YOPR: 33. The Yolk's on You
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.
One-sentence synopsis: What do albatross eggs taste like?
Why it matters: It’s been quite a while since an episode was predominantly built around a monster encounter, but this episode makes up for that in spades. There’s a lot of Sentai footage used with only one minor but significant storytelling change. The eggs at the core of the Monster of the Day’s story are his lunch; in Zyuranger, they were the monster’s children. As an adult it’s easy to infer that these eggs had to have been more significant in the original show than they were here, even if you’ve never seen or read about the counterpart. But as a clueless viewer with no frame of reference – i.e., almost everybody watching in 1993 – it’s kind of amazing that it still works (albeit on a much less emotionally resonating level) despite the change.
Episode MVP: Japanese model builders. Most of the time, Zord battles take place in city scapes or mountainous areas, all built to scale with people in rubber suits. Generally, these locations all have visual (and destructible) consistency, so they have a tendency to blend into the background and put the combatants more into focus. So when a new location is used – like the dam in this one – it can kind of be jarring, but in a positive way. “Whoa, this is different!” is a good reaction, even when it takes you out of the episode for a second. It’s a visceral response that I think only practical effects and sets can generate; CGI can do a lot of things, but it can’t replicate the aesthetic of a real plastic truck looking up at a man in a Dragonzord suit.
A good quote: “You can’t just walk into a store and buy these, y’know?” – Fang
Rating: 2/5 cymbals
