Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Alpha's Magical Christmas



Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was all about fights.  The Power Rangers fought putties.  They fought monsters.  They took their Zords and made them into a giant robot man to fight giant monsters.  But the show also liked to let us in on the characters’ lives.  It started slow on that front, giving little to no information on Trini, and basic stuff on the others.  Jason and Tommy were good at martial arts.  Billy was a nerd.  Zack liked hip-hop and there was a girl in school that he liked.  When Rocky, Adam, and Aisha came into the show, they each got to showcase the non-fighting side of their characters.

Someone who never got as much focus was Alpha-5.  He hung around the Command Centre, freaking out over everything.  Rarely did he get storylines beyond that.  This episode will change that.  The Christmas special, which was produced during the second season, highlights Alpha as he does some caroling with children.  I’ve never seen this special.  I’m writing this on Christmas Eve and hoping to get it up tonight or tomorrow.  Let’s get into it so that I can write my little heart out.

Alpha’s Magical Christmas
Okay, so I can’t write about this episode right now.  That was so weirdly bad on so many levels.  It wasn’t a bad that I enjoyed.  It wasn’t any good sort of bad.  That episode broke me.  I am unable to properly get my thoughts out.  Every single decision that they made was mind boggling.  Wherever the story went, my jaw dropped.  Not from excitement, but from shock.  I cannot believe this Christmas special is a thing.

The story was fairly simple.  Alpha-5 felt lonely because he had no friends to hang out with on Christmas.  The Power Rangers were helping Santa, and the former Power Rangers were at the World Peace Conference.  Zordon had a great surprise for his robot friend.  He teleported a group of children, about fifteen or twenty in size, to the Command Centre.  The children became new best friends of Alpha-5 and sang Christmas music with him for half an hour.

There were many weird things in Alpha’s Magical Christmas.  Let’s begin with the children themselves.  Zordon kidnaped a bunch of children and forced them to hang out with Alpha on Christmas instead of their families.  Wouldn’t parents be worried when they go to check and make sure their kids are sleeping, only to find that the kids aren’t there anymore?  Zordon doesn’t think of these things.  He only thought of himself and Alpha-5.  There was no worry about the problems that would be caused by the missing children.  This was a crime that was never thought about.

One of the children was named Michael.  There was a moment when Alpha-5 asked him a question.  “Hey, Michael.  What do you want to do next?”  Michael’s answer was obviously to open presents.  All of the other kids wanted to open presents too.  They shouted “Me too!”  In one of the moments that caused me to completely break, Michael joined in the chorus of “Me too!”  Why did he yell that?  We knew that he wanted to open presents.  He was the first person to say it.  Does he have split personality syndrome?  Does he need to always agree with himself?  I was so confused by that single two second moment.  I’m not sure if anyone else caught that when they saw it, but it stood out and helped to break my will.

Also strange for the children was their exit.  Instead of teleporting them back home the way he got them, Zordon created a tunnel.  At the end of the tunnel was a light.  Basically, when the kids were leaving, they were walking into the light.  It was like having the children walk off into their deaths.  That was the symbolism that I got, and that’s some messed up symbolism.

The kids weren’t the only thing that baffled me in Alpha’s Magical Christmas.  Alpha-5 had magical powers throughout the special.  During one of the musical numbers, he pointed and different decorations appeared.  He pointed at the stars in the Command Centre ceiling and light displays appeared in the sky.  He pointed at the tree and new ornaments popped up.  It was a power that he never had before and one that he’ll never have after.  He’s not magical.  He’s a robot who uses the morphing grid.

Finally, I need to touch upon the Power Rangers themselves.  The Power Rangers made a brief appearance at the end of the special.  Rocky, Adam, and Aisha appeared on the viewing globe to say Merry Christmas to everyone watching the special.  Tommy, Billy, and Kimberly appeared in the Command Centre.  The strange thing was that Tommy was dressed as the Green Ranger.  If Rocky, Adam, and Aisha are in the special, there is no way that Tommy should still have the Green Ranger powers.  He was the White Ranger before those three characters were introduced.  And with it only being the three Power Rangers, it seems like the episode would have been filmed after the exit of Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and Thuy Trang.  They also left after Tommy was the White Ranger.  So why is he the Green Ranger in this special?  It makes zero sense.

Luckily, Alpha’s Magical Christmas is not part of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers continuity.  It is not an official episode.  The magic powers that Alpha-5 has are contained to this special.  The weird Green Ranger stuff makes no sense, but doesn’t factor into the main show.  And we can keep knowing that the Power Rangers team stops kidnappings instead of causing them.  This special upends anything that Power Rangers set up, but for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t exist.  It’s a special feature in the box set.  It was a special released only to the Power Rangers fan club in the 1990s.  It is a semi-buried artifact of the show, and one that should only be seen by the strong willed.

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