I was in single digits, but I just don't have any interest now. I suppose there is something very masculine about watching what is basically a bad soap opera as long as there is 'whup-assing' going on, I just can't get into it. I'm comfortable with my manitudinousness enough to watch actual soap operas for my hokey storylines fix.Then again, Mexican soap operas offer horrendous acting and superbabes with the added bonus that I don't understand enough to feel bad that I don't care. And Mexican wrestling, well that's just downright entertaining, maybe I should rethink all of this.

I won't though.




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