MMPR // 1.12 "Power Ranger Punks" [review]

                In this episode, Billy and Kimberly both drink a drinky drink that was spiked and it made them turn bad.   Not like take over the world bad, but like Skull and Bulk bad.   This attitude change comes with a makeover, which is quite humorous, and Kimberly even asks Skull out on a date.

                Now, right off the bat I have three problems with this.   Rita Repulsa didn’t spike the drinks herself, she had someone do it, for all intents and purposes let’s just say she did it herself.

1)      Why turn only two out of the five Power Rangers “bad”?   Wouldn’t it have been better to turn the whole gang?   Also, of the two, why Billy and Kimberly?   It seems like Jason would have been a given, seeing as how he’s the Red Ranger, but I digress.   You can’t really control who drinks the drank, so you’ll just have to take what you can get.

2)      Given the fact that the Power Rangers turned bad were random, why didn’t she at least send someone down there to recruit them?   This could have played out where Jason, Zack and Trini had to face off against an evil Billy and Kimberly, but apparently that’s thinking too far ahead for Rita Repulsa.   I mean, isn’t she tired of sending all these baddies out there only to have them fail?   Making the Power Rangers fight amongst themselves seems like a logical step in this plan, but alas, I am probably just over-thinking this.

3)      If all of that failed (and it did) then why didn’t they somehow get “poisoned” worse than what they did?   I’m not saying Rita Repulsa should kill them, but turning them into thugs who like to give wedgies and knock books out of other kids hands seems like a bit weak of a move, right?  She could have done to them what she did to Zordon at least.

                So, yes, Rita Repulsa has a plan, which is usually flawed, and thus she usually loses.   However, I’m not letting Zordon get off that easy in this episode either.    When it is realized that something is amiss, what does Zordon do?  Why, he teleports Billy and Kimberly to a little jail cell up in space there with him.

                What?  Can he just do that to anyone at any time?  Why hasn’t he done that to Rita Repulsa or at least the number of villains she has thus far sent to destroy the earth for some reason (or at least part of California).   This makes it seem like the Power Rangers team is somewhat unnecessary, but hey, I’m sure that’s not the case, right?   Right??

                The Power Rangers ultimately have to put all their weapons together to kill another bad guy and put things back to the way that they were before.   However, Skull still shows up for his date with Kimberly who completely blows him off and all.  That bitch!

                The best parts of this episode were clearly the fashion choices.   Zack is wearing red/yellow/green/black pants at one point with the Africa necklace and it just makes me really miss the ‘90s.    Also, at the end sequence, Kimberly is wearing a spandex thong (over tights, you pervs) and it’s kind of funny for me to think that she was wearing that while supposedly good instead of evil.

                The heightened sense of overacting by both Billy and Kimberly make this episode one of my favorites so far, despite the lack of logic in the plot.   It’s almost as if they threw the rules out the window because they wanted to see Billy play a badass, and on some level I am okay with that.

MMPR // 1.11 "No Clowning Around" [review]

            Here we have a cliché episode, sure, but the payoff is getting to see the Power Rangers fight clowns, so I suppose it’s worth it.  

            While at the fair, Trini’s cousin or whoever is explicitly told not to wander off, but does she listen?  You know, I’m starting to think that if people just became better prepared and were better listeners than maybe half of these problems wouldn’t arise to begin with, am I right?

            The evil clowns at the fair kidnap the girl and it’s up to the Power Rangers to get her back.   I’d like to say that this episode had some sort of homage to “Killer Klowns from Outer Space”, but it seemed to be your standard looking clowns fighting here—they didn’t get too overly creative. 

            Also, I have a very bad feeling that if in the next few years anyone ever ran out of ideas for Power Ranger episodes and needed to revisit this plot, the evil clowns would be played by the Insane Clown Posse.   MMPR vs. ICP?   I’d take a pass on that.

MMPR // 1.10 "Happy Birthday, Zack" [review]

            I’ll admit it right now.  In my thirty plus years of having celebrated my birthday on this planet, I have never once been given a surprise party.   Oh, I’ve been sick on a number of my birthdays.  When I turned sixteen, I was throwing up so badly that I couldn’t even eat my own birthday cake.   My “sweet sixteen” was spent passed out on the couch trying not to choke on my own vomit.

            But I digress.

            In order for everyone to keep the secret of Zack’s birthday party, they all must lie to him and act as if they have forgotten about it.   I know some people enjoy surprises and even surprise birthday parties, but I refuse to be a party to one and would like to state for the record right here and now that I would open fire on anyone who attempted to surprise me with anything.

            (Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit far, but if I wasn’t able to figure out what was going on there is no way I would be pleased with a surprise party of any form right now.  I’d probably mistake it for an intervention and start hurling out obscenities.)

            So we can have surprise birthday parties and it can be okay, but the problem is that in a sense a surprise is like lying, which is what this episode proves.   While Zack is feeling down about nobody remembering his birthday, he goes off, finds some bad guys and ends up having to fight them on his own.

            Again, without the lying and deceit of the surprise party, this entire episode could have been avoided.   So can we just use this as a prime example as to why surprise parties shouldn’t exist?

MMPR // 1.9 "For Whom the Bell Trolls" [review]

            Though it takes us nine whole episodes into this series, we finally begin to gain a little bit more back story perspective on the motivations of the main villain, Rita Repulsa.

            In what can only be described as my worst nightmare (I kid you not), Trini has a special troll doll that she loves more than any of her other toys, blah blah blah, and Rita brings it to life and the Power Rangers must face it in battle.   I’ll get more into that in a moment, but first… the big reveal.

            Rita Repulsa admits that when she was young, she wasn’t allowed to play with dolls but instead had to learn spell and how to be evil while growing up.   This basically amounts to her feeling if she couldn’t have a childhood then neither should anyone else, so let their toys destroy them.

            I can’t help but wonder though why Rita had to learn how to be evil growing up.  Couldn’t she have used her spells for good?   To quote one of my favorite stories of all time: “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

            Other than that little piece of info, this show can basically be slept through, as it plays out much like you’d expect.  It just really makes you think about the possibility of your toys coming to life and fighting against you.   Granted, they wouldn’t be toy sized anymore but rather a more realistic size so as to seem like a viable threat to you, so just imagine who in your toy collection would be the worst to face.

            For me, I have a lot of kaiju I wouldn’t stand a chance against, but that’s not too threatening to me because I believe to some extent that we’ll all end in a kaiju apocalypse anyway (Japan seems to be almost there, just a few more technological advances and Godzilla can be born)   So I guess the worst bad guy I’d want to face the least would have to be Mum-Ra because old people are creepy enough as it is.  

MMPR // 1.8 “I, Eye Guy” [review]

                We open this episode and it appears as if Billy has cloned himself.   No, wait, he’s just helping some kid with science who also happens to be wearing overalls.  The fact that I didn’t wear overalls in 1993 (or ever) is really making me rethink my status of being a self-proclaimed nerd.

                Moving on, this episode is kind of fun but predictable and, well, it just gives you that go-home happy feel.    Billy’s little friend- let’s call him Billy Jr,- has entered a science fair and they do so because Billy Jr. has designed a virtual reality rollercoaster. 

                This is the first part of the episode that got me stumped.   We have all of the Power Rangers wearing the virtual reality glasses and freaking out scared because they’re riding a simulated rollercoaster.   Kimberley was the worst of the over actors here, but really, they fight the bad guys and do things that are probably ten times as scary, yet this make believe scares them?  I’m trying not to dwell on this too hard.

                So we enter the science fair and there is a guy there I guess is the principal, I don’t know I wasn’t really paying attention, and he says that they have ten minutes to enter their science stuff or they will not be allowed to enter.   I understand being a stickler to the rules and all, but are you telling me that if someone is thirty seconds late but developed a cure for cancer you wouldn’t let them in the science fair?  Come on, man.  Rules are rules, but science really has no rules that cannot be changed when needed.

                Then we enter Spike and Bulk.   I’m going to try and explain this situation as best I can to you without seeming like I’m taking sides, and then I’m going to take sides.   When Spike and Bulk enter, they obviously call names, and then they take some kind of vacuum looking gun from one of the “geeks” and Bulk tells Spike to use it.  Spike points it at  Bulk’s pants, which proceed to disappear, and Bulk is left humiliated in front of everyone at the science fair because he is standing there in his underwear. 

                First off, on a side note in some ways, if this kid (Who doesn’t seem to have a name) invented something that can take the pants off of Bulk, but not his shoes, underwear, skin, etc., then this technology could be harvested and probably could cure cancer amongst most everything else.  Billy Jr. only developed and freaking video game.   Why isn’t this kid with the disappear-gun going to work for NASA?

                And so, after this part leaves you without logic, Bulk and Skull are forced into a “makeover machine” by the female Rangers, and then proceed to come out dressed in drag.  Now some could say that the initial prank backfiring was punishment enough, but no, everyone else wanted to see them take it one step even further.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask of you, who are the true bullies?

                As predicted by NO ONE, Billy Jr. gets blamed for all of this (Justice?) and disqualified from the science fair by the guy who wouldn’t let anyone in late.   Billy Jr., Billy and the other Rangers shouldn’t really care because that disappear gun kid should win and that makeover machine is going to be bought up by some fashion person somewhere I can’t reference because I don’t get fashion. 

                This unfortunate turn of events causes Billy Jr. to run away and no joke he is met by a giant eyeball which sucks him up and puts him in one of those spinning things they use to test astronauts.   Eventually, the Power Rangers are told by Zordon where the Eye Guy is, they go fight him, form a Megazord and eventually defeat him by crushing his original eye because that’s his one weakness.   It’s kind of like the Death Star in that way.

                When everyone returns to the science fair, they see everyone else having fun with the rollercoaster game and the mean guy gives Billy Jr. first prize.   And the kid with no name throws away his disappear gun, gives up science and we all are still suffering for it.

                I also watched the time in this episode for some reason, and out of the twenty minutes they spent about twelve of them in school, which seems odd since they then went back to school at the end too.  I mean, are we in this for the Saved by the Bell aspect or Megazords?

MMPR // 1.7 "Big Sisters" [review]

            I feel like I somehow slept through a lot of this episode.  I don’t remember it exactly, but I do remember it enough because of the fact that it seems to the a staple for television shows of this time period and, well, it also is fairly formulaic already even only seven episodes into this season. 

            The female Power Rangers take on a “little sister” for unknown reasons and of course she’s a trouble maker because, you know, she has no dad and a crackhead for a mom… I don’t know, you know how things went back then. 

            So obviously Maria (this little sister) is kidnapped by Rita Repulsa because only the innocence of a child can open some magic treasure chest that has magic eggs in it, umm… Yeah, this even sounds ridiculous as I’m typing it, but wait, it gets worse.

            The Power Rangers must defeat a giant chicken in order to get Maria back.  You know, Maria, this annoying little sister they probably shouldn’t have saved anyway.   I’m pretty sure if you told the agency about the whole situation they’d be cool with her staying with Rita Repulsa.  Geez, the kid needs some structure and stability. 

            But yes, the Rangers really did fight a giant chicken, many years before Peter Griffin ever did.  And after they inevitably rescued Maria, they all had barbeque!  Good night, everybody. 

MMPR // 1.6 "Food Fight" [review]

            “Food Fight” marks the second appearance of the creepy school principal.  This guy seems like he was cast from the sex offenders list.  

            So at school they’re having a sort of party selling different foods to raise money for something that is mentioned but doesn’t really matter now.  (New gym mats?)  For whatever reason, Trini and Billy are at a table with Asian food and Skull and Bulk have that girl back in their gang as well as a new guy, a fourth member if you will.  Pointless banter ensues between the Power Ranger kids and Bulk and Skull, thus we, obviously, end up with a food fight because not only was that highly predictable but it’s the name of the episode.  (AHH!! SPOILERZ!!)

            The principal loses his wig (literally) and kicks everyone out.  At this point in time, it should be noted that Rita Repulsa is sick, but she still manages to send this sort of pig thing to destroy the earth.   This pig- which is basically just a big pig head with arms, legs and a Trojan helmet- has been said to be able to destroy the world because he will eat the earth’s entire supply of food within 48 hours.   48 hours?  Really?  I doubt he could VISIT every place in the world, let alone have time to stop there for a bite.

            After some fighting, the pig ends up back at the school and starts eating all the food from the whatever it is the kids were doing.   I distinctly saw him throw a bowl of salad on the floor and I’m pretty sure that’s food, but whatever.   I know we’re not going to get into technicalities, but does that mean he’s going to eat every living thing basically, because if you got cows and you got grass you can still have hamburgers.   He’s also going to have to eat a lot of seeds and things that those seeds produce.  I don’t think anyone really thought this notion entirely through.

            Anyway, they notice that the pig isn’t eating spicy foods, so they decide to fill him up on spicy foods and he blows up or something.   They go back to the food fight party and Alpha has given them some alien snacks that the principal just seems to love.  

            In our next episode:  The school principal is carrying Alpha’s robot-alien babies!!