Power Rangers: Dino Thunder are the twelfth generation of Power Rangers. This season was based on the 27th season of Super Sentai - Bakuryuu Sentai Aba Renjaa (English: Explosive Dragon Task Force Aba Ranger).

A soccer player, computer expert, a singer, and a teacher join forces to become Power Rangers and help save the Earth from mutant dinosauric beings that wish to eradicate all human life and return Earth to the age of Dinosaurs.

In this season, Tommy Oliver, of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to Power Rangers Turbo fame, returns as a paleontology teacher in Reefside, California. When three of his students, Conner, Ethan, and Kira, are assigned to him while he handles detention, they end up finding the Dino Gems, paving the way for them to become the Dino Thunder Power Rangers. The team later adds to its arsenal Zords based on the Pachycephalosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Ankylosaurus, Dimetrodon, and Stegosaurus, the last of which combines with Trent Fernandez's, adoptive son of Anton Mercer and the evil White Ranger, Zord, a Tuxapara to form the Dino Stegozord. Tommy pilots the Brachiosaurus Zord, the carrier for all the other Zords. Zeltrax is actually Terrence "Smitty" Smith, an old associate of Tommy's. Elsa poses as Principal Randall at Reefside High School, and Mesogog has an alter-ego as businessman, Anton Mercer.

One episode features the Dino Thunder Rangers seeing a dubbed version of their Sentai counterpart, Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger on TV.

Also, there is an episode that wasn't broadcasted along with the rest of the series, and was kept secret until recently; and for good reason, because this "secret episode" features Kira and Ethan, looking into the future, and seeing a preview of the successor to their series, Power Rangers: Space Patrol Delta (SPD).

In general, this series has not been afraid to admit its campiness and poke fun at itself, owing partly to the fact that Jason David Frank is somewhat of an homage to days gone by in the series. In one episode, after Tommy receives his powers (again), he mentions he needs to go shopping. When asked why, he says that he doesn't have enough black clothes in his closet; this is the first outright reference to the fact that since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, all rangers have dressed in casual clothes with some degree of their Ranger color on it.

Rangers

• Tommy Oliver, the Black Dino Ranger, and mentor of the team (played by Jason David Frank)
• Conner McKnight, the Red Dino Ranger (played by James Napier)
• Ethan James, the Blue Dino Ranger (played by Kevin Duhaney)
• Kira Ford, the Yellow Dino Ranger (played by Emma Lahana)
• Trent Fernandez, the White Dino Ranger (played by Jeffrey Parazzo)

When they say, "Super Dino mode", the Power Rangers tap into the power of the dinosaurs, gaining spikes and, in the case of Kira, wings.

Villains

• Mesogog
• Elsa
• Zeltrax
• the White Ranger Clone
• Dino Thunder Monsters

Allies

• Cassidy Cornell
• Devin Del Valle
• Hayley
• Dino Thunder Arsenal

The Comic Strip

A new monthly comic strip based on the series appears every issue of Jetix Magazine in the UK. Jetix Magazine is the official mag of JETIX, the channel that shows Dino Thunder in the UK.