First off, the theme song. It is just classic. This was back in the day when you could create the theme song to a kid's show with just five words and it wouldn't suck, and we liked it, dammit! The opening riff is hard rock awesome and just screams 90's. To this day, this theme is fondly remembered by all who heard it, and tons of bands have done their own version of the theme song.
The other thing I wanted to mention was the morphing sequence, which was first seen in the last episode. It was pretty flashy for its time, but now it looks pretty basic, especially when compared to the morphing in today's series. The rangers just hold their morphers up while calling out the name of their Zord, while the screen turns into the shape of the morpher and the background turns into the colour of the respective ranger. If Jason is among those morphing, it'll zoom in on his face which will sort of fade in to his ranger helmet. The order of the morphers is always the same, too: Zach, Kimberly, Billy, Trini, and Jason.
One last thing I should address before I get started is a question I'm sure someone will want to ask: Will I review the Power Rangers movies? Well, I'll probably have to review the Turbo movie, since it's in canon with the series. I'm not really sure about the first movie, though. If I was going to do it, it'd be after I finish Season 2, so we'll probably wait and see. Right now, though, I don't see it happening.
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We open this episode with Trini teaching some form of Tai Chi class, I guess. What, surprised that it's Trini teaching a class? I warned you, these kids would be doing a lot throughout this season. We then move over to Jason doing a rope climbing exercise with Zach and Kimberly cheering him on. Trini comes over and warns Jason to be careful. Zach suggests that Trini try it, but she says that she would never climb something that high. It's here we learn that Trini has acrophobia, or a fear of heights. Or, as Kimberly puts it, "height fright". Ah yes, back when rhyming randomly was cool. Billy then enters the scene, apparently with exciting news. Jason, playing a joke, slides down the rope and lands on Billy's shoulders. They then swing back and forth while bad circus music plays and soon fall on their backs. Zach jokes that they should join the circus, to which Bulk and Skull, who are just entering, retort with: "The circus don't take geek clowns". We get some bad dialogue between the two groups until Bulk decides to show Jason up and climb the rope himself. First attempt results in Bulk falling flat on his ass, which earns this funny line from Skull:
Skull: "Hey, Bulk, I thought you were going up."
Genius. Simple genius.
Bulk decides to spit in his hands and try again (which earns a funny bit in which Skull spits into one of Bulk's hands), which results in Bulk pulling the rope down out of the ceiling, and pieces of the ceiling falling onto his head. Relax, he's fine.
We then cut to the moon and Rita's palace, who isn't going to screw around with the Rangers. For now, at least. Her plan is to trap them in a timewarp much like she did Zordon, which is....actually a smart move. Zordon is supposed to be this great hero and Rita turned him into a floating head in a tube. If she did that to five human teenagers, they'd be pretty much screwed. Of course her execution of said plan is questionable, but we'll get to that in a minute.
We cut back to the Angel Grove Juice Bar where Billy reveals his good news. Which we only find out after Trini translates his technobabble. He's created communication devices disguised as wristwatches, which will allow them to talk to each other and Alpha and Zordon outside of battle. This causes Kimberly to coin the phrase "Morphinominal". Yeah, I know, just go with it. Billy explains that the communicators work through tactile pressure, or as Trini translates, touching them. The four do so, causing them to teleport away much like in the first episode. Billy wonders how that happened, and follows them.
They all land in the Command Center, on top of poor Alpha, no less. After getting off the robot, he proceeds to welcome them with some bad 90's street lingo, to which Zach replies "Too much TV". Zordon commends Billy on his invention, and explains that he accidentally tapped into the Center's teleportation grid, meaning that with some adjustments, the communicator watches could double as teleportation devices. Alpha starts to mess with the watches, causing a backlash and him running around uncontrollably while goofy music plays. As silly as this moment is, it's still mildly humourous.
We move back to the moon, where Squat and Baboo are ready with the time device, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, for some reason. They explain the plan, which is to send the shuttle down to Earth to open a hole in space and time, and the monster that Finster will send down will trap the Power Rangers inside it forever. Again, a decent plan. Simple and to the point, and already proven to have worked. We move to the back where Finster is with his clay figures, which will be created into monsters. He's creating a new monster by the name of Bones, and just by the name you can probably guess what he looks like. A walking skeleton with a cape and hat, who can reassemble himself if his body parts separate. Pretty standard stuff, but his robotic voice makes him fairly intimidating. Baboo launches the shuttle down to Earth, while Rita keeps an eye on it with her telescope.
Apparently the TVs in the Power Rangers world are directly connected to the plot, as they show the shuttle flying along the city streets, and the people instantly know to get out of the way. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The shuttle finally comes to a stop and opens the hole.
We cut back to the Command Center, where alarms are going off. Zordon, being the awesome Oz wannabe he is, instantly knows what's going on.
The Rangers are teleported outside where Putties are gathering. Kimberly suggests morphing, but Jason reminds her of Zordon's rule of not using their powers to escalate a fight and says they need to fight on their own first. Billy and Trini separate from the rest of the group to draw the Putties away. They head towards a mountain range, and Trini hides among the rocks while Billy starts climbing up it. Trini, seeing how far up Billy's moved, instantly gets worried and calls for him to come down, despite a Putty being right behind him. We go back to the others for a brief moment to see that they're holding their own, before moving back to Trini and Billy. Billy reaches a cliff with the Putty right behind him, effectively trapping him. He tries to use his morpher, but drops it in a panic. Trini manages to screw up enough courage to make her way up the mountain. As the other rangers are surrounded by Putties, Trini manages to make her way up to Billy and save him from the Putty. After tricking him into falling off a cliff, Billy and Trini make their way back down to save the others from the rest of the Putties. After a rather bizarre moment in which Zach, Jason, and Kimberly, form some sort of human chain (I really can't explain it, you'd have to see it), the Putties run off, beaten. Rita, seeing that they've failed, sends Bones down to beat the Rangers.
Zordon congratulates the Rangers on beating the Putties, and especially Trini for overcoming her fear of heights. He then tells the Rangers that Bones has arrived, and, knowing all and seeing all, tells them what Bones can do while showing Sentai footage that won't be used in this episode. He then coins the more well-known phrase "It's Morphin' Time".
The Rangers morph and instantly show up at the amusement park, where Bones is. He teleports them into the timewarp, which for some reason has trees and mist in it, and starts to fight them with skeleton minions. The Rangers retaliate with their Blade Blasters, large red knives that can turn into lazer guns. Squat and Baboo show up to initiate the second part of the plan: blow up the time device with a stereotypical round bomb to trap the Rangers in the timewarp forever. Jason holds onto Bones while the other rangers zap him with their lazers, blowing Bones to pieces. But, as I mentioned earlier, he can just come back together, and promptly does so. Billy quickly concludes that they need to destroy the head to beat him. How? Well, it's Billy. He read ahead, remember? He grabs Bones' head and tosses it to Trini, who, after plowing through some minions, tosses his head down a fissure. This causes Bones' body to explode. Yes, all the monsters explode once they're beaten. It's just cooler.
Rita isn't done yet though, and uses her magic to create a new monster, just called a Giant. The Giant breaks through the timewarp, which just happened to be in a building somewhere, and grabs Jason. The bomb goes off, but the Rangers are sent through the hole created by the Giant, so they aren't trapped. Jason manages to break free of the Giant's grasp and calls on the DinoZords. We get a more detailed intro for the Tyrannosaurus Zord, who comes out of a fissure made in the ground. Jason enters his Zord and decides to fight the Giant solo, rather than call on the other Zords. The two fight for a bit, with the Giant looking to win. The T-Rex gains the upper hand, however, by dropkicking him in the face. It's all in the tail support. Jason then fires his lazers at the ground, causing some sort of tornado which turns the Giant into dust. Rita, of course, is pissed and gets another headache.
We head back to the Juice Bar, where the group overhears Ernie talking about the Power Rangers' exploits. Billy then tells the group that the communicators are working perfectly now, and Kimberly somehow instantly understands what Billy's talking about this time. Of course, her following this up with calling them "so 90's" sort of ruins it. Billy thanks Trini for saving him earlier, and Trini comments that one doesn't really know what one can do until they're forced to do it. She follows this up with saying that she hopes she doesn't have to climb that high again. Naturally, Zack, wearing a skull mask, jumps out and scares her, causing her to climb up the workout rope in fright. The group, save for Trini of course, has a good laugh at this and the episode ends.
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This episode seemed to serve as a way to help establish the status quo of the series. Minor conflict at the start, conflict mixes with a battle with minions/monster fight, monster grows to giant size which brings out the giant robots, heroes win the battle, conflict is fully resolved, wash, rinse, repeat. And they were smart to keep the first one of these simple. One of the rangers has a very common fear that she has to overcome in order to save her friend. Basic stuff. The monsters for this episode both look good in their own rights. As I said, Bones looks very cool. A walking skeleton with a Renaissance-esque hat just screams cool. The Giant just looks like a stereotypical Roman gladiator, but he filled his role. Still, despite establishing what the pattern would be for the rest of the series, they seemed to have a problem with the direction of the series. The scene with Alpha and the weird human chain makes one wonder if the producers were having a hard time deciding if the series should be comedy, or take a more serious direction. Plus, the acting is still off a bit. Trini in particular is guilty of this, but that may just be because the episode is focusing on her and it's more noticeable. At first, her display of being afraid of heights while Jason is climbing the rope is well done, but the mountain climbing scene isn't. She very unemotionally states as she begins "I'm afraid". Considering this is supposed to be where she overcomes her fear, it's a bit of a letdown. Overall, not a bad episode, but the guys backstage were still trying to figure out the direction of the series, and it shows here.
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The Blade Blaster, the basic sidearm for the Rangers.
Bones, the first monster-of-the-week.
The Giant, the first GIANT monster-of-the-week.
And because I forgot them in the last post, the Putties.
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The original opening, if you care to listen to the awesomeness.
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