Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 1, Episode 31: Calamity Kimberly

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers tries its hardest to build up the characters by having episodes that focus on one of the characters.  Sometimes it will be about Billy and his struggles with martial arts.  It could be about Zack and his lack of confidence in his dancing.  It could be a lesson to Jason about becoming a leader, or an episode where Trini learns… something.  These episodes are used to make the characters better-rounded and have the audience care more for them.

Sometimes focusing on one character, or two as can be the case, can really help to grow the audience’s affection for the characters.  Sometimes it can fall flat and leave a viewer scratching their head.  That’s what happened with the episode I will get into in a few moments.  Though it was focused on Kimberly, and it was meant to make me connect to the character a little bit more, it did nothing of the sort.  Instead, I was watching a simple damsel-in-distress story as filtered through Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  Going through the plot will help me help you to understand what I mean.

Season 1, Episode 31: Calamity Kimberly

When Kimberly wakes up, her day starts poorly.  She falls out of bed, when she opens the curtains it begins storming, and her favourite dress has a giant burn hole in it.  It’s not going to be a good day for Kimberly.

Kimberly shows up at school with terrible hair because she had to go out in the storm.  She sees Tommy in the hallway and is embarrassed because of her hair.  Bulk and Skull show up and make fun of her, but Tommy defends her honor.  He sends Bulk flying head first into a mop bucket.

Tommy and Kimberly then go for a walk as Rita sends down attackers.  Some guy with a fan named Samurai Fan Man (what kind of name is that?) sucks Kimberly up in his urn and puts a sleeping spell thing on Tommy.  The rest of the gang is called in by Zordon to save Kimberly from the obviously named Samurai Fan Man.

It’s the typical Power Rangers fight.  The Power Rangers fight Samurai Fan Man (I still can’t get over the name).  Rita makes him grow.  The Power Rangers get in their Zords.  Goldar shows up.  Tommy wakes up and gets in the Dragonzord.  They release Kimberly from the urn.  They make the UltraMegaZord or whatever it’s called.  They defeat Samurai Fan Man and get rid of that dumb name, hopefully, forever.  Goldar runs away.  They all live happily ever after until the next episode.

Like I said, it’s an episode revolving around Kimberly where all she does is become the damsel in distress.  I’d be fine with a damsel in distress in the story if it actually caused a character to grow in even the slightest amount.  This episode did not show any growth in the characters.  It was a straight-forward story of a girl getting captured then saved.  That’s it.

I still enjoyed the episode.  The fights were solid.  There’s something about Japanese action sequences that have much more physicality than we get in North American work.  It makes the experience much more satisfying to see people moving in the way that the Japanese actors/stuntmen move.  I feel joy inside simply thinking about it.  But that doesn’t excuse a lack of character work in the American side of the story.  If they want to write a story about a specific character, the least they could do is have some sort of growth in that character.  I’ve seen the writers of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers do that kind of work in previous episodes.  I know they can do it.  It leaved me disappointed when that quality of writing isn’t apparent in an episode where it should be apparent.

That’s all I’ve got for this episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  I’m not angry about watching it.  I’m disappointed.  I’m like a child’s mom, when the child has been bad.  The episode wasn’t a bad watch, but it was a poor execution from a writing standpoint.  It makes me sad that they couldn’t do more than putting Kimberly in a bad situation.  Perhaps the next episode will be an improvement and turn around my sadness.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  I’ll see you soon for the next blog post about this show.