Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 2: A Friend in Need, Part II

When we last left off with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the team had gone to the planet Edenoi.  It was Alpha’s home planet, and it was being attacked by Count Dregon.  When the Power Rangers got there, they were treated to hostility.  The Edenites thought they were sent by Count Dregon to attack.  It was only when Count Dregon continued bombarding the planet with explosives that they realized the Power Rangers were allies.

Now we’re heading into the second part of the three part story.  The Power Rangers have teamed up with The Masked Rider and are looking to attack Count Dregon and his minions.  Lord Zedd might be planning an attack on Earth while the Power Rangers are gone.  Except for Kimberly, that is.  She’s still sick in bed on Earth.  What will happen?  There’s only one way to find out.

Season 3, Episode 2: A Friend in Need, Part II

Let’s begin with Bulk and Skull.  They made their season debut in the second part of A Friend in Need where they were no longer trying to find out who the Power Rangers were.  Skull put a stop to that silliness.  Instead, they were going to pretend to know the Power Rangers so that they could get dates with some girls they saw at Ernie’s juice bar.

The Power Rangers were off on Edenoi trying to help The Masked Rider and his friends.  The planet was being attacked by Count Dregon.  Dex, the unmorphed Masked Rider, told his new allies about how Edenoi came to be in its current predicament.  He projected a historical video on the wall of the cave that everyone was hiding in.  He also lets the Power Rangers know that Lexion is alive.

Lord Zedd, knowing that the Power Rangers were off on another planet, decided to strike.  He commissioned Finster to create a monster, and Repellator was born.  The monster was sent to Earth where Kimberly was the only line of defense.

Both of the Power Rangers storylines culminated in fights.  The Power Rangers and fighters of Edenoi went up against the Plague Patrol.  They were like a much tougher, more serious version of the Putty Patrol.  They were the minions of Count Dregon.  What made the fight stand out was that the Power Rangers were fighting different characters than they had ever encountered.  They were knight-like characters who fought better than most of the monsters that they usually encountered.  Back on Earth, Kimberly went one-on-one with Repellator.  She fought hard but was being hindered by her sickness.  She would stop partway through an attack to sneeze, allowing Repellator to counter and knock her down.  As the episode ended, Kimberly didn’t think she could win the fight.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers didn’t come in strong with its third season, choosing to backdoor pilot another show instead of setting up its own story.  The piloting led to many scenes of exposition about the history of Edenoi and The Masked Rider, which took away the urgency that should be apparent in a multi-episode arc such as A Friend in Need.  They were trying to build a world that wouldn’t matter to the Power Rangers.  The writers simply inserted the Power Rangers into a different character’s story instead of having it be a Power Rangers story featuring another character.

I’m certainly glad that Saban didn’t do this for any of the other series that they produced.  There were no Power Rangers episodes that devoted themselves to backdoor piloting VR Troopers, Big Bad Beetleborgs, or Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog.  The only other crossover they did with another series was a team up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  That one wasn’t meant to set up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.  It was simply merging the two to tell a story that featured both.  That’s a few seasons away, though.  It happened during Power Rangers in Space.

There is one more episode in the A Friend in Need storyline, and hopefully it will be better than this boring middle episode was.  There doesn’t need to be any more set up for a series that will completely ignore this multi-episode story.  Instead, there will need to be a conclusion to what the Power Rangers are going through that will tie everything together.  Then we can get on with the rest of season 3.  See you soon for A Friend in Need, Part III.