Power Rangers Zeo: Episode 7: Every Dog Has His Day

Last time on Power Rangers Zeo, Tanya joined the Angel Grove High School baseball team. She was one of three Zeo Rangers on the team, the other two being Adam and Rocky. As they were preparing for an important game against Stone Canyon, The Machine Empire sent a batting machine monster down to terrorize them. The battle against the monster wasn’t Tanya’s only problem. She was having relationship problems because her boyfriend was embarrassed that she might be a better baseball player than him.

Soon enough, the show will have to get back to an important story episode. The character episodes in the early part of the season were good. They were better than most of the character episodes in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. But they were all relatively self-contained. Especially the last two. Maybe the story would get pushed forward in…

Episode 7: Every Dog Has His Day

Everyone was at the Angel Grove Youth Centre waiting for Kat. She came in with a new member of the Angel Grove Police Force, a rescue dog named Smokey. Lt. Stone immediately promoted Smokey above Bulk and Skull and told them to give Smokey a bath. They grumbled about it and headed off to do the job they were just assigned. They lost Smokey right away, when Smokey ran off because he heard and smelled a bomb being detonated.

That bomb was the result of the newest scheme of The Machine Empire. Digster, a giant jackhammer monster, was using the Cogs to dig beneath Angel Grove and release a river of lava. The bomb was used as part of the excavation.

Kat went out searching for Smokey. She stumbled upon the cave and saw what The Machine Empire was up to. She jumped on her new Jet Cycle to find Smokey quicker and let everyone know what was going on. Digster noticed her and sent the Cogs after her. She was thrown from the Jet Cycle, twisting her ankle, and breaking her communicator in the process. She was lost between the caves and Angel Grove. Luckily for her, Smokey showed up. She tied her communicator to Smokey and sent him to find the others.

The rest of the Zeo Rangers went searching for Kat. They found her Jet Cycle and were worried. There was no need to worry, though. Smokey found her, retrieved the Zeonizer that she dropped during her escape from the Cogs, and she was able to join them for a final battle that really wasn’t much. The real fight was when Smokey reunited Kat with her Zeonizer. He ran to her down a dirt road with explosions going off on either side of him. Kat got her powers going, but still had to fight with a sprained ankle. She was doing well for fighting through an injury. The Zord fight was a pretty simple Zord fight. Nothing to make it stand out among the many others. The destruction of the monster led to the lava flow being sealed back up, and Angel Grove was fine.

Power Rangers Zeo found its weakest episode so far in Every Dog Has His Day. It harkened back to early Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes where the focus was on making whatever story they could think of to surround the Japanese footage, rather than telling a story about the characters while incorporating the Japanese footage. It was a Kat episode, for sure, but did nothing to further her character. The rest of the episodes in Power Rangers Zeo built either the characters or the story. This did neither. Unless Smokey returned in later episodes. Then I would take back what I just said.

Smokey was an odd character, if only because he was clearly forced into the story because he was in the Sentai footage. Yes, there was a dog placed in the middle of a series of explosions in the Sentai footage that Every Dog Has His Day took from. It was quite easy to figure out which dog footage was Japanese and which dog footage was American because the dogs looked so different. The breeds may have been similar, but the two dogs did not look alike. The Japanese dog had a black face, and the American dog had a brown face. It was one of the most noticeable differences between Japanese and American footage since season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers introduced a new actress playing Rita Repulsa.

Every Dog Has His Day introduced a couple new pieces to the Zeo Rangers’ arsenal. The first was the Jet Cycle. There was a point in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers where the Power Rangers were given motorcycles that they could ride around Angel Grove. Those only appeared in an episode or two before being dropped entirely. New cycles were introduced at the beginning of this episode and already played a bigger role than those older cycles. The other new introduced item was the Power Disc/Shield, Kat’s weapon. It was a small round shield that helped her out with attacks and defenses when she was fighting off the Cogs.

There was a lot to like in Every Dog Has His Day, but it remained the worst episode of Power Rangers Zeo so far. It had a fun story with a dog, but it didn’t further the characters or the overall series story in any way whatsoever. It felt like a step back for a series that had seen a vast improvement over the storytelling of seasons prior. Maybe this was only a hiccup and the show can get back into its groove with the next episode, The Puppet Blaster. You’ll have to come back soon to find out.