YOPR: 17-21. Green with Evil

Mar 12, 2023

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On April 19, MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: ONCE AND ALWAYS premieres on Netflix. I’m writing about all 60 episodes of MMPR’s first season in the lead-up to that premiere.

If you’d like to follow along on this rewatch, entirety of MMPR’s first season is available for free (with ads) on YouTube.

And now, for a special presentation …

Green with Evil

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Part 1         Part 2         Part 3         Part 4         Part 5

One-sentence synopsis: A show-defining arc introduces its most iconic character.

Five things that matter

Tommy: The first time we meet the character widely regarded as the show’s most iconic, he’s – fittingly – alone. Microseconds after the words “Introducing Jason Frank as Tommy” appear on screen, we cut to the newcomer, sporting a green headband and matching cutoff. He’s preparing to spar with Jason in a martial arts competition. With the benefit (and handicap) of hindsight, it’s painfully clear how telegraphed this is not just for the proceeding episodes, but perhaps the course of history. From the jump, Tommy Oliver – a stranger – is established as an equal to Jason Scott, the leader of our beloved Power Rangers. It’s a decision rooted, surely, in the source footage; in Zyuranger, the Green Ranger and Red Ranger are brothers. Still, it proved to be incredibly consequential.

Jason: Before embarking on this rewatch, I never really realized how much of a complementary piece Jason was to the program in the early going. My hunch is that it’s by design: Austin St. John was an incredible martial artist but had zero acting experience; that he doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, honestly, is a testament to those behind the scenes. Here, though, Jason gets almost as much of the spotlight as Tommy – “Green with Evil” is as much about the Red Ranger as it is the new guy. His one-on-one, multi-episode duel with Goldar is as thrilling as anything Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – all of it, not just season one – has to offer.

Serialization: To this point, one could infer episode-to-episode continuity within Power Rangers, but since “Day of the Dumpster” you could watch the remaining episodes in a random order and more or less not be confused; the only thing that might raise an eyebrow to a rookie viewer in a grabbag viewing would be the RADBUG, which happens to play a vital role in this arc. “Green with Evil” is the show’s first multi-part episode (and still the lengthiest, by show count), and perfectly demonstrates the creative team’s confidence in their product’s ability to keep kids returning to the tube. Power Rangers wasn’t the first children’s show to lean into multi-part serialization – Transformers, a rival-turned-sibling in the toy aisle, had a five-part story of its own in the late 80’s – but telling a story over several installments in a live-action kids show was mostly unplowed ground.

Sixth Ranger: Kids watching for the first time probably guessed that Tommy would eventually be freed of Rita’s spell and join the Power Rangers’ ranks, but they had no expectations of what was to come. It was one thing to watch episode to episode and not know what evil scheme Rita would draw up for your favorite heroes – and how they’d overcome it – but this was a rollercoaster. This was Power Rangers looking at you and saying, “Anything can happen!” (“Well, anything that the source footage allows for, that is.”) As the show continued, fans came to expect additional Rangers to join the fold, and would try to guess who would don the mantle if they did. The internet enabled dedicated fans to project the content of future seasons based on their source footage. This? This was a shared, one-of-a-kind introduction to what would become an in-universe trope.

Trauma: It’s legitimately unnerving when Tommy enters the Command Center – as anyone wielding a Power Coin can do – and just lays waste to the place. And in the FIRST EPISODE OF THE ARC! Outside of the Jason-Goldar scenes, it’s these involving Tommy, Zordon and Alpha 5 that shine brightest throughout. It’s a traumatic experience for the viewer, who’s had zero reason to think of this venue as one where evil could enter, and for all of its participants; it’s representative of the arc itself. The show, unfortunately, doesn’t have the narrative leverage to explore this event to the extent it deserves in its aftermath, but it’s explored – at great length – in the Boom! Studios comic run helmed by Kyle Higgins. Highly recommended reading.

Arc MVP

Zordon. Weird, right? But his extended absence from the show forces our heroes, for the first time, to lean on themselves rather than a deus-ex-machina-wielding wizard trapped in a tube. And they don’t exactly excel at it! And that’s oddly comforting. One can glean a lot of “morals” from this arc, but most of them could be distilled to three words: never give up. It’s a mantra that Power Rangers will often beat into the ground, but it’s something we all need to be reminded of at times. Failing is OK, but how will you respond to it? In so many ways, Zordon embodies the kind of determination that’s necessary to overcome long odds and real-world despicableness.