Tubular Teens with Titans Episode 1: Guardians

Welcome ladies, gentlemen and alternatively gendered individuals, to the first of a new long running project here on the blog. On this humble website, I’ve covered, comic books, movies, television shows and even the occasional novel, but I have yet to cover any audio dramas in any significant capacity. I find this to be a shame as audio dramas are actually one of my favorite and most frequently consumed forms of media. For those who may not know, I drive a lot for my day job, so I’m always looking for new forms of auditory entertainment, be they podcasts, audio books, or in this case, audio dramas. Since this is my first time covering something in this format, things might be a bit rough at first as we figure things out, but I promise to cover the material to the best of my abilities either way. But I digress, what exactly are we talking about today? That would be an audio drama series called Tubular Teens with Titans, an audio adventure series that pays homage to shows like Power Rangers while also celebrating LGBTQIA+ identities. I personally stumbled upon the series when a YouTuber I watch promoted it on their channel, thank you very much BeautyBabayagha. Well, as a fan of Power Rangers since the age of three and a friend to the LGBTQIA+ community, this sort of thing sounded right up my alley, so I decided to add it to my podcast rotation. At the time of writing this article, I am caught up with the series, which is currently on the eighth episode of its second season, and I have loved every second of it. This is clearly a labor of love by the creators and it shows. While it’s obviously borrowing a lot from Power Rangers and Super Sentai, it’s still enough of its own thing that I feel comfortable calling it a loving homage rather than a ripoff. Before we go any further, a word of warning. This article is going to contain spoilers for the first episode of Tubular Teens with Titans, and since I want you all to check out the series, I would highly recommend doing so before reading by downloading the episode wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, that out of the way, on with the show.

We open with the theme song, and while in my opinion, nothing could ever top the epic Ron Wasserman rock Masterpiece that is Go Go Power Rangers, this track still invokes the power rock feel that is common within the genre.

Our story opens proper with our narrator welcoming us to the city of Dragon Cove where a sinkhole is manifesting in the middle of the woods from which erupts a large vessel, operated by two reptilian humanoid creatures. These are the brother and sister duo of Erald and Hera who will be serving as our antagonists for the bulk of this season. The narration makes clear that Erald is the smaller of the two and a bit more inclined towards science whereas his sister Hera is more of a warrior, proficient in combat. We don’t quite know what’s up with these two just yet but it’s clear that they are searching for something. We also meet Hera and Erald’s large robotic associate, a being known only as Harbinger. No, it’s not assuming direct control or trying to kill Commander Shepard, but if you’re anything like me, you were thinking that. Judging from the way they speak to the two saurian creatures, it’s a safe bet that Harbinger is the one calling the shots here.

Meanwhile is a dark and cavernous room that is said to have remained undisturbed for millennia suddenly springs to life as a computer voice says “Guardian Protocols Have Been Initiated.” Five multi-colored spheres activate and are launched through a small shaft.

Not too far away, we join a group of high school students apparently having science class out in the woods. The first we are introduced to are Gwen Avalon and Ha-Nuel Yasao. While we don’t know much about them as of yet, the mere Decriptions of their clothing does a great job giving us a good sense of their character. Gwen is sporting a track suit, telling us that she’s an athletic type while Ha is described as being fashionably dressed in a stylish pink ensemble, which tells us that he’s very fashion conscious and takes a great deal of pride in his appearance. Oh, and for the record, anyone who says that pink isn’t a manly color, there’s a family of pro wrestlers in Calgary who’d like a word with you in their dungeon. Next, we are introduced to Benny Humo and his best friend Scarlett Watts. Scarlett would rather be on a virtual nature hike, but Benny is enjoying the chance to get outside and leaps, literally, at the opportunity to jump over tree stumps in order to prove his athletic prowess. Alone amongst the teens is my personal favorite character in the series, Jai Terra. Jai very clearly has a keen scientific mind, but they also appear to be lacking in social skills. As someone on the autism spectrum, I can relate. Jai soon finds themself getting bullied by a stereotypical mean girl named Desdemona and her stereotypical jock companion, Reginald. While not exactly a one to one comparison, these two appear to be filling the Bulk an Skull role in this series. As Reginald tries to throttle Jai for assuming he’s never read a book without pictures, Benny comes to Jai’s rescue. However, Reginald knows that because of Benny’s stint in juvie, he won’t try anything that would risk violating his probation. Well, this appears to set Benny off and once he wrestlers Jai out of the much larger teen’s grasp, Benny gets ready to kick some ass. Fortunately, Scarlett is able to de-escalate the situation before Benny can do anything stupid and the teacher, Ms. Paige Turner (Hah, pun name, gotta love it), breaks things up. Desdemona demonstrates that she is an awful person by misgendering Jai, twice, and calling the others a bunch of freaks, but Gwen, who apparently has a history with Desdemona appears to put the bully in her place.

Later, we join Jai at home tinkering in their bedroom. We also are briefly introduced to Jai’s mom who has a sweet habit of referring to Jai as Jellybean. Cute. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the window, which is strange because Jai’s room is on the second floor. Jai opens the window and a glowing green orb floats into the room. After thoroughly scanning the teen, a portion of it wraps itself around Jai’s hand, briefly liquifying and forming a ring and bracelet which Jai is unable to remove. Well Jai, I’d say odds are you’ve found either the Omnitrix or the manacle of Osiris, but either way, I’d say you’re in for rough times ahead. Concerned that if the government learns that Jai is now bonded to alien tech, they’ll taken them away to conduct experiments so they opt to keep it a secret for the time being, playing it off as a simple fashion accessory to their mother, who apparently doesn’t know what Star Wars is. Well, they say we can choose our friends but we can’t choose our family.

At Benny’s place, he’s in the middle of fixing his mother’s car. We learn here that Benny’s home life is not exactly the most stable. His mother is clearly loving, but as a single parent, she’s busy most of the time and relies on Benny to take care of a lot of things for her, which seems to lead to them butting heads a lot. As you might expect, another one of those floating orb, this time a red one finds its way to Benny.

As Gwen, who was mentioned to be the captain of the swim team, practices in her backyard pool, she has an encounter with a floating blue orb. However, before the blue orb shows up, we are given another insight into Gwen’s character, that being the fact that she places a great deal of pressure on herself when it comes to her athletic prospects.

Next is Ha-Nuel, who is currently relaxing on his bed and looking over his weekly to-do list. From the items on said list, we can infer that the well-dressed teenager is a bit of an over achiever and participates in many charitable endeavors. Good for him. However, you’ve probably figured out the drill by now as Ha-Nuel is visited by a glowing pink orb.

Across from the high school, we see Scarlett on the swing set listening to her Walkman. Side note, Allegra Rodriguez Shivers, who provides Scarletts voice, is an incredible singer. Scarlett’s dialogue seems to indicate that she plans to break into the school, though to what end we don’t know. However, before that can happen, Scarlett is, you guess it, visited by one of the orbs, this one somehow glowing black.

Cut to the next morning where the five teens are attending an English class taught by a particularly pompous sounding teacher when the bracelets that have attached themselves to the teens hands start emitting a ringtone. The teacher demands they shut off their pagers, but when the devices keep going off, the five of them are sent to the principal’s office. Once the teens have an opportunity to talk, they realize they all had similar supernatural encounters the previous evening. Just as they collectively come to this revelation, the bracelets start vibrating and glowing with increasing intensity. Definitely weird. Benny leads the five to the roof so they have a private place to discuss their situation. Each teen reveals their bracelets and each seemed just as stumped about what’s going on, that is, except for Jai, whose examination of their bracelet reveals that it seems to be receiving some sort of signal akin o WiFi. However, as the kids talk, the Bracelets begin to glow and a feint computerized voice mentions something about the planet being in danger and something else about Guardians. The voice identifies Jai as “Druidic Defender,” Gwen as “Hydro Hoplite,” Ha-Nuel as “Storm Sentinel,” Benny as “Pyre Paladin” and Scarlett as “Nova Knight.” Jai, being genre savvy, figures out that they’re in a Sentai series and deduces that the five of them have been chosen to protect the earth. Before anyone can wrap their heads around the magnitude of what’s going on, an enormous monster resembling the mythical Wendigo emerges from beneath the football field. Well, not sure what else to do, the teens decide to use their new powers to fight the monster, Gwen taking charge and making sure that if they do this, everyone is all in. And so the episode ends with the five teens exclaiming “GUARDIANS ENGAGE!”

This episode was mostly setup, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a first outing. Before the series drops us into the action, it’s important that we get a sense of who these characters are, and this episode did a great job giving us a sense of our five teens. Jai is the science nerd of the group who clearly is a bit of a loner. Gwen is athletic and puts a lot of pressure on himself. Benny is also an athlete, but also has a criminal past and a difficult home situation. Ha-Nuel puts a lot of effort into his appearance and may have a degree of vanity to that effect, but also clearly has a heart of gold and does his part for the community, given all the charity events he participates in. The only one who’s kind of a question mark at the moment is Scarlett, since we have no sense of her home life or why she’s breaking into the school in the middle of the night, but I promise, answers are coming. We also didn’t really get much from our villains, which would have helped to give us a greater sense of the threat our heroes are up against, but a giant Wendigo popping out of the ground accomplishes that well, and we can fill in the blanks in the episodes to come. So far, this series is off to a very promising start with some excellent character exposition that is naturally weaved into the events of the story. If you are so inclined, I highly recommend giving this bad boy a listen, and stay tuned to my blog for more coverage of Tubular Teens with Titans.