For those not familiar with Saban's strategy, they bought footage from Japanese Tokusatsu series (live action TV shows with super heroes). They then took the footage and built plots around them and filmed the non-action sequences with American actors and settings. In the case of Beetleborgs, the footage was taken from a series called Juukou B-Fighter (the B stands for beetle).
Big Bad Beetleborgs: Season One, Volume One is the first 27 episodes of the series. In this show, three kids, Drew (Wesley Barker), Jo (Shannon Chandler) and Roland (Herbie Baez) take a dare and explore an old haunted house in their hometown. The house is inhabited by a vampire, a Frankenstein monster, a mummy and a werewolf. While running away from the monsters, they also let loose another creature, a phasm named Flabber (Billy Forester). As a reward, the ghost grants the three kids a wish. They decide that they want to be Beetleborgs, their favorite comic book superheroes. Unfortunately, Flabber actually opened a doorway between the comic book world and the real world and four of the Beetleborgs' greatest enemies are also in the real world. Now, the trio spend their days fighting off the enemies that the Magnavores summon from the comic books.
Big Bad Beetleborgs: Season One, Volume One starts off with the kids gaining their powers and goes to the Shadowborg storyline. In the final episodes of this collection, the Magnavores use a piece of the Blue Beetleborg's armor to create an evil Beetleborg that is able to take all three heroes' powers. Their only hope is to get a hold of the comic's creator and have him make a new Beetleborg, the White Blaster Borg.
I can't really blame Saban for their attempt to recreate the success of Power Rangers. It was a hit, and I bet it was really cheap for them to produce given the fact that majority of each episode was stock footage and didn't have to be filmed. That isn't the case here; very little of each episode actually takes place with the kids in their suits fighting the enemy of the episode. As a result, a lot of the series depends on the kids, Flabber and the supporting cast of monsters and family members. After watching just a couple of episodes, its obvious that this combination of characters just doesn't have the longevity of the Power Rangers. The kids overact, the monsters are ridiculous and the biggest eyesore of the entire show is Flabber.
So why is Flabber so bad? Picture a bad impression of Jim Carrey playing The Mask, but as an Elvis impersonator and a large assortment of bad special effects to make him seem more supernatural. Each scene with Flabber in it makes him the centerpiece, but not in a "steal the scene" type of way, but more in a confusing spectacle, trainwreck manner. In a sense, the scenes that have Flabber in them only show how badly the other actors could be.
Unless you are already a major fan of the show from back in its short two-season lifespan, I can't really recommend this DVD set. The show was stiff feeling back in the day, and it hasn't aged well.
