Season 3 of MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS Is Probably the Best Season Yet Despite a Glaring Problem
I did it! I’m finally done with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I recently wrapped up watching the third season of MMPR, and I am including Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers as well since that feels more like a brief arc in MMPR as opposed to a separate thing. This season did a lot of things well, but it also really screwed up on some things. I will warn people now that there will probably be a fair amount of Sentai talk, but this should be the last time there’s much, if any, of that in the series.
The writing for MMPR continues to improve drastically with each season. MMPR Season 3 has probably the best writing to date for a Power Rangers show. It’s not brilliant writing, it is still Power Rangers, but there are actual story arcs and it’s not simply a monster of the week situation. Another plus for Season 3 is the length. With Alien Rangers, there are only about 43 episodes compared to the 50+ of the others I’ve watched so far. This helped keep things from feeling like they were being dragged out.
I was also surprised by how much I still liked Ninjor. I thought that when I went back to watch it, Ninjor would be annoying and grating, but I found him still a little funny. Heck, I was shocked at how much I kind of enjoyed Rito. I definitely thought that once I brushed away the nostalgia I was going to hate him, but I found him a much better character than, say, Squat or Baboo.
This season saw the transfer of power twice, and both times things were handled much better. I’m sure this has more to do with behind-the-scenes stuff, but when Kimberly transfers her powers to Katherine there are never weird reused footage moments nor awkward doubles like there were in season 2. Then, when Aisha left and was replaced by Tonya, there was once again much less of an awkward situation and feel, although the reasoning onscreen was still a little weird to me. All-in-all though, these were much better experiences than the transfer of power in Season 2.
Another great thing about Season 3 was the Ninjetti forms. I think these forms look great, and it’s a lot of fun to watch these scenes. The form gives the Rangers a wide variety of new abilities like super speed, teleportation, and even the ability to shrink enemies. This is a definite plus.
OK, this is when we talk about what I don’t like, and it does relate to Sentai. I want to stress though that I have not seen any Sentai, so there will not be direct comparisons. So, for Season 2, I talked about how I was annoyed that the Rangers didn’t switch costumes and this created wonky footage and the costumes didn’t match the new Zords or powers, so I was unimpressed. This season didn’t suffer the same wonky footage problem (the budget was apparently much higher and they were getting used to things I guess), but I have other problems. First, the costumes don’t match the new Zords, nor are they anywhere close. Second, the Rangers completely lose their powers at the start of the season. When they find Ninjor, they are granted completely new powers and yet they have the same costumes that definitely don’t match their Zords nor the ninja theme of the season? WHAT?! Tommy’s emblem in his shield doesn’t even change like in the non-canonical film.
Now, I do recognize that there’s probably quite a bit of an explanation to this. For starters, there are only five Rangers in Ninja Sentai Kakuranger with Ninjor serving the role of 6th Ranger more or less. This means they would’ve had to oust someone from the get-go. That being said, I don’t think that would’ve been too much of a problem as they were able to do that very easily in Zeo. Granted, leading up to Zeo, they do a better job of building up the departure of Billy, but with a bit more foresight they could’ve done the same thing here. Of course, this would’ve then caused problems with the Alien Rangers arc at the end of the season, but I’m sure something else could’ve been thought of. Maybe make the Alien Rangers the Gosei Sentai Dairangers or something.
Another thing that annoyed me was the random closeness with Bulk and Skull. They’ve never been friends with the two and yet the Rangers are there to support them when they graduate from the Junior Police Academy as if they’re good friends. Then, during the Alien Rangers arc they have a mishap and talk about how they’re all friends. WHAT?! It’s very weird.
The final thing that bothered me is very minor. During the Alien Ranger arc, Delphine, the White Aquitar Ranger, appears to be the leader of their group. I imagine this was because she was the White Ranger and Tommy was the White Ranger, so they should be consistent about what color was the leader. That being said, when they used Sentai footage, the Red Aquitar Ranger was depicted as the leader. It just made for some weird moments. It’s also weird because with the Shogun Megazord, the White Zord is an arm instead of, say, the head or main body which then raises questions when you really think about it.
One thing I noticed that I’m not counting as a pro or con is that you can 100% tell they had to shoot new footage with toys for the Megazord when they use Titanus. This is because Titanus wasn’t in Kakuranger and so why would they combine, but they pulled him out for a couple of episodes for something interesting.
Even though I greatly dislike the lack of cohesion created by the same costumes being used, I think MMPR Season 3 is the best one so far. I’m excited to see where it eventually ends up though.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1
Power Rangers S.P.D.