Thursday, May 13, 2010

Episode 1 - "Day of the Dumpster"

Episode 1 – “Day of the Dumpster”

We begin our journey at the beginning, we are about to enter a world of monsters made of clay, English dubbing and teenagers with attitudes. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then let’s begin.
RECAP

We begin our story when two astronauts see a strange light during their exploration of the surface of the moon. Speaking of strange lights… I don’t mean to be nitpicky here (yes I do) but why is there daylight on the moon? And clouds? I think they’re just in Nevada. Anyway, the plucky astronauts run over to investigate and they find a strange capsule sticking out of the sand (sand?!) on the surface. One suggests it’s some kind of giant “space dumpster” apparently they’re trained on how to open them in astronaut training because one puts his hand on the red crystal protruding from the top and they slide the lid off. There is a blinding flash of light and suddenly 4 strange muppets in battle armour appear celebrating on a nearby dune. The astronauts freak out and take off running (running?!) and we see Rita Repulsa for the first time emerge from the space dumpster. We learn that she’s been trapped in the dumpster for ten thousand years. After reprimanding Baboo for making her step in a puddle (a puddle?!) Rita destroys the capsule and exclaims that she plans to celebrate her escape by destroying the nearest planet. They all look up and look at the Earth.

Meanwhile, a bunch of plucky teenagers with attitudes are working out at their local hangout. A combination juice bar/gymnasium. (What kid can’t relate to that?!) We are introduced to 5 particularly plucky teens named Jason, Zack, Billy, Trini and Kimberly. Zack (dressed in black break-dancing gear) and Jason (in a red wife-beater) are performing some kind of elaborate mating dance (which Zack thanks Jason for teaching him) and Trini (in yellow vest and skanky tank top) is watching Kimberly (clad in pink tights, launching a whole generation of young boys into puberty) do some gymnastics on a balance beam. Billy arrives in karate gear (but with a blue bandana of course… see? They’re already wearing their colors. In literary terms this is called FORESHADOWING.) he is apparently friendly with the cool kids, which flies in the face of everything John Hughes taught us about teenagers with attitudes. The local bullies? Jesters? I never really did understand what everyone in Angel Grove thought of them because it seems like our heroes are the only ones that ever interact with them, Bulk and Skull. (Presumably their Christian names) who inquire after a double date with Trini and Kimberly. The ladies politely decline but Bulk isn’t taking no for an answer, they get pushy and Zack comes over to stick up for his womens but Kimberly and Trini decline claiming that they can handle them which prompts Bulk and Skull to be overcome with rage and charge the girls. Karate happens and Bulk and Skull land on the blue mats that always happen to be laid out in just the right spot every time anyone gets thrown in Angel Grove.

Back on the moon, Rita is ordering Finster to begin making something called “putty patrollers” what could they be?! Goldar (so named because his suit is all gold) offers to lead the putty patrol down to earth and start causing some havoc. Rita responds by making this noise by way of approval: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”… she does that a lot on this show.

In class Jason is teaching Billy karate. He demonstrates some karate moves (actually he just demonstrates moving his arms very slowly) but Billy just can’t get it right. Billy sucks. We learn that martial arts help us to develop “courage, kindness, integrity, fitness, loyalty and discipline” but Bulk and Skull don’t like that. They want to learn how to beat people up, but Jason explains that martial arts was not designed to hurt others (right, and the internet wasn’t designed for porn, it was all just a happy accident) but Bulk and Skull accuse Jason of teaching a “geeky” karate class. Jason plays it cool, but his ego is clearly bruised because he proceeds to give Bulk some “advanced training” (translation: he tricks fatty into falling on his face.)

After class, our heroes are sitting at a table lying to Billy about his first karate class (face it Billy, you suck.) Suddenly the ground starts shaking and everyone starts freaking out and screaming about earthquakes. For some reason Billy says “something tells me this is no earthquake” which is strange since at the moment there’s no evidence that it’s anything BUT an earthquake. Cut to the command center where we meet ZORDON… a big floating head, and his highly strung robot sidekick “Alpha 5.” A5 is running around in circles clutching a teddy bear (which made me laugh really hard when I noticed it this time) he says it’s the big one. Zordon corrects Alpha. It’s no earthquake, it’s RITA! Alpha asks Zordon what they should do, and Zordon responds: “Teleport to us 5 over-bearing and over-emotional humans.” Now, I don’t mean to second guess Zordon, but that sounds like a really terrible idea! Alpha seems to agree saying “oh no! not teenagers… I was afraid of that.” Apparently Alpha was EXPECTING Zordon to want to recruit a bunch of teenagers to save the world… perhaps he’s done this before? Perhaps Zordon has a sordid past of statutory rape charges? Let’s watch on and find out. Alpha presses a button our heroes turn into 5 colored balls of light and fly across a desert landscape that looks like something out of a 60s psychedelic rock music video. They materialize in the control room and strangely enough none of them find it strange. Kimberly points out that it is not in fact the mall, and that’s the kind of painfully obvious and borderline retarded thing we will come to expect from her. Billy seems impressed and starts messing around with controls. This causes Alpha to lose his shit and fall on his face. Zordon introduces himself as “Zordon, an interdimensional being caught in a time-warp” Which is astounding, as time is fleeting and madness has taken it’s toll… ahem. Kimberly utters a line which will sum up her character for the next 150 episodes: “Excuse me, but like will somebody come back down to earth and pick me up because I am like totally confused.” (Amy Jo Johnson is the only one to have a career after this, proving once more the universe is random.) Zordon explains that the planet is well and truly fucked and wants our heroes to save the world. He shows them Rita and her minions in a magic crystal ball and explains that they will be given amazing powers drawn from the dinosaurs. Kimberly reacts as if she’s never heard of them. Zordon gives them their power morphers (incredibly conspicuous belt buckles) they can use to morph into the POWER RANGERS. Kimberly doesn’t know what morph means. Kimberly is fucking retarded. Zordon introduces the concept of zords. Big dinosaur robots that they each can control. Noone seems bothered by the fact that neither the Mastodon nor the Sabre-toothed tiger are dinosaurs, Zack thinks this is all too weird so he decides to bugger off and everyone follows. The teens begin wandering aimlessly through the desert (which I assume is miles from town.)

Rita has been watching all this time and commands Finster to move his ass and get those putty’s down to earth. She sends the putty’s down to earth to beat up the teens. While our heroes wander among large boulders Jason says he thinks they’ve made a mistake and they should have agreed to save the world. Jason really likes being the boss (that’s basically the only character trait he gets for the first chunk of the series.) Suddenly they’re attacked by a bunch of dudes who look like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. It’s the putty’s! They flip around and make Murloc noises. Karate happens… well Jason, Tirni and Kimberly do Karate, Zack break dances and Billy just gets his ass kicked. Soon the putty’s overwhelm our heroes and throw them into a big pile! If only they were at the juice bar perhaps they could have landed on nice soft mats. Jason suggests they try out their powers.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME

Zordon teleports the freshly morphed rangers back to Angel Grove. We see the rangers jumping into the air very high as Billy points out they’re teleporting again, and when Kimberly asks where to Jason responds with “We’re going to save the world!”… awesome. The rangers arrive back in Angel Grove and get right down to the serious business of posing. They’re interrupted when Goldar and a bunch of putty’s jump in from somewhere (people jump a lot on this show) the rangers do much better now that they’re in their costumes, even Billy has somehow magically learned karate.

Rita is hopping mad that her putty’s are getting beaten by a bunch of smelly teenagers! Squat comes up with the brilliant plan to use Rita’s wand to make Goldar grow really big. Why she never thinks of that in the first place is beyond me. Goldar starts stomping on buildings and cars and Power Rangers waste no time in striking a bunch of poses. When they’ve posed sufficiently they decide to summon their dinozords

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!

After a few more poses the rangers jump about 80 feet in the air (which I guess is one of their powers) and climb into the cockpits. They each strike a pose (and Kimberly comments on the stereo. We are living in a material world and she is a material girl.) Billy and Trini point out that they somehow know exactly how to pilot their zords (could also explain why Billy suddenly doesn’t suck at karate as well) and they combine their zords in a piece of stock footage that we will see 10,000 times in the series to form MEGAZORD. Megazord and Goldar fight which makes sparks and smoke fly inside the cockpit a lot (really poor ventilation in the Megazord) Robot Karate happens and it seems like Goldar is preparing to make the killing blow. Jason calls out for the POWER SWORD which just falls from the sky with a bunch of lightning. We never really learn what the hell that’s all about. Megazord picks up the sword and strikes a pose. Apparently the pose is so fearsome that Goldar decides he’s going to run away. A little anticlimactic perhaps but we were really running out of time in the episode. Rita is PISSED and starts throwing shit.

Back at the command center, Zordon lays down some ground rules: 1. Never use your power for personal gain (I guess that means no wrestling Bone-saw McGraw) 2. Never escalate a battle unless Rita forces you too. (This is to explain why the rangers don’t just call the Megazord right away every time something happens, there’s only so much stock footage, it does make you question Zordon a bit though. He’s ok with people and property being destroyed in Angel Grove so long as it’s done in an escalating fashion, Zordon is kind of a dick.) 3. Keep your identity secret and 4. Don’t talk about Fight Club.

Zordon gives a pep-talk worthy of Patton himself… Derek Patton (he works at the Mac’s near my house) and the rangers all agree that they rule. Kimberly is the lone dissenter however and she says she doesn’t want to participate because the helmet messes up her hair. Everyone seems really bummed but Kimberly in a moment of comedic brilliance channels the timing of the great George Carlin and shouts out “NOT!” Everyone laughs except Alpha 5 who begins spazzing out and spewing smoke, apparently his circuits can not process such genius.



THE GOOD

They don’t waste a lot of time with the origin, they just get right into the story
The costumes are cooooooool
Kimberly’s workout attire

THE BAD
Billy really sucks in this one man, I mean he gets better but he’s such a tool in this episode.
Goldar just wandering off when the power sword shows up makes NO sense, even for a Power Rangers episode
Everything is really rushed.

THE HILARIOUS
Ernie, proprieter of the juice bar dumping smoothies on some dude during the earthquake.
Kimberly shouting NOT at the end of the episode
Alpha 5 overloading as a result of the NOT.

Overall this is a pretty mediocre episode. Things are really rushed to try to make them fit into 20 minutes. Still, a decent introduction to the world of Power Rangers. I give it 3 gold power coins out of 5.

Well that’s it for the first episode, 143 more to go. Next week’s episode is called “High Five.” Presumably Alpha 5 presents the rangers with some killer weed and they hot box the command center.

2 comments:

  1. You know that flip that the rangers do when they get hurt real bad (generally following a sparky explosion)? My gr. 2 claim to fame was that I learned how to do that. Made me the perfect candidate to play a ranger out in the school yard. Should've noticed the signs when I was always the blue ranger though.

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  2. The Putties are very zentai.

    I like this version of the pilot better than the “lost” first pilot, because in that lost first pilot, Bulk gets his ass kicked when he hasn’t really done anything all that wrong. In the series proper they make it more clear that Bulk is a bully and brings his misfortune on himself.

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