MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS Season 2's Greatest Strength Is One of Its Greatest Weaknesses
I recently finished watching season two of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in my quest to revisit and rank all the seasons. This is a particularly hard season for me to really sort out. There are some things that make me really enjoy it, but then others that drive me insane. I’ll try to walk you through several of my thoughts, and we’ll see where we land.
So, one of the best things about this season is the very beginning. Season two starts with “The Mutiny” which is a 3-episode arc that features Lord Zedd arriving and replacing Rita Repulsa. It also features the Rangers losing the Dinozords and gaining the Thunderzords. These three episodes are extremely well done. In fact, a lot of the first 20-ish episodes are very well done and possibly some of the best episodes we ever get of Power Rangers (or at least of Mighty Morphin). “Bloom of Doom” deals with jealousy, “Green No More” is a two-parter about Tommy losing his Green Ranger powers, and then we later get “White Light” where Tommy returns as the White Ranger. Unfortunately, “White Light” is also where the season starts hitting this weird space of some awesome parts and some awful parts.
In order to fully understand some of the things I struggle with in this season, we do have to look at the Sentai for the season. I typically don’t like doing this, but in this case (and I’m assuming in season three of MMPR), I think it’s important. You see, the White Ranger and the Thunderzords come from Gosei Sentai Dairanger. The other five Rangers come from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. This means that the footage in Power Rangers starts getting wonky the moment the Thunderzords enter the picture, but things get crazier with the introduction of the White Ranger. After all, how can you have Rangers from two different Sentai work together?
This means that a lot more morphed scenes were filmed for Power Rangers to accommodate all six Rangers. The approach works well when the Rangers fight Putties, but it causes a lot of lackluster moments with the episode’s monster. I think this is why there’s a lot of recycling of monsters in this season. Unfortunately, with the introduction of the Thunderzords so early in the season, from episode 3 until after “Green No More,” the Zord fights are really dumb. Sadly, because they recycle monsters so much in this season, there are plenty of moments later where the Zord fights are once again lackluster and boring because you can’t have the Zords and monsters in the same frame.
What I don’t understand is why they didn’t change the Ranger uniforms. There are at least three perfect opportunities for the Rangers to “upgrade” to the Gosei uniforms. The first is when they first get the Thunderzords during “The Mutiny.” It would’ve been perfectly understandable to explain that the Rangers need a power boost and that includes a change of costume (I’ve included a picture of the Gosei Rangers below). The second is during “White Light” when they found that some new power had helped Tommy and there’s enough to give to the other Rangers to face off against the stronger monsters that Zedd is throwing at them. The third opportunity was during “The Power Transfer.” What if when they performed the power transfer, something needed to change which resulted in the Thunder Rangers? That could’ve worked well and let Power Rangers better use footage from Sentai. Now, let’s look at the flip side of things.
Lord Zedd is an absolutely incredible villain. It’s also important to note that he’s an American villain. He is not in Sentai. This gave the Power Rangers team a lot of flexibility which I think led to Zedd being so great. He’s also not the only Americanization that was cool for the season. As I mentioned above, the White Ranger being thrown into the mix led to more American footage of the Rangers, and I found this footage to be fun to watch (possibly more so than the Sentai footage sometimes). It led to fewer awkward poses and gestures with bad dubbing and helped the dubbing make a bit more sense. There are also some really fun moments that come from the American footage recycling old monsters. For example, while not the best writing, “The Wedding” is very fun to watch. The Rangers get trapped in a crazy theater in Australia with a bunch of old monsters and the Rangers try to figure out what’s going on. We also have “Return of the Green Ranger” which is an interesting storyline that could only have happened with the American footage.
OK, that’s enough of the Sentai and American footage talk. Let’s talk about some real problems that have nothing to do with that. First, the disappearance of Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and Thuy Trang. These three left the show but weren’t replaced for a few episodes. This left us with a lot of episodes focused on Billy, Kimberly, and Tommy; terrible overdubs from stand-ins; terrible stand-in shots; and recycled footage that doesn’t fit. This mess starts somewhere around “The Ninja Encounter” episodes where we meet Adam, Aisha, and Rocky (their replacements). In addition, after “The Power Transfer,” we seem to go from many great episodes with some decent ones sprinkled into a lot of mediocre episodes with some fun and a couple of great episodes sprinkled in. It was like they had a narrative arc planned through “The Power Transfer” and then just went back to monster-of-the-day without a real plan to speak of.
Let’s go back to some of the good the season has to offer. First, let’s address the replacement Rangers. I think Adam and Aisha are great and fantastic. They have their own personalities, and I enjoy watching them (most of the time). Rocky’s different though. I’m not a huge fan of Rocky, I just find him dull. However, he is very necessary. Jason was a leader. When Tommy became the White Ranger, he became the leader and groups don’t typically work out great if you have multiple leaders. Rocky is no leader, which kinda makes him perfect. While I hate to admit it, Rocky may not have been a great choice, but he was a good choice.
I also really enjoy some of the more random episodes like “Wild West Rangers.” Who doesn’t love the idea of Kimberly going back to the Old West, finding everyone’s ancestors, and getting them to become Power Rangers? It’s fantastic. It doesn’t make a lot of sense per se, but it’s fun. This season had a lot more multi-part episodes which I think is a point in its favor as those tend to be some of the better episodes.
All in all, this season really is a big pile of something. It’s got quite a lot of good and even some great parts. However, it’s got some trash and it’s got a lot of just confusing things. However, I think in the end, the good outweighs the bad and I think I have to give MMPR Season 2 the top spot on my list.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers S2
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers S1
Power Rangers S.P.D.