I was a small child who loved dinosaurs and somehow I saw this show about robot dinosaurs on TV and instantly fell in love. This was in the early days of Power Rangers so it still wasn’t the huge fad it became a few months later but I was already hooked so let’s take a look back at the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
At first the show had only been planned for 40 episodes which is the original “season” before they ordered more when it became a huge hit. These first episodes are based on the Japanese Sentai show Zyuranger and just took the costumed segments, filmed some American footage and gave it a new story.
The show flows very smoothly and there isn’t that much “filler” that makes it feel slow at least not if you have some nostalgia related to it. There’s a lot of 90’s cheese in this show but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it gives it this feeling that really can never be recreated again and it’s a healthy mix of silly plots and odd situations with action and a storyline, it really is quite memorable and while future seasons improved on many aspects the heart that this first season had will make it stand out over the others.
After the huge success Saban ordered 40 more episodes exclusively for Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers use since he Japanese version was already using new suits and not the Dinosaur ones. They used the first 20 to make a 60 episode Season 1 and the rest on season 2. But these next 20 episodes to lengthen the first season are boring, I think it’s the lack of story arcs since they’re mostly Monster of the Week episodes outside of the return of Tommy.
As simple as the ones we had in the first 40 episodes are there was more of a story in between which really helped and here we only have the Green Rangers return as I mentioned even if it was indeed great. Most of the monsters feel as iconic as the previous ones and the stories are standard MMPR fare but yeah it was a bit difficult to get through them. Some things I noticed is they play more Ron Wasserman music and it’s great which was ordered after the show became a hit and all those great tracks from Power Rangers including the theme were written by him.
While watching I realized how bland Trini is in the series; It makes sense since she’s the ranger I remember the least. Her character is really boring but it’s not exactly her fault and I can’t quite put my finger on it, maybe because she doesn’t have a strong personality or a lot of focused episodes? Thuy Trang is a decent actress though and the few times she gets some dialog that’s any good she does stand out, I think she was just never given anything to make her well liked.
Zack also gets less focus on the series but I guess he just oozes personality which makes up for it. I’m guessing if Billy hadn’t been given so much focus he would’ve been as forgotten as Trini, that’s what she needed. The rest of the characters like Jason, Kimberly and Tommy have no problems and are usually fun. I noticed Billy is always flirting with new girls, I think he’s been through at least 4 “crushes” of the day that end with the girl liking him even if never followed upon.
I can honestly say that it’s still a great show to revisit even if I will mention that nostalgia definitely does play a factor into why it works so well still but that’s not all it has as newer seasons even by having better effects and story arcs tehy can’t replicate the connection and interaction the original heroes/villains/supporting characters had and that chemistry is the reason it’s still loved today even by newer generations who didnt grow up with it.
