Power Rangers Zeo: Episode 8: The Puppet Blaster

In the previous episode of Power Rangers Zeo, Kat trained a dog named Smokey to be a rescue dog for the Angel Grove Police. Smokey soon discovered that The Machine Empire were trying to create a lava flow that would run through Angel Grove and destroy the city. Kat saw it too but got trapped in the wilderness while trying to escape the Cogs and tell her friends about the danger. It was a fight for survival and the safety of Angel Grove.

After what was the most self-contained episode of Power Rangers Zeo thus far, the show was hopefully going to turn to an episode with more character building or story building. It had been doing a good job of highlighting the characters and moving the story forward through the first six episodes. The seventh felt like an outlier. The only way to find out if the show would bounce back from an underwhelming episode was to watch…

Episode 8: The Puppet Blaster

As a way to give back to the community, Ernie brought a Children’s variety show to the Angel Grove Youth Centre. It was hosted by Captain Pete and his trusty robot sidekick, Puppetman. They did some goofy things, which included tossing buckets of water on people who said the secret word. In this case, that word was actually two words: Power Rangers.

The Machine Empire took notice of this kids’ show and came up with a plan to attack Angel Grove. They sent a group of Cogs to the Youth Centre to distract the audience while a controlling device was placed on Puppetman. That device turned the robot sidekick evil and allowed him to control the minds of any children he came across.

Tommy, Rocky, and Kat were in the audience of the show and took action. They called on Adam and Tanya, who were doing some martial arts training on a hill, to join them. It didn’t matter, though. They were overrun by the mind-controlled zombie-like children and fled back to the Power Chamber.

Billy set them up with what they would need to win their battle against evil. He and Alpha had come up with The Defender Wheel and let the Zeo Rangers know that Puppetman’s biggest weakness was his nose. The Zeo Rangers headed out to battle.

Bulk and Skull, meanwhile, were cowering in fear at the Youth Centre. They had been in the audience of the show, tasked with watching over Lt. Stone’s nephew. It didn’t go well. The nephew refused to listen to them. Before, during, and after the intervention of The Machine Empire, they couldn’t get Lt. Stone’s nephew to listen to anything.

There were two battles in the episode. The first was when The Defender Wheel was used. Puppetman went to the park and started controlling kids there. He zapped two kids and they fought over a kite. He zapped two more and they had a food fight at a picnic. The Zeo Rangers showed up. Tommy ran The Defender Wheel into Puppetman, who stumbled back. The Zeo Rangers also used their Zeo Power Pod Swords and Zeo Laser Pistols to take down the monster. The Machine Empire then grew the monster to giant size. The Zeo Rangers got their Zords and bopped him on the nose, saving the day.

This was another Power Rangers Zeo episode that didn’t do a whole lot of character work. The most that came from it was the one Adam and Tanya training scene, showing that the two of them were growing closer. Other than that, it was the Zeo Rangers trying to save the children of Angel Grove without growing as people. After a strong start to the season with a major story arc and a bunch of solid character episodes, it looks like Power Rangers Zeo might have regressed into what the earlier Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes were.

The Puppet Blaster introduced one new weapon into the Zeo Rangers’ arsenal. The Defender Wheel was built by Billy and Alpha as a new way to attack the monsters. When Tommy needed to use it, he called upon his Zord. His Phoenix flew out and dropped The Defender Wheel onto the battleground. Tommy then hopped inside. It was sort of like a hamster wheel, with a tire on the outside. Tommy stood in the middle with a control panel. It sped at the monster, turning into a red silhouette, and leaving behind the stand that it came in. The Defender Wheel was basically like hitting the monster with a battering ram.

There was one even better element of The Puppet Blaster than the addition of a new weapon. It was the stakes that the episode built. Puppetman was able to mind control the children. He basically turned them into zombies, only without the cannibalistic element. It was something that hadn’t been done on this same scale in the show, though something similar had happened in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. The use of the children made the threat feel realer than a monster that simply wanted to destroy the city. The threat was on a human level instead of a widespread destruction level. A lot of people would die in the destruction of a city, of course, but they would be faceless fodder. Seeing the kids get mind controlled put faces to the horror. It made the audience recognize who was being attacked. That was a good decision from the writers.

That said, The Puppet Blaster wasn’t a great episode. It was much more plot than character, leaving the character beats out of the story for the most part. The only little bit of character work that was done was having Adam and Tanya train together. It built a little bit of their relationship, beyond Adam thinking Tanya was a good baseball player. Their friendship was growing. Maybe the next episode would do a better job with the character work, like many of the Power Rangers Zeo episodes had so far. Come back soon for a post all about Invasion of the Ranger Snatchers to find out.