Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 23: A Different Shade of Pink, Part I

Previously in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, a famous gymnastics coach came to Angel Grove. He was scouting for the Pan Global Games. Kimberly wanted to meet him, but her taxi was turned into a monster instead. The gang got new Shark Cycles to chase down the monster and saved Angel Grove from Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa once again. It was a standard episode.

The next one will be anything but normal. This will be one of the final episodes for Kimberly, as she will be passing off her powers in this story arc. Kat has been introduced. She only needs to snap out of Rita’s spell and become one of the good guys. Kimberly will end up meeting the coach and earning a spot on his team. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will be changed forever. Or for the next few episodes before it turns into Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers. Either way, that journey begins with…

Season 3, Episode 23: A Different Shade of Pink, Part I

Gunther Schmidt arrived in Angel Grove and showed up at the Youth Centre. He saw Kimberly practicing and agreed to train her so that she would be ready for the Pan Global Games tryout. Zordon told her that she shouldn’t miss this opportunity. If she managed to make the team, he was okay with her leaving the Power Rangers behind. She began to train.

Rita Repulsa heard about the training. She wouldn’t have any of that. She sent three teams of monsters to Earth as an attack to lure all six Power Rangers into a fight. The Power Rangers paired off to fight in the three locations. Billy and Adam fought Tenga Warriors. Aisha and Rocky fought two random monsters. Tommy and Kimberly fought Goldar, Rito Revolto, and some other Tenga Warriors. As soon as they finished fighting, Rita sent all the monsters to a different location. The Power Rangers got on their Shark Cycles and headed into another fight.

The whole time, Katherine was watching the fights unfold while experiencing a crisis in herself. Kimberly’s training for the Pan Global Games reminded her of her own past, where she had been a Pan Global Games diver. She had even been up for the gold medal. Katherine understood what Kimberly was training for and snapped out of Rita’s spell when Kimberly collapsed from exhaustion.

Bulk and Skull spent their time watching Kimberly’s coach. There had been a news report about a fifty-year-old, grey haired and blue-eyed spy, with a fake accent. They thought that Gunther Schmidt fit the description. They planned to capture him and report him to Lt. Stone, who would then realize how good they were at their jobs.

There were two fights in the episode. The first one was the hand-to-hand combat fight that took place in three different locations. It was a fairly standard fight. The standout moment was when Rito was about to stab one of the rangers, only for two others to show up and kick his sword out of the way. The second fight was some cheesy 90s kids’ show bike-kata. The Power Rangers showed up on their Shark Cycles and started attacking the monsters with the bikes. One monster got hit. Goldar disappeared before he could be hit. Rito got onto Kimberly’s bike until Tommy knocked him off. The other monster flipped over a bike, landed badly, and disappeared. It was a bike fight.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers did a good job kicking off the A Different Shade of Pink three-part story arc. It had everything needed to push the show into its next phase. The Kimberly exit story was the main focus. The Katherine introduction as a hero was a secondary focus. The new Shark Cycles got some screen time where they were used for more than just driving down the street and looking cool. It was all around just a good episode.

The strongest part of the episode, however, was that it gave meaning to what happened in Follow That Cab!. The Katherine storyline in that episode felt pointless. She talked to Rita Repulsa, said she was a good girl, and got put under the spell again. There was a point, though. It helped to show that Kat needed to look into herself to find out how to break the spell. A Different Shade of Pink, Part I showed her do just that. Her memories of the Pan Global Games made her realize that stealing Kimberly’s Power Coin was the wrong thing to do. She snapped out of the spell and attempted to save Kimberly from exhaustion, showing that she could become a good person again.

Speaking of Rita’s plan, what she did in this episode didn’t make much sense. She found out that Kimberly was going to train at gymnastics and possibly leave the Power Rangers. Her plan was to stop that from happening. It would have been easier to just sit aside and let Kimberly go off to the Pan Global Games. There would be one less Power Ranger to worry about. Instead, she exhausted Kimberly, which would snap Kat out of the spell, and lead to a new Power Ranger being put into Kimberly’s place. Rita was working against herself at that point.

A Different Shade of Pink, Part I was the start of a three-episode arc. As such, it set up a bunch of the stuff that would happen over the other two episodes. It got Kimberly and Gunther Schmidt together, which would be the way that Kimberly left the Power Rangers. It turned Katherine back to the side of good, which would come in handy for when Kimberly left. It gave Bulk and Skull a comedy storyline that should add some lighter moments during the three episodes. All of these would play out through the two episodes following this. One of those will be coming up pretty soon as I continue my watch with A Different Shade of Pink, Part II. Come back soon for that one.