Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 10: Wizard for a Day


The previous episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was covered back in August.  The episode featured some crazy things.  Adam got a paper lantern.  It was stolen, discarded, then given to him again.  Another paper lantern was turned into a monster and the Power Rangers had to stop it.  It was a fun little episode about learning to be yourself.

Now there’s an interesting episode.  I’ve seen this one before, as I watched it for a post late last year.  That post was written but lost forever, and I’m now catching up on it.  I remember a teacher being turned into a monster and Rocky teaching a class.  I don’t remember what exactly happened though.  We’ll find out in…
Season 3, Episode 10: Wizard for a Day
There was a new school program that was happening at Angel Grove.  Rocky was going to be trading places with his teacher, Mr. Wilton.  Rocky would teach the science class for one day while Mr. Wilton would become a high school student.  Nobody liked Mr. Wilton because he was a mean teacher, so he was an outsider in the high school class.

Bulk and Skull saw Rocky with Mr. Wilton’s science books and thought that Rocky was cheating.  They confiscated the books behind Rocky’s back and wouldn’t return them.  When Mr. Wilton confronted them at the Youth Centre about the books, they caved quickly.

Rito Revolto thought that this student-teacher exchange would be the best time to strike.  When Mr. Wilton was sitting in the park, sad that he couldn’t connect to the students, the Tenga Warriors came down to capture him.  This lured out the Power Rangers, who fought to try and save their teacher.  Mr. Wilton was turned into a monster and all the Power Rangers except for Rocky were frozen.  Rocky had to use his newfound science knowledge to save them before defeating the Mr. Wilton wizard monster and bringing his teacher back.

The fights were standard Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fights.  The Tenga fight was filled with kicking, punching, and jumping.  Like any fight in season 3, the stunts were getting more towards the wirework side of things.  The jumps were longer and farther.  It was fun to watch, though, so it was a step in the right direction.  Their battle against the giant wizard monster had Rocky separate from the Megazord to fight on his own because he felt responsible for Mr. Wilton becoming a monster.  He quickly took down the monster, turning Mr. Wilton back to his normal self.
Writing about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is something that I missed throughout the school year.  Things got busy and these posts fell by the wayside.  It’s weird because they’re quick, easy, and fun.  Especially when it comes to standalone episodes like this.  They’re filled with fluff that doesn’t matter to the rest of the series, but they are self-contained, so the posts can be self-contained.  Most of all, they have a welcome energy that brings up my mood no matter what. 



That’s mostly because of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, though.  Over the two and a bit seasons that I’ve watched for these posts, I’ve seen a lot of changes that helped breathe new life into the series.  The casting changes in season 2 helped replace a character who never felt fully formed (Trini).  In the second season, things from the first season were brought back up that would affect the characters for years to come.  The writers decided to try things like sending the characters back in time or aging them down to children.  The third season has continued that trend with the Ninja Quest story.  The third season saw more creativity come to the fighting, which this episode highlighted.  The series wasn’t just kicking and punching anymore.  There were some interesting acrobatics involved to make the fights stand out.

There’s not too much about this specific episode that made it stand out among the others this season.  It was mostly just a filler episode to put in between the bigger storylines.  It was a break from the serialized nature of the Ninja Quest episodes and the future Pink Ranger episodes that would see Kimberly leave the show.  It was some light fun before the series buckled down into a somewhat lengthy story that would involve a cast change.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was moving forward quickly in season 3, though sometimes it took a moment to give a breather.  This was the breather section of the season, and the next episode would be no different.  Coming up next time is Fourth Down and Long, which sounds like a football themed episode.  Who will it focus on?  We’ll find out next time.

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