Power Rangers has always been a show that switches between So-Bad-Its-Good and Just-Plain-Bad-And-I'm-Embarrassed-To-Still-Watch-It, but Mat and Michael's podcast covering the Power Rangers franchise makes the trip much enjoyable, either way. Rarely actively negative about the show, the two hosts give off a vibe that's hard to come by for nostalgic podcasts: they aren't mad about the failures of the show, they're just disappointed because they want it to be better than it is. There's a richness of tone to the way the hosts cover the show that I've always been impressed with. Mat and Michael sometimes approach this show from the perspective of a teen drama, rather than a show for children. It would've been simple to brush over the bad American acting for the robot fights we loved as youths, but the earnestness of the hosts means you'll agree with them when they sigh and wish an episode of Power Rangers didn't have the monster fights getting in the way of a good b-plot. They pull off this by empathizing and respecting the times when the show actually treats the characters as actual people. An episode might diverge slightly to talk about the notion of peaking as a person in high school, or be excitedly praiseful when an episode's b-plot is a character whose rug was just pulled out from under him for having attained enough high-school credits to graduate a year before their friends. Don't take this as assuming that the show is dry or boring, far from it. It's packed with energy and humor, as well as acknowledging that the show is for dumb children. It's a rare show where a host will claim to hate the show, only to say they love it in the same episode. One of the only criticisms I have of the podcast is what I suspect a lot of its fans would consider a bonus, so take this with a grain of salt: outside of reviewing Power Rangers in order, the show regularly diverges to cover other PR-related things: movies staring ex-Power Rangers, Power Rangers comics, and even newer Power Rangers shows. While it does expand and improve the show's brand, these are things that I personally aren't as interested in. It's telling just how fun this podcast is that it can be annoying when a you really want to hear them cover an episode, only to realize it's going to be another week because something *else* is being covered. Sometimes, their audio quality (especially earlier episodes) is a little hazy and echo-ey. It's rarely a dealbreaker, but there are a handful of episodes that I simply couldn't get to. All in all, there's a reason why my normally watch-for-a-while-and-move-on Power Rangers kick has become a more long-term interest in an old, bad show that I should hate.

Covering the uneven-in-quality show that is burned into the brains of most people who grew up in the ninties, hosts Jake and Josh bring a unique energy to their covering of every episode of Power Rangers in existence. When the show manages to put in effort, you share in their excitement. When the show (regularly described as a "Dumb Show For Babies" by the hosts) slums it, it's not hard to share their exasperated annoyance at what is happening off-screen. The podcast is well-paced and edited crispy, resulting in a podcast that never feels its length. However, no podcast is perfect, and Morphin Grid has a few flaws. The show's What-Is-The-Pink-Ranger-Wearing segment is an Schrodinger's Cat of being simultaneously two men being confused about what the 90s considered Cute Lady Fashion... and two men being slightly too thirsty over whoever is playing the Pink Ranger at the time. The segment avoids being actively awkward, but doesn't avoid a mild case of the ok-we-get-it-we-all-fell-in-love-with-Amy-Jo-Johnson from time to time. The show also has a penchant for derailing itself on professional wrestling tangents and references, which can be alienating to listeners who made it a point to not watch that stuff since the days of... well, Power Rangers. Lastly, there are some minor technical errors in the podcast, specifically in the range of early episodes. A large amount of the early era of the show is shunted onto a second podcast, a podcast which is spotted with missing episodes. It speaks to the quality of the show when it can be honestly disheartening to want to hear what the hosts said about a specific episode, only to have to go to their website to listen to it. Overall, The Morphin Grid is an outstanding podcast for a not-always-outstanding television show, well worth the occasional pothole.

I wish I would enjoy this podcast more than I do. The hosts are generally funny and the gimmick (one who has watched The Next Generation too much, one who hasn't watched enough) is solid, but the podcast runs into a core flaw relatively quickly: the editing. The host's refusal to edit out technical errors and glitches, random diversions, and conversations with people in the room means each episode runs needlessly long - often far longer than the episode in question. I'd slot this in as a curiosity for a specific episode; not worth it for full listening.