Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 26: Zedd Waves



When the last episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ended, there was a new member of the Zord team.  Tor was revealed as the Thunder generation’s carrier Zord.  It was a turtle Zord that could stand up and shoot missiles out of its hands.  Billy also led a Teen World Conference which was bringing teens from around the world together to foster peace.  For some reason, Jason, Zack, and Trini weren’t at the conference.  But Rocky, Adam, and Aisha were, so that’s good.

There’s not much to expect from the next episode.  They won’t introduce another Zord right after Tor.  We’re still an episode away from The Power Transfer, so there isn’t going to be a write-off for the three Power Rangers that will be leaving.  This is likely to be the most standalone episode of the introduction of the new Power Rangers.  We’ll see as I watch…

Season 2, Episode 26: Zedd Waves
Stone Canyon, the home of Adam, Rocky, and Aisha, was holing a triathlon.  The three Stone Canyon natives were participating while Tommy, Billy, and Kimberly watched on.  It began with swimming, which led into cycling, which led into running.  While spectating, the teens brought up the idea of going away to the World Peace Conference and what would happen to the Power Rangers without them.

Bulk and Skull had a new idea to find out who the Power Rangers were.  They thought that they’d get on a boat in the lake that the triathletes were swimming through, and use some equipment to find out if they had more power than most people.  There was no evidence to indicate that the Power Rangers weren’t from Angel Grove, so I don’t know how they expected this plan to work.

It worked for Lord Zedd.  He took the equipment and turned it into a monster called Beamcaster.  The monster looked like an old school radio microphone, and spoke like a DJ.  It could use radio waves to turn people into zombies that followed the cult of Lord Zedd.  The whole idea was that the monster would brainwash everyone into followers, including the Power Rangers, and then nobody would stop Lord Zedd from conquering Earth.  The Power Rangers and their new allied friends built a machine to counter the powers of the waves.

Two major fights happened between the Power Rangers and their enemies.  This does not include the Power Rangers showing up and being turned into zombies.  One of the fights was a putty fight that happened in the park while Adam, Aisha, and Rocky were riding their bikes.  It was a pretty standard fight.  There was also a fairly standard fight near the end of the episode that ended with the Power Blaster killing the Beamcaster.  There was no giant monster and Zord fight.



The main thing that this episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers moved forward was the World Peace Conference.  As I said in the previous episode, it sounded like the Teen World Conference that Billy was hosting was going to be a throughline for the changing of the Power Rangers team.  This episode mentioned that some of the best teens from Angel Grove were likely to be chosen for the World Peace Conference.  This is how Jason, Zack, and Tommy will be written out of the show.

One last thing that I want to make mention of is the great joke of Bulk and Skull being turned into zombie Lord Zed followers.  Bulk was the first one to turn and walked away like a zombie, muttering “All hail Lord Zedd.”  Skull looked after him in bewilderment before being turned.  When Skull turned, in his comic relief way, he began saying “All hail Lord Fred.”  Even under a spell, he was bumbling around.  It worked perfectly.

This was one of the best episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  It might not have moved the story forward in ways that other episodes have, but it brought the stakes up and the humor actually landed.  It didn’t go too far into ridiculous and make me facepalm continuously.  It just worked better than other episodes.  It’s also the last episode before The Power Transfer.  We’ll see how that two-parter goes soon.  Come back and check it out when I get those posts up.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is "Real Steel" Like "Over the Top"?

When I was going through my weekly movie binge a couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon two movies that I had never seen before that tackled a very similar story.   It was an odd thing to have happen because I didn’t know of any similarities between the two movies.   The first was Real Steel, a movie about a man who participates in robot boxing while bonding with the son that he had left years before.   The second was Over the Top, a movie about a man who participates in arm wrestling while bonding with the son that he had left years before.   Similar?   I think so. Let’s begin with Real Steel.   I watched this one because, why the hell not?   I quite enjoyed the movie and by the end I was rooting for Hugh Jackman’s character to help his robot, Atom, to a victory.   The thing to point out about Real Steel is how good the visual effects were.   I wasn’t expecting too much going in, but I thought they masterfully crafted each robot in a way that it entirely fit its surroundings and didn’t
Read more

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 8: The Power Stealer

Image
Last time we sat down with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , Tommy was going through some serious stuff.   His powers were running low because Lord Zedd was targeting him.   He felt hopeless.   His friends were comforting him.   There was also a Robo Goat trying to take a powerful sword and use it against the Earth.   There were fights all over the place and an emotional hook that was unmatched in any episode that wasn’t in a multi-part arc. This episode, there might be follow-up to the Tommy storyline.   It would be nice to see more of the struggle with his powers.   Right now, that’s the one throughline that has been playing out.   II hope this episode continues to have some sort of meaning to the overall story, instead of being a self-contained and meaningless.   The show needs to grow and evolve, with a storyline that builds to something significant.   Having episodes that keep the story at a standstill is boring.   The story needs to move forward.   Will this episode d
Read more

A Short Description of how Baby's Day Out (1994) is a Live Action Cartoon

Image
Animated movies have been a large fixture throughout cinematic history.   There is currently an Academy Award category devoted entirely to animated features.   They are an important part of the cinematic landscape.   Movies would be completely different if not for the animated films that have been popular throughout the past century. Children have always been a large part of the popularity of cartoons.   This has not been solely a movie based genre.   Television also thrives on animated shows.   As a child, I can remember watching cartoons on Saturday mornings.   In the children’s cartoons, characters could be forced into dangerous predicaments, get injured or nearly killed, and continue on with their lives as if nothing ever happened to them.   This was the way of cartoons such as Looney Toons , where Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Yosemite Sam would always suffer great physical trauma, then return to their normal selves in the next scene. This is probably
Read more