Episode 5 - "Different Drum"

I know what you’re thinking: “My life would be enriched if only I had some teenagers with attitude to read about.” I have heard your call, and I answer thusly:

RECAP

We start things off at the gymnasium/juice bar that our heroes love so dearly. Kimberly is teaching some kind of aerobics class. Either that, or she’s just being obnoxious and barking orders at people who are just trying to get some cardio in. Some people, you give them a magical power coin that transforms them into 15 year old Japanese stock footage and they think they own the gymnasium/juice bar. Ernie enters pushing a towel cart and doing what appears to be “the truffle shuffle” from “The Goonies.” He leaves his towel cart for a moment while he gets really INTO the music. Billy tries to look cool by copying Ernie’s dance (for a smart guy, he sure is stupid.) But in typical Billy fashion, screws up and trips onto the towel cart with such force that he and the cart go careening across the floor of the gymnasium/juice bar. Everyone screams and runs away while Billy flies back and forth (somehow the cart never slows down.) Kimberly is oblivious to everything that’s happening around her until Billy crashes into the wall beside her and falls down in a heap of towels and what looks like toilet paper. Kimberly sees her friend is hurt and leans down to help and ask if he’s ok. At least that’s what you’d think someone would do when their friend crashes headfirst into a locker. Instead she leans down and mocks him, saying it’s not a great way to meet girls. What. A. Bitch.

Meanwhile, on the moon Rita is pissed off because she doesn’t like Kimberly’s music. She chooses to turn the tables and “get back at them with music.” That’s right, Rita’s motivation in this episode seems to be “Those damn kids, and their music.” Presumably she’ll yell for the rangers to get off her lawn later also. Back at the gymnasium/juice bar Billy is still struggling to get to his feet and is groaning. I think he may have a serious head injury. Trini comes over and asks what happened even though she watched it happen. I think she’s just fucking with him, so far not much compassion from the females for ol’ Bill. She helps him over to the juice bar where Zack and Jason are seated. Billy complains that he can’t dance (alas he doesn’t sing the Genesis song) while they all watch Kimberly’s class walk back and forth clapping. Line dancing maybe? Two of the dancers bump into each other and it looks like they’re about to throw down but one of them just runs off prompting Kimberly to give her dancers a break and go talk to the poor girl. It seems the girl who messed up the dance moves is deaf. Her friend Billy nearly dies in a towel cart accident and she doesn’t care, but ONE deaf dancer trips someone up and suddenly she’s Oprah. We discover that Kimberly can read and perform sign language. She accepts full responsibility because she forgot to sign the moves. I think Kim might be being too hard on herself there. The moves were the same thing they’d been the whole time. Literally walking back and forth clapping, Kimberly in true Kimberly fashion points out that even “hearing people” can be fuck ups and points over at Billy who is still trying to figure out the whole dancing thing. Monsters better attack soon, because this is turning into Fruity Dancin’ Power Rangers…

On the moon Squatt and Baboo ask Rita to elaborate on her plan to defeat the Rangers with music. I predict she will trap them in the gymnasium/juice bar and force them to listen to The Jonas Brothers. She yells at Finster who tells he he’s hard at work on “a musical monster that eats cars and smells like a fish.” Nice work Finster. Truly terrifying. Rita tells him to forget his weird monster and start working on a musical one that will mesmerize the Rangers. She describes it as “like the Pied Piper, only meaner.” Sounds deadly. Finster claims that musical monsters are not particularly reliable and offers a “firebreathing hedgehog” instead. This just pisses Rita off. She’s really set on this musical monster, she threatens to turn him into a slug.

Back at the gymnasium/juice bar they’re still dancing. Luckily Bulk and Skull turn up but even they are goaded into dancing by Zack. Zack challenges them to a dance fight and we watch fatty cut a rug for little bit. Finally Bulk spins around before going for the splits and hurting himself. Zack goes in for the kill and does a little “jump off the counter top move.” Bulk just flips over it and everyone laughs at him. Sorry Bulk… YOU GOT SERVED. After what seems like an eternity the dancing stuff ends and we go back to the moon. Finster has created a monster that plays a hypnotic accordion… Seriously. He’s going to hypnotize some kids to lure the rangers to him and then he’ll defeat them once and for all. The monster looks a bit like a Viking Roseanne Barr. Some less attitudinal teens leave the gymnasium/juice bar and all fall under the spell of the hypnotic accordion. All, that is, except for the deaf girl (and you thought they just threw a random deaf girl into the episode.) The monster leads the hypnotized teens into a big cave. The deaf girl tries to follow but is thwarted when a tiny little rope mesh falls down over the opening of the cage blocking her entry. I assume she can’t just lift it because, while it LOOKS like rope it made the sound of an iron porticullis falling down which means it’s too heavy or something.

The deaf girl runs back to town to search for help, she finds Ernie and Jason and we basically get the whole “what is it girl? Do you think she’s trying to tell us something? Is it trouble? Billy’s in a well?” routine. Finally she gets the bright idea to write down the problem and Jason leaps into action. We cut back to the cave where the hypnotized girls are having a crazy dance party with the putties. Well, not really dancing, kind of prancing in a circle. There is like a 3 minute scene of the girls dancing, the monster pointing out that they’re dancing and Squatt and Baboo talking about eating bugs. I’m guess that the script ran a little short in this episode. The monster goes to sleep which just pisses Rita right off, she gives them an earful and the monster turns invisible for some reason. Then he ties his shoes because he smells the power rangers coming.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!

There is only one big group pose this time before the rangers charge in with their weapons and make sparks and smoke fly off the monster. They’re not messing around this time. They fuse the weapons together into the rainbow bazooka and blow him up. But, Rita throws her cane down and makes him both reform AND turn really big.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER. NOW!!!

After the familiar stock footage of dinosaur robots charging out of the wilderness the rangers pose and jump into the air and pose in their cockpits. Apparently Jason has shit to do because rather than trying to fight with their individual zords like normal he calls for them to go straight to megazord power, but to keep things a little fresh Jason instructs his teammates to “power up their crystals, they’re going to tank mode.” I’m pretty sure we’ve seen the tank before and they only just got the crystals last week, but I’m going to ignore that. The rangers stab their crystals into the dashboard and we see the Megazord tank form up and roll into battle. The monster (who has been waiting patiently during all this) shoots a big laser at them. It must have been a big one because Jason quickly changes his mind about tank mode and goes to big robot mode. Megazord steals the monsters rake (yes, that’s right rake. He has a giant rake.) But the monster busts out his incredibly annoying accordion. Thankfully, Megazord punches it and it finally shuts up. The monster shoots more lightning but the rangers are having none of that. They bust out the mega sword and kill the monster. Jason then tells his team it’s time to “get the girls out of the cave and take em’ home.”... It’s good to be the red ranger…

The prisoners tell Kimberly and the rangers how cool the power rangers were. The teens play it cool, but I’m pretty sure they’re developing egos. Those teens sure have attitudes. Back at the gymnasium/juice bar Ernie announces that the rangers and their deaf friends are getting “soda’s on the house.” Now, Ernie doesn’t know that these kids are the power rangers so he can’t be rewarding them for saving the day, so why is he giving them free drinks? That’s just bad business Ernie. The rangers toast the deaf girl, who looks scared because she can’t hear what they’re yelling at her. Jason tries to say something to the deaf girl (I’m not sure what) but apparently he tells her his dog smells. Hilarious. Deaf girl asks Billy to dance. They launch into a very sexy line dance that looks kind of like “the monkey-dance”. The rest of the rangers talk about how awesome the deaf girl is (I think her name is Melissa, to be honest I was a bit distracted by Billy’s dance.) Billy starts doing some crazy break dancing moves and the rangers and one random girl who didn’t have any lines that episode look on.

THE GOOD

I think the only really great part of this episode was Squatt and Baboo randomly eating bugs.

THE BAD

This whole episode was pretty bad actually, but the worst was the sound of the freaking hypno-accordion. It was terrible.

THE HILARIOUS

They went to such great lengths to teach us how deaf people can save the day and will likely abandon this character after this episode.

All the dancing.

Overall, not a strong episode. I give this one 2 power coins out of 5.

Next week on Power Rangers we have an episode called “Food Fight” wherein Zack goes up against Iron Chef Bobby Flay. The secret ingredient is… JUICE!!!!

Episode 4 – “A Pressing Engagement”

We start with a very chubby Ernie wearing a picnic table cloth for a bib watching Jason bench press weight in an attempt to break the record of 1010. Kimberly comes over after practicing her gymnastics moves and chastises Ernie for talking with his mouth full. Jason comes within 3 or 4 of the record when Ernie loses count. OH NO! Jason is defeated and lets the weight down, curiously he doesn’t set it on the rests he sets it down on his chest, but he is a teenager with attitude so I suppose he can stand it.

Rita is watching Jason work out from her secret base on the surface of the moon, which is a little creepy because presumably she’s been watching him for the full thousand and change rep workout. She sees Jason fail to reach the record and declares that he’s not so tough after all (even though it was Kimberly distracting Ernie causing him to lose count that screwed Jason, not Jason’s failure) she thinks if she can separate Jason from his friends and send Goldar and some putty’s to battle him alone then she’ll be able to defeat the rangers once and for all. Honestly it sounds pretty similar to her plan from last week’s episode only this one doesn’t involve running a landfill, perhaps the beauty of the plan is its simplicity.

Back at the gym/juice bar Jason is has apparently restarted from zero and worked his way back to 1,007; only 3 away from the gym/juice bar record. Ernie is still eating a sandwich but since Jason has started over from zero and worked his way back up we have to assume that it’s a new sandwich which would account for why Ernie has no visible neck. Jason’s supposed friend Kimberly blows a ridiculous bubble with the gum she’s chewing (so obnoxious) which calls all the attention away from Jason’s imminent actual achievement. (Seriously, someone actually yells: “Hey guys! Look at Kimberly!” and there’s a poor theater student behind her just acting his ASS off. Normally this childish but typical of Kimberly, display would just be annoying, unfortunately however, Zack is riding around on his skateboard in the middle of the gym/juice bar. Doesn’t he know that skateboarding is a crime? Perhaps skateboarding was not yet a crime in the early 90s. Anyway, Zack loses control of his deck (that’s what the kids call it right? A deck?) and collides face first with Kimberly’s disgusting gum bubble. This distracts Jason causing him to once more drop the giant weights down on his chest and we are forced to watch Kimberly and Zack peeling disgusting sticky goop off their faces. (hehe…)

Meanwhile, on the moon Rita is celebrating Jason’s second failure. Goldar enters and he, Rita, Squat and Baboo go over the plan. It’s pretty complicated but I’ll try to sum it up. They attack Jason and Rita makes Goldar grow really tall. It’s that kind of intuitive thinking that got Rita to where she is today, just really top notch stuff… Finster catches shit from Rita for not settling on a monster to accompany Goldar to the planet’s surface. He suggests “King Sphinx” an Egyptian themed monster who can use his wings to “blow the other rangers away” seems like a sound plan to me.

Zack and Jason are sitting at a table in the gym/juice bar creepily watching Kimberly do her balance beam routine. She comes and joins them at the table and Zack awkwardly apologizes for coating her face in sticky goo (hehe…) Kim tells him not to worry about it, calling it “totally casual.” Perhaps she’s used to such things? (Well, I think that dead horse is good and beaten now. I’ll lay off the facial jokes for the rest of the week… probably.) Jason confesses that he is a bit depressed that he has failed twice at the bench press challenge, he doesn’t want to become known as a quitter. Right on cue Bulk and Skull walk in and start hassling Jason. What I think everyone (including Jason) is forgetting is; while Jason did fail to break the record he still managed to bench press what looked like over 200 pounds over 1,000 times in a row… TWICE! That’s hardly something to be ashamed of ya fuckin’ nimrods! But I digress… Bulk informs Jason that the bench press record still belongs to him (Right, Bulk’s the bench press champion and I’m Richard Simmons.) Bulk decides on a *ahem* unique brand of bullying. He grabs Jason in a sort of abdominal thrust position and basically starts humping him. Because this scene wasn’t already incredibly gay, Jason chooses to tickle Bulk and then step on his foot. Bulk bends over in pain and his pants rip. Skull slowly slides in behind him to help and well… just look at the picture. Bulk scurries away in shame while all the dicks in Angel Grove again all laugh at the fat man. Jason’s walkie-talkie watch beeps just as Ernie walks up with more shakes. They make some lame excuse and slip away. Zordon tells them to teleport to an amphitheater in the park where Rita has teleported some putties and an unknown monster. Strange that it’s unknown because Zordon usually has a lot of information about what Rita is up to.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!

Rita coaches from up on the moon to stop wasting time fighting and just get the others away from Jason. King Sphinx steps up and starts flapping his little wings causing a huge gust of wind which blows Kimberly all the way back to the gym/juice bar, landing straddling her balance beam and for some reason back in her workout clothes. A similar fate befalls Zack who gets blown out his costume also landing beside Kimberly on the balance beam. For some reason they don’t just use their watches to teleport back and instead just sit there like a couple of morons. Jason is on his own, but he busts out his fancy new sword that he got in the last episode (remember? The one that was apparently more powerful than the freaking Megazord and yet this time doesn’t seem to be worth much? Just then Goldar shows up as Jason seemed to be getting the upper hand. Rita pitches her wand down to earth and makes both King Sphinx AND Goldar grow very large… It’s at this point that I start wondering: WHERE IN THE BLUE HELL ARE TRINI AND BILLY DURING ALL THIS?! They haven’t shown up once so far, and isn’t the whole point of having their little watches so that they can be contacted and teleported in to battle at any time? There’s really no reason for Jason to have to be fighting these guys alone, but that’s exactly what’s happening.

No sooner do I wonder where the hell Trini and Jason are, Zack and Kimberly run into a garage/workshop where Trini and Billy are hanging out. They explain that Billy is in big trouble and needs their help. Again, I don’t mean to nitpick but wasn’t this exactly why they have those walkie-talkie watches that can teleport them anywhere? Their friend is getting his ass kicked by a giant golden lion and an Iron Maiden album cover and they’re just running around chatting! Kimberly points out that “he may need his friends WAY more than he knows.” Well Kimberly, actually Jason’s last line we heard was “I sure miss the others.” He knows full well he needs you and is probably wondering why you’re all taking your sweet ass time like I am. Trini tries to contact Jason on the walkie-talkie watch but there’s no answer. They teleport to the command center instead to get Alpha to look for Jason. They watch him on the crystal ball getting his ass kicked for a while and discuss how terrible it is. Zordon then tells them about the power crystals. The power crystals are the essence of their morphing power that will let them find each other whenever they’re in any peril. This is another example of Zordon waiting until his team is getting killed to bother telling them about another tool in their arsenal. Oh Zordon, you’re such a dick. Zordon sends the crystals to Jason so that the rangers can teleport to him and help. Jason’s sword is suddenly imbued with the powers of the crystals and it shoots some lightning and blows up some rocks. Jason runs over to where the rocks blew up and starts digging until he finds the power crystals (which now look exactly like popsicles). For some reason he recognizes the power crystals (I guess Zordon explained them to him only.) He throws the crystals and the other rangers come running out of the explosion.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!

It had been a long time since we’d seen stock footage so we are treated to 2 minutes of the zord summoning videos. Jason and the rangers jump up into their zords pausing only to pose a few times before they power up their zords and form up the megazord. The giant bad guys (who stood and waited patiently while they transformed into the megazord) start shooting lightning out of their swords and attacking the megazord (which is still in its lame tank formation.) Jason gives the order to complete the Megazord transformation and celebrates with some quick posing. The villains and Rita realize they are once again well and truly boned. Megazord punches King Sphinx and knocks him down. Goldar starts going mental with his sword so Jason quickly switches back down to tank mode and knocks him over then quickly switches back up into standing Megazord mode. King Sphinx suddenly remember he has those crazy wings and starts flapping. Jason realizes the only way to defeat him is to take things up another notch and summon the big ol’ Megazord power sword. He swings it around and turns it into a crazy lightsabre (which is AWESOME) and destroys King Sphinx in a single swing. Goldar, realizing he hasn’t got a prayer against that big sword buggers off back to the moon to be yelled at by an irate Rita.

But wait, there’s still one more loose end to tie up. Jason is back at the gym/juice bar and with the cheering and support of his friends breaks the bench press record. Jason tells them he couldn’t have done it without them (apparently forgetting that those morons are the reason he had to attempt it three times.) Ernie brings them a birthday cake to celebrate (no doubt someone on the crew was having a birthday and they didn’t want to buy a prop so they just took his cake) Bulk enters and demands some cake (we get it. Bulk is fat.) but, he trips over some weights left out on the floor and falls face first into the cake and that my friends, is how THREE major characters ended up with cream all over their faces in a single Power Rangers episode. Sexy. (So I lied about the facial jokes, I’m only human)

THE GOOD

The Megazord's power sword is seriously b.a. Especially when it goes all Jedi on us.

THE BAD

The power crystals. I'm still not really clear on how they work, or even what the hell they are? What's the point of teleporting the crystals to Jason so he can summon the other rangers? Why not just teleport the other rangers there? It really made no sense at all.

Billy and Trini being missing for most of the episode felt weird too. They don't even try to come up with an explanation for why they weren't around for once. It's obvious that the stock footage only had Pink, Red and Black in it for most of the episode but they should have at least come up with some goofy story reason why Billy and Trini wouldn't be there.

THE HILARIOUS

There is a lot of unintended sexual innuendo and sight-gags in this episode. If you're remotely gutter-minded you'll be giggling like a moron throughout most of the gym/juice-bar scenes in this episode.

Fat old Ernie eating sandwiches with his enormous bib also made me laugh pretty hard.

That’s it for this episode. Next week’s story is called “Different Drum” which is the famous episode wherein Rita recruits Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart to defeat the Power Rangers. Will Neil go along with her plan? Or will he choose not to of his own Free Will? And will the Power Rangers once again experience One Little Victory? Find out next time.

Episode 3 - "Teamwork"

With the scorching guitar solo out of the way it’s time to kick things off in another episode of Power Rangers. We start things off this week with Kimberly and Trini handing out flyers in front of 2 large screen TVs. Not sure where they would have got them as big LCDs like that would have cost a fortune back in ’93. Kimberly probably batted her eyelashes or something… anyway it seems that they’re trying to get support from the other sassy teens at the juice bar/gymnasium to get a garbage dump shut down. They claim that they can’t stand the smell, apparently these dirty hippies have no respect for the incredible engineering feats that are landfill sites but I digress. They are approached by Mr. Kaplan who nods in approval of the girls resolve… either that or he’s thinking about them doing each other.

Rita has been watching this little exchange through her big ol’ telescope and explains that her pollution will ruin the whole planet. Apparently they’re going to use the earth’s own pollution against it. If Rita is going to destroy the earth using its own pollution, why is she keeping it confined to a landfill? I’m sure this will make sense soon (or else maybe they’ll just ignore that and send some monsters.)

Trini and Kimberly are again banging the hippie drum and hassling people to sign their petition. The boys arrive and the girls explain that they plan to deliver the petitions to the managers of the dumpsite and not some kind of governing body. I’d expect that kind of savvy thinking from Kimberly, but Trini? You’re better than that. The guys all agree to sign the petition but they all start making (lame) excuses so that they don’t have to go to the dump. Trini gives them the disappointed mom routine and they leave in disgust. A noxious belch sound fills the air and Bulk and Skull’s theme music hits. Bulk drops a soda can on the ground and tells Kimberly to “recycle this”, then Skull throws a can at them and Bulk empties a garbage can over some poor random nerd and takes a page out of the Donkey Kong playbook by rolling the barrel towards Kimberly. I should point out that he rolls it very very slowly and instead of just stepping to the side Kimberly does a bitchin’ backflip to avoid it. Boy, these teens sure do have attitude. Bulk snaps and tells Skull to “GET HER!” and he and Skull charge at Kimberly who does another bitchin’ back flip causing Bulk and Skull to come together in a tender embrace. They realize what has happened and before anyone can call them gay they scream and push each other away so that they both land in garbage cans. (For those that are keeping count there seems to be 3 garbage cans in this one very small stretch of hallway.)

Rita is spying down on the waste dump that she apparently is controlling. It’s the same waste dump that Kimberly and Trini are delivering their socialist petitions to! Goldar suggest they soften the girls up with some putty’s and then finish them off with his big monster. What a romantic guy… Rita instructs Finster to prepare the putty’s and we cut to a dirty garbage dump. Most of the garbage seems to be old rusty barrels, which aren’t traditionally all that smelly. The girls wander around looking for someone to give their petition to until they are ambushed by the putty patrol! Trini keeps doing karate chops and seems to be holding her own, Kimberly on the other hand is running away and occasionally turning around to do a big kick. Rita sees that the girls are distracted by the putty patrol and decides it’s the perfect opportunity to send a monster down to the junk yard.

Meanwhile, back at the command center it turns out that Zack’s awkward excuse for not going to the garbage dump wasn’t a badly told lie after all, just bad acting. It seems Alpha 5 asked Zack to come teach him some break-dancing moves. An alarm goes off and Zordon interrupts this weird little scene to tell Zack that Trini and Kimberly are getting pwned. Alpha starts screaming “dudettes in trouble” over and over just in case we had forgotten it was 1993. Apparently Alpha forgot that they’re standing in a command center with the ability to teleport and that they’re all superheroes because he seems to truly be at a loss as to what to do about all this. Zordon, to his credit, doesn’t call Alpha a moron and calmly explains that they should summon the other guys and send them to help. However, rather than sending them straight to the dump to help their friends Zordon has them come to the command center to join them in watching the girls get the shit kicked out of them on the crystal ball.

Back on the moon Finster has completed the new monster and sends him down to earth. Once the hotness of watching their nubile teenage friends being beat up by S&M monsters wears off they teleport down to the earth to fight the crazy minotaur monster.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!!!

Quickly strike a pose and jump into battle. Jason breaks out the blade blaster and tries to shoot the minotaur. Somehow his shield reflects the laser back as three separate lasers that hit the rangers in the chest causing smoke and sparks to erupt from their spandex. Meanwhile, Kimberly and Trini find themselves backed in to a corner but they use some quick thinking and flip the remaining 2 putties into the open rusty barrels behind them, and as we all know rusty barrels are like kryptonite to the putty patrol. Zordon and Alpha 5 watch this unfold on the crystal ball and notice that it seems that Goldar is headed down as well, he instructs Alpha to contact the girls and tell them to hook up with the guys (I swear that’s what he said) their only hope now is to work together as a team. The episode was called “Teamwork” after all.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME AGAIN!!!

Goldar and a bunch more putties jump out of a tree and attack Kimberly and Trini who have no trouble with the putties but Goldar starts beating the shit out of Trini with his big sword. Trini sends Kimberly to get the others, but as Alpha 5 sees in the crystal ball, they still have their hands full with the minotaur. Zordon points out that this is the toughest challenge they’ve had to face yet and wonders whether he should reveal to them the secret of their power weapons. Once again Zordon has failed to give the rangers the help and training they need until they’re moments away from getting killed. Fuck you Zordon. The minotaur is beating down the three rangers pretty badly and then Squatt and Baboo start throwing rocks down at them from a cliff. Rita looks on and flings her staff down to earth (how does she always get it back? Does she just have a lot of them?) causing the minotaur to grow and start trying to stomp on the rangers.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!

1 minute of stock footage later the rangers all proceed to jump 80 feet into the air and land in the cockpits. Always a cool trick. Jason declares that “battle sequence” has been initiated, presumably that means that the dinozords have other sequences like “yard-work sequence” or “deep-tissue massage” sequence. The 5 zords all use different abilities in concert with each other to bring the minotaur down (teamwork see?) The rangers decide to play another 45 seconds of stock footage and combine to form Megazord to deliver the crushing blow. However, it seems that the zords are having no effect. Zordon instructs the rangers to teleport back to the command center. I guess the zords just go back to their places by themselves? Zordon proceeds to hand out totally awesome weapons to each of the rangers. Billy is given a lance which he is told is a weapon of great power and range. Kimberly receives a bow and arrow (only one arrow though, better not miss) Jason gets a big sword that he starts stroking in a very creepy manner. Zack gets the axe, lightning quick and hard as diamond. Finally Trini gets power daggers, feather light and true as arrows (which is ironic because she has twice as many of them as Kimberly has actual arrows.) The rangers teleport back down into the battle with their totally awesome weapons. Never being ones to waste an opportunity the rangers are sure to get in some great posing with their new weapons before they resume the battle. For some reason the minotaur is really small again and the rangers start beating him up with their weapons. Zordon instructs them to combine their weapons, which apparently you do by posing and then throwing them in the air. The weapons come together to form a big crossbow that shoots rainbows. (Apparently this is more powerful that their giant Megazord) The minotaur explodes in a flash of cute light and we cut back to the moon where Rita is passing the buck yet again blaming her minions for yet another defeat.

Back at school the plucky youngsters are confronted by creepy old Mr. Kaplan who is upset that the hallway hasn’t been cleaned up from earlier with Bulk and Skull. He’s seems about to give our heroes shit when suddenly an announcement comes over the loud speaker announcing that a Mrs. Quagmire (giggity) wants to speak to Mr. Kaplan. Kaplan tells the kids to wait a moment while he answers the phone. The rangers then use teamwork to clean up the hallway in a Benny Hill chase scene and when Kaplan returns the mess is cleaned up. Kaplan’s fucking mind is BLOWN. Zordon calls the rangers on the walkie-talkie watches and apologizes for the poor signal quality, apparently Alpha has been dancing so much that it’s shorting out the console. Apparently everything Alpha touches turns to shit. We have yet to have an episode where something doesn’t short out. Zack basically tells Alpha to know his role and shut his mouth and they all laugh as the credits roll.

THE GOOD

The weapons are pretty cool.

We get to see fights, zords, megazords, AND weapons in one episode. Awesome

THE BAD

The whole garbage dump sub-plot is retarded.

Mr Kaplan is creepy and weird.

THE HILARIOUS

Again, Mr Kaplan is creepy and weird.

That’s it for this week, the next episode is called “A pressing engagement” If it’s anything like “Rules of Engagement” Billy will try to rescue an American flag while the command center is being attacked and will stand trial for… something. Shit I can’t remember what that movie was about, I just remember it being really good…

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.

Episode 2 - "High Five"

Episode 2 – “High Five”

With the origin story out of the way it’s time to start diving into the series. This week it’s an episode that centers largely around Trini and her fear of heights. (Get it HIGH FIVE. THERE’S FIVE OF THEM AND TRINI CAN’T GET UP HIGH!!! LOLOLOLOLOOOLLLLLOLOLOLOL!!!!1111)


RECAP
We start off with Kimberly and Zack watching Jason climb a rope for some reason. Trini arrives and stands directly under Jason and starts barking at him to be careful. If he flips he might hurt himself, Zack tells her to fuck off because all this talk of flipping might make Jason nervous.
Jason tells Trini that she should try climbing the rope but Trini refuses claiming to be terrified of heights (strange that that didn't come up in the last episode when she jumped 70 feet in the air to climb into her sabre-tooth tiger) Billy arrives to disseminate some exciting information (his words) when Jason suddenly lowers himself down and locks his legs around Billy's neck. It's not clear if this was an intentional thing or not. I do know that being that close to Jason's balls is terrifying to Billy who begins to freak out. (Not completely unreasonable when you consider that poor Billy is basically being tea-bagged.) Billy apparently doesn't think of just dropping down and slipping out from between Jason's muscular thighs. Instead he proceeds to run back and forth screaming. Jason also never thinks of letting go of the rope and instead hangs on causing him and Billy to start swinging around in circles dangling from the rope until gravity and centripetal force finally get the better of our heroes and they tumble to the ground (or rather to the strategically placed matts) in front of Trini who is working out. (Apparently she forgot that she was concerned for Jason's safety, perhaps watching Jason molest the back of Billy's skull put her off of the pair of them.)

Just then Bulk and Skull arrive and Bluk burns Jason terribly... ok, so he just calls him a geek clown but it seemed to amuse Skull to no end. The sassy teens exchange words until it falls to Bulk to prove he's man enough to climb the rope. There is some very clear sexual tension between Bulk and Kimberly who asks “are you sure you know how to work this thing?” to which Bulk replies “what do you think I am?... stupid?” Oh they so want to do it. Bulk’s incredible mass causes the rope to come detached from the ceiling… and the roof to cave in on him. The sassy teens all point and laugh at the poor chubby bastard. No wonder he’s such an asshole.
Meanwhile on the moon (which is at least dark now…) Rita outlines her plan to trap the rangers in a time warp the same way she did Zordon. (Ooh, backstory. Nice.) We cut back to Angel Grove where Billy is babbling on about his new narrow-beam transition module that allows a wave function over an extended interval. Nobody except for Trini has a fucking clue what the poor virgin is talking about. Basically he made them walkie-talkie watches. Turns out they’re also teleporters. By an extraordinary stroke of luck the malfunction teleported them directly into the command center and not into the center of a boulder or the middle of the atlantic ocean, so you know… that’s cool. Zordon congratulates Billy and tells Alpha 5 to fix the watches. Alpha says this will be easy and then for no apparent reason starts running around in circles screaming AiYiYi… nicotine fit?

Back on the moon we get some exposition. Squat and Baboo explain that the time device will crash to earth and open up a hole in (you guessed it) time. Then Finsters’s monster will also enter the hole (hehe) and trap the rangers there forever. Rita goes to visit her poor beleaguered sculptor who creates “BONES” a gruesome, ugly and cheap looking monster. He seems perfect. So powerful that there’s no reason for Rita to just make him really huge to start with. Bones comes out of the fry cooker and removes his head for some reason. They launch the monster to earth in a 1/100oth scale model of an earth space shuttle. It drives down a busy street and for some reason terrifies people.

An alarm goes off in the command center which just sounds like an alarm to me, but apparently it fills Zordon in on Rita’s entire plan about the time device. He sends the rangers to investigate the putty’s that Rita sent while Zordon “analyzes” things. They hide behind a rock watching the putty’s and Zack (the kid in a yellow hat and break-dancing gear) remarks about how perfectly camouflaged they are. Strange because usually it’s Kimberly saying the retarded stuff. Billy notices that they’ve been spotted. Kimberly suggests the morph (not unreasonable considering the last time they fought the putty’s without morphing they got their asses kicked) but Jason says they have to try to take care of things on their own before they use their powers. (Hey, it’s not like there’s an unlimited “rangers fighting puttys” stock-footage supply and there’s going to be like 50 episodes this season!) The rangers run around kicking at the putty’s and giving each other secret high-five handshakes, except for Billy who just awkwardly runs around. (That’s what he does when he feels threatened.) Trini and Billy run off to draw putty’s away. (Doesn’t really make sense since Billy can’t fight and Jason is the toughest, maybe Jason’s trying to get Billy killed so there’s less competition for Kimberly’s affection… Boy is he going to be pissed when Tommy arrives in a few weeks. Billy and Trini decide to split up, Sun Tzu eat your heart out. Trini hides behind a rock and Billy runs up a slight incline. When Trini sees Billy climbing up the very small rock she stands up (defeating the purpose of hiding) and tells Billy he’s climbing too high. I’m afraid of heights too but I don’t know that I feel fear vicariously through my friends when they climb stuff.

Meanwhile, Jason and Kimberly are beating up putty’s while Zack dances up a storm, occasionally hitting a putty. Billy realizes he’s painted himself into a corner as the putty’s approach. He then drops his power morpher… what an asshole. Trini faces her fear and climbs up the rocks (the hard way for some reason) to save Billy’s dumb ass. Lucky for her the putty’s are moving very very slowly. The putty considers his options and then goes with the “charge” strategy. Billy and Trini sidestep and the putty falls to his death. While all this is going on things have been getting bad for the other rangers, the putty’s are gaining the upper hand. Luckily Jason has an idea, a crazy idea, but one that just might work. He puts Zack on his shoulders and Kimberly grabs onto Zack’s legs and they start slowly and awkwardly spinning around in a circle. Though we don’t see anyone make contact with a putty they nonetheless start crashing into cactuses…cactus’… cacti…whatever. The putty’s run away clutching their butts. Rita sees this and throws Bones down to the earth, upon landing on the ground Bones immediately collapses into a pile of loose bones, what craftsmanship. Zordon tells the rangers that Bones is at the amusement park and that he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, jump long distances, render himself invisible and make julienne fries.

IT’S MORPHIN’ TIME

Because this is an emergency the rangers only strike dramatic poses for 5 minutes or so before they strike their big group pose and shout power rangers. This still gives Bones enough time to notice them and send his head spinning into the air which apparently causes the rangers to do the time-warp again. They bust out their fancy laser switch-blades and fight the skeleton monsters from the Daft Punk “Around the World” music video while Squat (who apparently was hiding in a pumpkin in the time warp) looks on. While the rangers fight we see Baboo and Squat plant a bunch of bombs. Bones hits the ground with his sword and causes an earthquake (Zordon forgot to mention that power.) Trini steals Bones’ head and throws it down in the chasm and it explodes like the Emperor at the end of Jedi. In retrospect having Bones’ head come off so easily was a bit of a design flaw. Rita decides to send a giant to earth, the giant makes a jump to the left and then a step to the right and punches a hole in the time-warp again. This seems odd because my understanding was that Rita’s plan was to trap the Rangers in the time warp forever and once the giant monster punches a hole in it should be pretty simple for them to escape, but that’s why I’m a guy writing about Power Rangers instead of an evil genius. The giant grabs Jason and pulls him out of the time warp, suddenly Squatt and Baboo set up us the bomb and the other rangers are launched out of the gaping hole in the explosion. They all seem ok except for some steam coming off their costumes.

Jason shoots the big monster in the eyes which momentarily distracts the big lug.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER. NOW!

Jason’s T-Rex grapples with the sword wielding monster who appear to have the upper hand when he starts swinging the sword but Jason answers back with some powerful tail whips (he’ll learn “Quick Attack” when he evolves to a Blastoise.) Jason calls down to Zack to ask how he’s doing (if you ask me I think he was fishing for compliments) and Zack tells him that he’s “Morphenomenal” which causes me to spray Dr. Pepper out my nose. Jason’s through messing around and utilizes one of the T-rex dinozord’s special abilities. I’m sure it’s all very complicated and technical but it basically looks like the T-rex jumps in the air and does a jumping jack which makes an explosion fly at the monster who dissolves. Jason celebrates on top of the Zord’s head, and when Rita finds out, she’s horrified.

Later on, the rangers are back at the juice bar/athletics club that is their hangout and we hear Ernie, the proprietor of said establishment, telling some random woman that he heard on the radio that 5 superheroes fought a zombie at the amusement park. I’m assuming that the actors were told that the rangers would be fighting a zombie and then when it came time to actually edit in the Japanese stock footage they discovered that he was in fact a skeleton and they decided not to bother with reshooting that line because no one would be nitpicking the episodes (ha! Sure showed them.) Billy informs the others that their teleporter/communicators are once again functional. Kimberly, the dumbest woman alive, asks Billy if that means they can teleport and communicate. (Somehow she’s the only one of these kids who goes on to have a career after this show.) Billy smiles and says “affirmative” even though he’s probably thinking what we’re all thinking “Great, our pink ranger has the IQ of a turnip.” Kimberly excitedly declares that “this is SO 90’s!!!” It sure is Kimberly… it sure is.

Zack arrives while our heroes are congratulating Trini on how well she climbed the rocks. Kimberly even busts out “morphenomenal” again, but I think using it twice in one episode kind of makes it lose some of it’s impact. Zack sneaks up on Trini wearing a skeleton mask. Trini is startled and her response is to climb up the rope. The sassy teens all laugh and remind us that Trini has overcome her fear of heights. We freeze frame on Trini giving them an exasperated, but playful look. OH YOU GUYS!

THE GOOD
We get to learn a little more about Billy and Trini’s characters in this episode.
The time device was a fun little maguffin even though it doesn’t really make any sense once the big monster smashes into the time-warp somehow.
It was cool to see the final boss be defeated without summoning Megazord. It’s nice to have them solve problems with just 1 or a couple of zords once in a while so that it’s actually special when they DO have to summon Megazord or something more powerful.

THE BAD
We keep hearing about how fearsome Bones is going to be and yet the rangers defeat him in about 45 seconds so the final fight of the episode is with some random monster we know nothing about.
All of Kimberly’s dialogue.
While it was pretty awesome to see the T-Rex battle the random boss it seems like since Trini was more the focus of the episode that it would have made more sense to have had the Sabre-tooth tiger zord fight the boss. But, T-Rexes are cool and there probably was no stock footage of the Sabre-tooth fighting anything solo.

THE HILARIOUS
We learn that building codes in Angel Grove are very lax as Bulk manages to cave a roof in.
Kimberly asking if the Teleporter/Communicator will let them teleport and communicate


All in all, it was an enjoyable episode. I give it 3.5 power coins out of 5.

Next up is an episode called “Teamwork” so I’m sure we’ll all get to learn a valuable lesson.