Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 9, "For Whom the Bell Trolls"

As a fan of Power Rangers, I forgive a lot of things.  I don't scoff at the rubber monsters.  I don't roll my eyes at the empty model buildings.  I don't demand layered, thought-provoking content from the writers.  But when you pull the "it was all a dream" trick on me? Uh-uh, no way, unacceptable, get out of my face.  For Whom the Bell Trolls is an episode that takes up too much space in a season that is 80% space.  It hardly deserves a review, but it's a part of the show just like any other.  So whoop-de-do, yipee, here we go.  To the wonderland of the strange, the dull, and the all-around pointless.

It's hobby week at Angel Grove High, and Trini starts off the festivities with her collection of cultural dolls.  Her favorite (because it belonged to her mother) is Mr. Ticklesneezer.  Spying from her moon palace as usual, Rita gets the idea to mess with Trini through her dolls since she never got to play with them as a child.  She turns Mr. Ticklesneezer into a monster and he starts to capture things in his magic bottle.  Nothing's safe, including... a motorcycle! A tower! Planes, trains, and an automobile that just so happens to contain Billy and Trini!  Will the other Power Rangers be able to save them before the demented troll can give the bottle to Rita?

 "GOODIES!"

Well who the hell cares, because it was all a god damn dream.  Trini dreamed the majority of the episode up for no reason other than that the writers probably didn't know what to do with Ticklesneezer at the end due to him not really being "evil." Other than that, this isn't much different from other Power Rangers episodes in terms of weird content or danger, so pulling the dream nonsense on us is just baffling.  This leaves the episode with a plot hole bigger than Ticklesneezer's grin; Rita implies that her next big plan is going to involve Trini's dolls IN THE REAL WORLD, but then the whole execution is done IN THE DREAM.  None of it happened.  I guess Rita was just making an empty threat.  Lovely.

"It was all a dream..."

So let's talk about Mr. Ticklesneezer, who's name rolls off the tongue like a brick off a plateau. In his creepy toy form, he looks like a Troll doll infected with Joker toxin, and as a monster, he just looks like a really tired elf.  I know that he's not really a "bad guy," but he's so doofy and silly that the threat never feels real.  His gimmick is really unclear at first as well; is he capturing everything in one bottle and the stuff disappears?  No, we find out at the very end that he actually has tons of magic bottles, but whatever.  I really didn't care by that point.  Also: a monster that blinks AND his mouth moves? Don't blow the budget, guys...

 On the upside, I liked the bits of teen interaction throughout the episode, (Jason breaking boards? Bad ass.) and I always like Billy and Trini together for some reason.  Bulk and Skull were pretty funny too, though it was nothing to write home about.  The putty fight by the train station was pretty nifty; it's always good to see a new location and the action was great.  Hobby week could have given us some more information about the rangers, but we kind of just get stuff we know about them already; Kim likes gymnastics, Billy likes science, Trini likes culture... although I have to say, Ms. Applebee was hilarious during that scene.  Her face when Billy's volcano erupted! That had me rolling when I took the screenshot for this review. Also, does she not notice that her desk is covered in Billy's lava?

It's kind of everywhere.  You see it?  Right there?  Never mind. 

I always like little Easter eggs left in as a result of using Sentai footage, and this one is just nuts: there's a giant-size kid in the zord battle for just a few seconds, holding on to the Megazord's leg, and it is glorious in it's absurdity. They did a decent job cutting around it right until then, but man, once you see it you can't un-see it.  It won't be the last Japanese kid that sneaks his/her way into Power Rangers, but this might be the most entertaining of them all.  And thank God there was something entertaining about this episode, because it really stunk besides that.  Terrible monster-of-the-week, un-exiting plot, and a giant middle finger to the audience at the end gets this episode right down to the bottom of the barrel.

Mighty Morphin' Scale: 2/10

Power Rangers Scale: 1/10

I can't bare to give it my lowest Mighty Morphin' score, because without it, I could never have made this meme:

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 8: "I, Eye Guy"

Maybe I spoke too soon about Power Rangers making better use of its child characters than Zyuranger.  Normally, PR repurposes child characters from the source footage to be a rangers’ cousin, someone in a class they teach, or it has something to do with charity.  So it’s a bit perplexing when a kid just shows up out of nowhere and the teens are all hanging out with them like they're all friends. Case in point: Willy in I, Eye Guy. 

The ranger teens are hanging out in Billy’s garage with Willy, an improbably brilliant child who is presenting his new invention at the science fair that day. He’s created a pair of virtual reality glasses that simulate the feeling of a roller coaster, but due to Bulk and Skull’s antics at the fair, Willy’s invention is disqualified.  Feeling sad, he wanders off to the lake, where Rita’s new monster made entirely out of eyeballs traps him in his main eye, which appears to be a dimension where he’s put through astronaut training… or something.  The rangers fight Eye Guy to get Willy out, with Billy feeling the most responsible for the plight due to his and Willy’s special bond.  They have a special handshake after all.

And there’s your first problem with the episode: who the hell is Willy?  It’s never stated if it’s Billy’s brother, friend, neighbor, or if he’s on the science fair committee and he’s just helping one of the students out.  A little setup goes a long way, and a throwaway line like the kind they had in Big Sisters about Maria would have solved the problem.  At least Willy is an improvement over Maria, goofy costume and dubbed voice not withstanding. 

In addition, the story is fine overall, in spite of some over-the-top stuff from Bulk and Skull where their clothes are disintegrated by a student’s ray gun.  Yeah, ok.  Early Mighty Morphin’ is a straight-up cartoon, but personally, this was just too much to take in (though Bulk and Skull dressed in drag is never not funny).  Silly as the scene was, we got to see Billy stand up to Bulk and Skull a little, which was nice to see.  Character development? Couldn't be...

On the action-oriented side of things, we have a terrible putty fight (one of many) that suffers from horrendous editing due to the “no hits to the head” rule that the production team was only informed about after filming a large number of episodes.  The awkward cuts, the sound effects from off-screen where the rangers are punching the putties in the face, and the tight close-ups make for a very poor bit of action.  The morphed scenes though? Pretty awesome.

I love Eye Guy's design: it's weird, yet creative.  On an unintentionally eerie note, the little girl from Finster’s flashback only seen getting sucked in by Eye Guy's main eye (brought to us by the Japanese footage) never gets brought up again.  So is she... dead?  That’s creepy stuff for PR, and it helps makes the monster a little more sinister. But the episode itself couldn’t be more campy; Eye Guy delivers countless eye-related puns and the sight of Willy spinning around on that giant centrifuge was pretty hilarious.  That poor child actor.

So while this certainly wasn’t a great episode due to Willy’s randomness and the cartoonish shenanigans at the science fair, it was still enjoyable.  Even though by this point I’m growing a bit tired of watching that exact same Zord summoning sequence and transformation, I still watch it every time because that music is just so damn good (I agree with you there, Linkara!).  Also, good on the production team for showing Willy rolling out of the monster’s dust at the end rather than just having him be fine at the end with no explanation.  Overall, the show is still not there yet in terms of finding its groove, but it is interesting to watch the show slowly get closer and closer.

Mighty Morphin' Score: 6/10

Power Rangers Score: 4/10

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 7: "Big Sisters"

As I now know, Zyuranger plots tended to focus on random child characters that the rangers would inexplicably befriend.  They typically only appeared for only one episode, have a simple character arc (sometimes), and were typically never seen again.  The show was very rarely about the rangers themselves, which was a bit disappointing.  However, most Power Rangers episodes based on Zyuranger fight footage changed the focus so that the rangers were at the forefront, which ultimately made the show better off in spite of the lack of Zyranger’s darker themes and style.  However, there are a multitude of episodes where the Power Rangers writers (likely due to footage demands) decided to focus on random kid characters anyway, just like Zyuranger.  The results were often nauseating. 

The first, and arguably worst, example of this is found in Big Sisters, an episode that is bafflingly insipid.   Trini and Kimberly have volunteered for a big sisters program, wherein the two of them hang out with a twelve-year-old girl named Maria for the day.  Maria, a monstrous little brat whose voice seems to be coming from another dimension, gets kidnapped and forced by Rita’s Chunky Chicken monster to open up an ancient box that contains the Power Eggs (it can only be opened by innocence, so it’s a wonder how Maria qualifies). What do the Power Eggs do, you ask? Well, you see, they’re very powerful.  The rangers’ communication and teleporting is down for some reason, so they instead travel via the Radbug: Billy’s new invention that will allow them to travel to the Command Center by flying there (with the aid of… the Northern Lights?).  The rangers engage in a battle with Chunky, Goldar, Squatt, and Baboo, which results in the Power Eggs being tossed into the ocean (the one next to the mountainous desert).  After Maria is nearly dropped to her death by the Chicken, the Rangers catch her using the Megazord and she drives off in the Rad Bug to safety.   Now it’s time to take care of the scissor-wielding birdbrain.

 The episode is clumsily stitched together, with the Radbug coming out of nowhere in addition to being extremely goofy.   The Power Eggs idea is underdeveloped (we don’t even see Maria open the box), and the way the box is tossed into the ocean, in the MIDDLE OF THE DESERT, it just lame.  Also, there’s no reason why Goldar or the flying chicken couldn’t have just hopped in and gotten the eggs.  Couldn’t even say “Zordon teleported them somewhere far away,” or something? But none of these issues compare to the biggest problem with the episode.

 Nothing works about Maria at all, except perhaps that the crew actually pulled off using the Sentai footage with her counterpart well enough (though I was instinctively waiting for her to shout “tasukete!” when she was hanging on the rope).  From her introduction (pulling a corny prank where she shuts the hot water off on the guys showering at the Juice Bar) to her downright creepy looks, Maria is a nightmare come to life.  We learn nothing about her, she doesn’t change (she might even be more obnoxious by the end), plus her wig and dubbed voice are terrible.  What an awful, awful character.

 There are a few things I noticed about Big Sisters that were interesting, even if they don’t necessarily make the episode any better.  This is the first time we hear about The Morphing Masters, which may or may not be tied to the show’s overall mythology later on.  This is also one of only a few times that Rita comes down to Earth using her flying bicycle, and while it does look pretty silly, I like how the effect of her flying over trees is all done in-camera.  I also noticed that this might be the only time all the rangers are shown taking out their Power Coins and forming their Power Crystals in their zords (usually it’s just Jason).  It makes for a pretty dynamic sequence, and I wish it had been used more often.  And like it or not, we can’t forget that this is the introduction of the Rad Bug, which does become more important later on. Also, first time the rangers do that pyramid formation attack thing? Super cool.

In conclusion, Big Sisters is the worst episode the show I’ve encountered thus far in my re-watch.  Bulk and Skull do absolutely nothing except getting chili dumped on them at the very end, meanwhile Maria gets an interview on what I assume is Angel Grove’s public access news station, declaring that she’s “the most popular kid in class.”  The episode’s fights aren’t any better or worse than we’ve seen already, and Chunky Chicken, in Goldar’s own words, is a just a lame monster overall (not helped by the fact that we just had a “Pudgy Pig” only last episode, making me wish that they’d gone with at least one more “Fat + Animal” monster throughout the series’ run).   But hey, for damn near rock bottom it’s still pretty entertaining.

Mighty Morphin’ Score: 4/10

Power Rangers Score: 2/10

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 6: "Food Fight"

"Come down here and fight like a pig!"

 Here we go, another “classic” episode of Power Rangers that made many, many rounds in my VCR when I was a kid.  Food Fight is sort of the epitome of a Mighty Morphin’ episode: teens have problem, Rita gets inspiration from their problem, makes a monster, the rangers defeat said monster, and then their problem is solved at the end of the day.  What makes Food Fight better than average is the pacing of the story and extended scenes on the moon palace; it's much more fun than listening to Rita screech her plan off screen while Goldar swings a sword at the camera repetitively, anyway.

The ranger teens are helping run a school food fair, trying to raise money for new preschool playground equipment.  Principal Kaplan oversees the festival and Ernie helps provide some Hawaiian specialties.  Bulk and Skull only show up to start a food fight, for which the teens promptly get blamed, and are put on clean-up duty.  But before they even start, Zordon sends them off to fight the Pudgey Pig monster, created by Rita after witnessing their food fight. The rangers’ weapons get swallowed by the pig, who then sends them into a vortex and proceeds to eat all the leftover food at the festival.  By the time the teens make it back, all the food is gone, except for (Trini notices) the food in the spicy section.  The rangers come up with a plan to trick Pudgy into eating a spicy radish so they can get their weapons back and kick the pig’s ass.

Like I mentioned, I love how many scenes there are featuring Rita and her crew.  Typically we only spend a few seconds in the palace out of plot necessity, but this time we got to see a little personality from Finster and Rita that was entertaining and actually kind of funny:

Finster: “I have a Pudgy Pig, my Queen, but it’s not my best work…”

Rita: "THEN MAKE IT YOUR BEST WORK!!!”

An unfortunate side effect of using solely Sentai footage for your villain scenes is that you’re extremely limited by what you can use because of the dubbing possibilities. I appreciate it when as much Rita footage as possible is used, which explains why I like this episode.

 The titular food fight is pulled off pretty nicely, and we get to see more fun from Bulk, Skull and their unnamed minions who I always wished we could see more of.  I’d like to think that Bulk and Skull built up so much bad karma for ruining the food fair that it caused them to be cursed with getting food thrown on them every week for the rest of their lives.  It might be cheesy as all hell, but at least the food fight was fun to watch.  Though we all have to agree that Kaplan is an idiot for making the rangers clean up the festival instead of Bulk and Skull (but they never do anyway, so it’s alright I guess).

The Pudgy Pig is a classic Mighty Morphin’ monster, and for good reason.  He actually does something that hinders the rangers: he takes away their weapons and threatens to eat the world’s food supply within two days, if Zordon’s calculations are correct. WHICH THEY ALWAYS ARE.  It was a decent way to tie the footage together via a food fair, and we get the first monster-on-Bulk-and-Skull action in the series history.  Ok, they just snarl at each other so I don't know if it's "action," but it's something.  The point is, the rangers' have to defeat the monster without their weapons, and while simple, it's definitely an effective plot device.  It's also good that there's no shoehorned Megazord fight at the end.  Not every single episode needs a Zord battle, especially since most of them are pretty inconsequential.

If there's a weakness that the episode has, it's that no one really learns anything or changes.  Maybe Kaplan could have given more than a half-assed apology at the end, maybe a bigger focus on Trini during the festival scenes... I don't know.  Something that could have given it some more substance when it comes to the characters.  Then again, as I'll say plenty of times on here, Power Rangers is a live-action cartoon.  Not like Batman: The Animated Series, I mean like Looney Tunes.  Part of the fun of the show (for kids) is that the rangers do the same thing every time, but they fight a different monster.  I'm not saying I approve of that (I'd much prefer character development and story arcs, but we'll get there in time), all I'm saying is that's what the writers were going for and that's what they achieved.  They were just fortunate to have the right cast to make their cartoon characters come to life much better than they were written, and besides the costumes, fights, robots, and awesome music, that was part of the reason it was such an earth-shattering success. 

Mighty Morphin' Score: 8/10

Power Rangers Score: 6/10

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 5: "Different Drum"

 While Power Rangers is not typically known for its deep writing or well-developed characters, it does have bright spots of depth here and there.  Different Drum is an interesting episode for its inclusion of a deaf character (not that she'd ever be seen again or anything) and making her deafness important to the story.  It's only dwells on the "lesson of the day" aspect of her character for a moment before it becomes a "very special episode" of Barney.  So is this episode actually deep?  Maybe not, but for the first time in the show's short run, I think it was trying to be.  If nothing else, it has a consistent theme and sticks with it.

While Kimberly is teaching a dance class at the Youth Center, she sees that one of her students (a deaf girl named Melissa) is having trouble keeping up with the other girls.  Meanwhile Billy tries to dance and shenanigans ensue.  Zack challenges Bulk to a dance-off, which naturally ends with Bulk covered in food after an impressive over-the-counter stunt.  On her moon palace, Rita demands that Finster make a monster that can control people with music.  He creates the Gnarly Gnome, and he promptly captures a few of the girls from the dance class and makes them practice a dance for Rita. Melissa witnesses all this happen, unaffected by the music due to her being deaf and all. After trapping them in a cave with an ordinary net, Melissa thankfully runs back to the Juice Bar to tell the ranger teens what happened instead of going to the police. Although considering Kimberly might be her only nearby friend who can understand sign language, I guess it's justifiable.  The rangers arrive on the scene and take on the Gnarly Gnome, who can apparently go invisible and cause awkward hallucinations.  Can the Rangers take him down? Will Billy learn how to dance?!  This episode's just too hot to handle.

Different Drum is an unusual episode for early MMPR due to its civilian scenes being more enjoyable than the sentai footage that usually spices things up.  I liked the teens' interactions (the dance-off between Zack and Bulk was great), and I give major props to Amy Jo Johnson for learning how to sign so professionally.  It makes me wonder if she had that skill beforehand and the writers decided to use her, but either way it's impressive.  That's not to say that Billy's mishap early on wasn't stupid as hell, but it was pretty funny to see him dance like a pro at the end.

The handling of the Sentai footage is pretty bizarre, considering that the Gnome has the power of invisibility for only one scene and never uses it in battle.  There's a scene where the Gnome, Squatt, and Baboo all take a nap for a few seconds before Rita screams them all awake, and it all feels like needless filler.  The Megazord battle is creative, but it's more disorienting than it is cool.  This might be the first time the teens get involved with a monster of the week without Zordon or Alpha notifying them of what's happened, which is odd but isn't necessarily a bad thing.  However, nothing tops the oddity of what happens during the ground fight: the rangers summon their weapons for the Power Blaster and call out their names.  But the names are completely different, never mentioned before of since this episode.  It must have been an early ADR session and they had to just go with it, but it's bizarre to say the least.  We have the Cosmic Cannon, Battle Bow, Dino Daggers, and the Mighty Mace (Jason still calls his the Power Sword).  It's a bit more creative than calling the weapons "Power [insert weapon name]," but at the same time, it's just too weird.  Having not seen this episode is quite some time, my jaw dropped when Zack called out "Cosmic Cannon!" and probably will every time I watch this one.

So while it get really messy when it comes to the second half, the first half is full of plenty of good stuff.  It's rare for Power Rangers to include real world issues like people with disabilities, so it's good to see the show pull it off cringe-free.  It's a shame that the Sentai footage is used so haphazardly, not to mention that the Gnome's powers are never really established and thus come off as random.  At least we get something memorable with the alternate weapon names, and a few good laughs from the ranger teens.  Paul Shrier is a brave soul for doing that counter hop.

Mighty Morphin' Score: 7/10

Power Rangers Score: 5/10

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 4: "A Pressing Engagement"

When Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers first aired, there was no precedence.  Yes, there were the Japanese monster movies that got dubbed into English and had footage reshot and spliced in.. but television is a different beast.  Creating character arcs, story arcs, coherency... it takes a lot of creativity and even great shows can have inconsistencies due to the different people working on any given episode, actor availability, and budget restraints.  So as simple as Power Rangers' final product is as a narrative, it does take a tremendous amount of creativity to look at fight scenes and write a story around them. Unfortunately, A Pressing Engagement lacks such creativity.

The episode finds the tens at the Juice Bar, where Jason is trying to beat the bench-pressing record currently held (inexplicably) by Bulk.  Wackiness interferes, and Jason doesn't break the record, and proceeds to feel bad about it while Zack and Kim console him.  This gives Rita the idea to separate Jason from the others while he's still feeling down using King Sphinx's mighty wings.  She sends him down to the park to "take it over," and Zordon promptly alerts Jason, Zack, and Kim.  They fight him for a bit, along with some putties, but are blown back to the Juice Bar (because heaven forbid they were sent to some other location unmorphed).  The Sphinx teleports himself and Jason to the desert, and the two duke it out for a bit.  Trini and Billy, who are just chilling in Billy's garage during all of this, are informed of the situation and the group teleports to the Command Center.  Zordon tells them to use the Power Crystals activated from their coins to help locate Jason.  They teleport the crystals to him and then that let's them... teleport to him?  It's actually a bit confusing.  Cue zord battle!

More than anything, A Pressing Engagement just feels... lazy.  Everything feels half-assed, with element like the Power Crystals being wholly underdeveloped as a concept.  Jason trying to break a bench-pressing record is totally in-character for him, but the previous record being held by Bulk?  I don't know.  I can't picture Bulk being committed to anything that exhausting (unless he cheated, which is totally likely).  The shenanigans at the start of the episode with Zack crashing into Kimberly's bubble gum... balloon... thing were really awkward and painfully unfunny.  Why not have Bulk sabotage Jason or something?  Especially since he enters the scene a bit later and does fuck all.  At least I did get a chuckle out of Ernie eating a sandwich and being easily distracted while counting Jason's presses.

The morphed fights are nice, and I like King Sphinx's design, but he's about as memorable in this episode as he was in the toy commercials.   When I would watch those ads as a kid I thought he and Goldar were brothers or something, given their similar designs.  But it turns out he's just another disposable villain.  The Megazord fight drags on longer than it should, and while normally I like longer fights, it feels like most of the battle features the Megazord in tank mode, which is pretty limiting.  Fun fact: after viewing Zyuranger I found that this episode is actually supposed to be the introduction of the Megazord, so it makes much more sense in that show's context.  But we've already seen the Megazord in action in the first episode (as well as the Power Crystals), so building up its introduction here just feels like filler.  The cinematography in the later half of the ground battle is wonderful, especially the shot of Jason calling to the Tyrannosaurus with the water brightly glistening behind him... I think I need a poster of that.  It's about as beautiful as early Power Rangers gets.

I don't expect Power Rangers to deliver thought-provoking character drama, but this episode left a lot to be desired.  Jason doubts himself, but it all rings false.  Picture this: after the first time he can't break the record, he tries again and fails because he gets tired.  His own body fails him. That would have been more interesting than Kim's gum popping onto Zack or whatever the hell happened.  Then he could start to doubt himself to Zack about being a leader in battle.  It's resolved when he realizes that his strength as a leader is dependent on his team, and that's what unlocks the Power Crystals. Also, having Kim and Zack get blown back to the Juice Bar was pretty silly, and really shows that the production crew and writers were wearing their tiny budget on their sleeve.

So it's not the greatest episode due mostly to its lack of coherency.  I don't even understand the title; is it a bench-pressing pun? Groan.  But there's also not enough going on to get angry about it either.  The cast tries, but they're let down heavily by the direction, and it's clear now- only four episodes in - that Rita's scenes are mostly composed of recycled footage.  It's just a showboat of mediocrity all around.

Mighty Morphin' Scale: 4/10

Power Rangers Scale: 2/10

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 3: "Teamwork"

"Why don't we show a little teamwork and get this place cleaned up?"

Something one must know about Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is that it was made at a time when educational children's programming was becoming mandatory for networks to show.  To meet that requirement, they often had to shoehorn in PSA-style messages to their otherwise action-heavy, Saturday morning children's shows or tack on an actual PSA at the end.  So how was Power Rangers, a show so action-heavy that it caused widespread controversy, to handle this dilemma?  Thank God they didn't go the "special announcement the end of the episode" route, but what we got was also pretty cringe-inducing.  The Power Rangers became very involved with volunteer park clean-ups. That's great and everything for people who assume that kids copy everything they see on TV, but when I was a kid, I only wanted to copy stuff on TV that I thought was cool.  Did anyone ever use their Power Ranger toys to reenact the numerous park clean-up episodes?  I highly doubt it.

Teamwork is sort of a lousy episode for multiple reasons, but it's also an interesting one.  With the show still finding its footing, several things happen that would rarely if ever occur again.  Kimberly and Trini are sponsoring a petition to clean up a local waste dump, and while they're getting plenty of signatures, they can't seem to get any volunteers; not even Jason, Billy, or Zack.  Meanwhile, Rita reveals that she's the one who set up the waste dump (um, what?) and plans to pollute the Earth.   Kim and Trini get attacked by putties, but the others can't help them because Rita has sent down the Mighty Minotaur.  Zordon declares that it's time to bestow upon the rangers their new Power Weapons, and so for the first time, they call upon the Power Axe, Power Bow, Power Daggers, Power Lance, and Power Sword.  The weapons combine to form the Power Blaster and the rangers take the Minotaur down with ease.

I'm gonna harp on the biggest problem with the episode, which is that Rita's plan doesn't make any sense.  The waste dump that Kim and Trini just happen to be petitioning against is one that Rita set up?  When and why did she set up a waste dump?  It's obvious that the writers just needed an environmental-themed episode and it didn't really matter how it was incorporated.  They could have just as easily had Rita be inspired by the waste dump to pollute the Earth, but even then, the rest of the episode has nothing to do with stopping pollution or even mentioned.  To make this an environment-friendly PSA was ill-advised from the start.

And what a shame too!  This is a really big moment in Power Rangers history: the introduction of the very first set of weapons.  Unfortunately, the rangers are simply handed them without much reason beyond that they were loosing the battle.  It may have made more sense if Billy and Alpha were just finishing them or something and they were ready to be used, but hadn't been tested yet.  I know that's very cliche, but it's better than the non-explanation the episode gives.  In any case, I love the look of the weapons and the Power Blaster is all kinds of awesome.  As with the suits and zords, this might be my favorite set of weapons the show ever produced (okay, maybe Time Force beats them by just a smidgen).

The fast-motion comedy is still employed to add campy fun, but I always wind up grimacing whenever it happens.  I can handle corny when it comes to this show, but this is just too much.  However, the fight footage is lovely as always, and the casts' interactions are pretty solid.  When the other guys are telling Kim and Trini that they can't do the cleanup, there was some surprisingly good acting; the guys feel bad that they can't help, but it's also clear that they don't really wanna do it.  And the girls don't get pissy over it; they have perfectly natural reactions. 

Thus we come to some things about the episode that I don't consider bad or good, just interesting.  First off, this is the first time there's any extensive use of the American suit footage, and that has weird results.  There's a shot of morphed Jason where his helmet and his suit are completely different colors, then in the command center the suits seem to be shiny like the Zyuranger costumes.  I love the look of them, but I don't believe they were used extensively in later episodes.  Also, and this being the only time it happens, the rangers speak to each other while they're teleporting.  That's... just... weird.  This is also the first time we hear the famous morph call, "It's morphin' time!" delivered by Jason without much intensity.  Rita's wand throw isn't the typical stock footage that will be used later on, but it works just fine.  I'd also like to note that using strictly Japanese footage for the villain scenes lends them an otherworldly feel that I've always liked but could never articulate until now.  This is also a rare time that the zords don't combine to form the megazord immediately, instead fighting separately (which I really, really liked).  Kim even gets to decimate some putties with the Pterodactyl!

So despite there being plenty to like in this episode, I have to say it's not a very good one.  The pollution message being shoehorned-in, the unceremonious way the rangers get their new weapons, and the lame fast-motion bring the episode down too many pegs to count.  Let's not forget that this was shot after the producers found out that the teens couldn't be seen punching putties in the face, so some awkward fight-scene editing hurts the episode even further.  There are too many "firsts" for the episode to be skip-able though (including the first introduction of Mr. Kaplan), so thank goodness for that Sentai footage and the actors' charm.

Mighty Morphin' scale: 5/10

Power Rangers scale: 4/10

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1, Episode 2: "High Five"

"Hey, dirtbag! Leave him alone."

Due to my Day of the Dumpster review feeling a bit overstuffed, I decided to continue some general thoughts on this one.  How do you talk about the first season of Power Rangers and not talk about the kick-ass theme song?!  80s and 90s kids shows got many, many things wrong when it came to their stories and characters, at least in terms of holding up to adult standards.  But man, did they get their theme songs right, and for me, Power Rangers is near the top of the list for having the best kid's show theme of all time.  Actually, screw it, it's one of the best theme songs of all time period!  It's simple, catchy, and wonderfully energetic, which is exactly what the show needed to give it an edge that might be missing from the low-budget civilian scenes.  The background music follows suit as well, with Ron Wasserman delivering sold music that always suits the tone of the scenes; the Bulk and Skull theme is priceless, Rita's music has a mischievous flair, and the command center's ambiance is full of Importance. Say what you will about about the dialogue and the jumbled story structure, early Power Rangers sounds great.

Now, onto the episode at hand.  In a nutshell, High Five is a fun episode.  It is in some ways a "part two" to Day of the Dumpster, with the introduction of the communicators and the rangers being able to self-teleport being established for the first time.  Looking back at just how big a part teleporting played in the first six seasons, it's amazing to see its inception.  The story is about Trini and her fear of heights, which is nice to see since Power Rangers was supposed to be marketed to boys.  It's great that the show believes in focusing on the girls as much as the guys despite this being so early on.  There's little in the Sentai footage to suggest that this had to be a Yellow Ranger focus; in fact, it seems like it should have been a Red Ranger focus, judging by the solo Tyrannosaurus battle at the end.

The cast is finding their footing very quickly, especially considering how many episodes they were shooting at once.  They seem comfortable in their character's skins, and it's nice to see them kid around with each other.  Yes, they're dialogue is pretty corny, but they seem earnest enough for me to care about what's happening in the story.  The rope climbing stuff with Bulk and Skull was sufficiently stupid, but I did chuckle when it broke and the roof caved in on Bulk's head.  It's the way he puffs out the sheetrock dust, no doubt a suggestion of actor Paul Shrier, given what we know now about Bulk and Skull's gag preparation.

The civilian fight scenes are clearly just not there yet in terms of energy and choreography, made more obvious by the stupid looking "human tank mode" or whatever the hell the teens do to take out the putties.  It looked absolutely ridiculous.  I'm very grateful that this is a one-time thing.  I get that this is one of the first big putty fights, but it's awfully weird.  I didn't mind the rock climbing scene with Billy and Trini, especially when Trini calls one of the putties a "dirtbag." It almost feels like a swear word by Power Rangers standards.

Thankfully, the Sentai footage looks really great.  There's a fun fight with Bones in his weird dimension, with those those skeleton putty things were never used again.  What's up with that? Those things were neat!  Bones is the first in a long line of monsters that fall apart but can reassemble themselves, plus he has a cool voice.  I have a lot of nostalgia for him, given that this is one of the very few episodes that was available on video at the time (and I rented them from my the library so often that I might as well have owned them).  I always found it odd that it's Jason who finishes off the monster (not Bones, just some random Giant) rather than Trini, but it's still nice to see a Zord fight that doesn't resort to using the Megazord immediately.

And of course, we get our first use of the ultra-cheesy fast-motion "for comedic affect" gag that will remain a staple throughout early MMPR.  It happens a few times: Alpha freaks out and runs around the command center, the putties run away with cactuses on their asses, and Trini climbs the rope at the end.  It's another trend that didn't really stick after the first string of episodes, and thank God for that.

I'd go so far as to call this "classic" Power Rangers.  Corny, fun, and stocked with likable character moments, featuring nonsensical desert putty fights and Sentai footage that looks great but doesn't have anything to do with the story at hand.  It's well-paced enough to remain interesting, and never feels overstuffed because the story is simple and clear, which is exactly what one should reasonably expect.

Mighty Morpin' score: 8/10

Power Rangers score: 7/10