TV Review: Power Rangers, Season 1!

Sometime between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles heyday and the advent of Pokemon (a phenomenon I am still glad I missed), kids in the early 90s were taken with the coolest bunch of misfit heroes the world had ever seen! Called to uncover nefarious crimes and fight back against evil masterminds and dangerous villians much, much larger than themeselves, this selfless fivesome overcame the odds against them and delivered a knockout blow to the bad guys every week at 5 (4 central). But enough about Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers.

There was another kind of Ranger a few channels over on FOX Kids. The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (note the hip trendiness of the apostrophe; spelling out 'Morphing' would be so square) were another interesting band of characters dedicated to fighting crime and, if there was time, fitting in a poorly-acted storyline where somebody would learn the value of friendship or teamwork or something. I wasn't listening. I was too busy waiting for the series' meat and potatoes: the sweet costumes and the even sweeter dinosaur robots in the spliced in Japanese TV footage. The rest, as they say, was gravy, but very watered down gravy.

Okay so I'll bring you n00bs up to speed, since I'm assuming you were not a cool seven-year-old in 1993. According to the title sequence, some dopey astronauts were tooling around on the moon and accidentally set free an unimaginably sadistic supervillian bent on taking over Earth. This villian was cold, calculating, callous, cackly, and uh, a chick.

Anyway, her name was Rita and as mentioned before, she decided to conquer Earth, although Earth in this case pretty much pertained only to the very fictional, very colorful Angel Grove High School. There, five teenagers of mixed martial arts experience (emphasis on the 'mixed' part) were very randomly attacked by strange grey dudes and unwittingly summoned by Zordon, a giant head inside of a tube. Once in his command center, Zordon didn't do much to dispel the creepy old guy vibe; instead, he handed out vibrant costumes and golden coins, promising the kids much fame and cool dinosaur toys. Basically, it was the proverbial stranger in a van offering candy, but he had a kooky robot named Alpha 5 who told jokes, so he must be a good guy!

These specially recruited "teenagers with attitude" (which I guess must have a positive connotation in Japan) teamed up to become the Power Rangers. Each had a color, a special weapon, and a dinosaur robot, called a Zord. "Zord" is not a real word, but if it was it would be Japanese for "cheap plastic toy that Santa didn't bring me". In each episode, Rita would concoct a new and somewhat flimsy plan to take over the world. Rather than send in the big guns, Rita and her henchmen ("All bad guy assistants are henchmen" - Action Hero 101) would deploy a serious of escalating attacks, starting with the weak Putty Patrolers. These guys were made of clay and didn't do much except wobble menacingly. Needless to say, the fact that the outnumbered Power Rangers kicked their sorry asses every single time did little to deter Rita from sending more.

At this point, one of the other villians would step up to the plate and fight the Power Rangers themselves. They'd hold off the five Rangers in a dramatic and incredibly staged action sequence, before Rita would make her monster grow. This was accomplished by tossing her magic wand down towards Earth and landing it smack dab in the middle of the battlefield. Integral plot points such as "how did she get it back?" or "damn, she's got a cannon for an arm!" were never discussed. Once her monster was at full size, he would terrorize the small model city until the Power Rangers summoned their Zords. The Zords, which I believe must have been ineffective and docile on their own, combine to make one large Megazord dude that was a ripoff of Transformers. Megazord and MegaVillianGuy smack each other around some until Megazord wins and the world is saved. In the end, we learn that we cannot save the world through diplomacy or understanding, but rather by who brings the biggest nuts to the fight.

The coolest moment of the series came with the introduction of the Green Ranger. He was first an evil Ranger but converted to good because of love or TV ratings or something. The Green Ranger had the best outfit, the best plot lines, the best Zord (a Dragonzord, bitchin'!), and presumably got to do whatever it is boys and girls do together with the Pink Ranger. The TV show jumped the shark early on, however, creating a weak story line to sap the Green Ranger of his powers and forcing him to be reintroduced as the White Ranger. Lame. Even as a kid, I was pretty pissed by this switcharoo and I quickly dropped the show like the two-timing second grade girlfriend that Sally Friedman was.

The series raised a lot of important questions. Why was the Pink Ranger always a girl? Why was the Black Ranger black? Why was the Yellow Ranger an Asian? What level of irony is it when an Asian action series plays into anti-Asian racism? Why don't the Rangers just cut to the Zords part when the Putty Patrolers show up? Why is Zordon in that tube? Does the Blue Ranger bat for the other team (if you know what I mean)? Ditto Alpha 5. Notably, how bangin' was Kimberly the Pink Ranger? Hot damn. I'd go for some morphin' time with her.

All in all, Power Rangers was a fantastic show in that it had plenty of action sequences, spun off lots of toys of which I could afford none, featured a Pink Ranger cute enough that I considered (briefly) the idea that girls maybe, maybe might not have cooties, and taught us absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever.