YOPR: 2. High Five
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.
2. High Five
One-sentence synopsis: Trini overcomes her fear of heights when faced with the possibility of losing a friend.
Why it matters: MMPR’s first season is rife with self-contained episodes that vary in their heavy-handedness when it comes to the handling of a moral lesson. “High Five” makes its intent clear from the jump: it opens with a shot of Trini, quickly followed by one of the other Rangers watching Jason climb a ceiling rope in the gym they frequent. Trini soon joins them to express her concern for Jason and share her general sentiments about heights. The 19-minute story not only lays the groundwork for what one should expect from an average MMPR episode, but makes clear that every character in this show will warrant the attention of its writers and viewers. Future seasons of Power Rangers, thanks to increased serialization, will fall into a trap of putting one or two heroes at the heart of an overarching arc with others falling by the wayside. That’s far from the case in MMPR; though the plots might be thinner, there’s little playing of favorites.
Episode MVP: Non-sequitur footage. Other than some brief cuts to Rita and her gang (entirely sourced from Zyuranger throughout season one), most of this episode’s story is told through original footage. A little over 13 minutes in, Rita sends her first original monster — Bones, a robotic skeleton warrior — to Earth. Following a brief explanation from Zordon in an attempt to make sense of the out-of-nowhere threat, Sentai fight footage constitutes most of the remaining run time. It’s clearly tacked on, but a kid watching for the first time isn’t going to realize that; and if they do, they won’t care because “Look at how cool the Power Rangers are!” That was the bet that Saban Entertainment and Fox Kids made, and their payoff was Megazord-sized.
A good quote: “Form a human chain, now!” – Jason
Rating: 3/5 Skeleton Putties
Previously on “Yesterday on Power Rangers”