For those of you who are fans of old-school Power Rangers like myself, one story arc tends to stand out: the Alien Rangers story arc. For those not familiar, the Alien Rangers story arc was the story that served as the bridge between Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers Zeo. In the first episode, “Rangers in Reverse”, one of the villains, Master Vile, planted a device called the Orb of Doom, which reversed the Earth’s rotation, which, through the magic of fantasy, also reverted the Power Rangers (and everyone else) in age. The Rangers also lose their powers in the process, as they are unable to morph in their much younger form (they looked like they were about middle school-aged). With the now-kid team out of commission, they get other rangers from the planet Aquitar to help defend the earth, and they keep Lord Zedd and crew at bay until the main team is able to restore time and replace their powers by retrieving and reassembling the Zeo Crystal, which they had broken up and put into a time hole a few episodes prior. While the team from Aquitar was the active Power Ranger team, the show took the title Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, and used a modified theme song. As far as the story went, it was masterfully done, destroying the Rangers’ old powers and then sending them on a quest to retrieve the Zeo Crystal, which would reverse the time regression caused by the Orb of Doom, and also give the regular team a new set of powers. And then at the end of it all, the Command Center gets blown up, providing a nice little cliffhanger ending to lead into the next season.
However, if you look at Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, you find something else going on inside. In-universe explanations aside, the entire Alien Rangers story arc was a giant experiment with different situations than we were used to on the hero side of things, and the temporary nature of the story meant that they weren’t committed to anything that they did during the test, because the regular heroes would eventually be restored to their original ages and get new powers, the Alien Rangers would go back to Aquitar, and the show could continue on in a similar format as we had been used to – which is exactly what happened. And the transition to Zeo was a perfect opportunity to do it, since that was the first of the show’s many annual suit changes, and it made for a nice buildup towards what would be the new status quo. Most people don’t give this story arc all of the credit that it deserves for advancing the franchise, thinking only about the way that it advanced the story, and not the many concepts that it piloted over its course, many of which would be implemented in later seasons.
I also get why they did it as a test, because heroes have far more staying power than villains. Think about it: villains, despite generally getting better lines than the heroes, are more easily replaced, and often do get replaced. Think about it: by the time that we had gotten to the third season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the villains had changed fairly significantly in how they operated, while the heroes largely operated the same way as they always did. In the first season, the main villain was Rita Repulsa, who was a direct dub of Bandora from Zyuranger, i.e. the Japanese source show. Then in the second season, Rita got tossed into a dumpster (literally) and launched into space after Lord Zedd took over as the new villain. Rita Repulsa was brought back later on in the season, and in the third season, they added additional villains using costumes from Kakuranger, which formed the source material for the third season. And then when they did the first movie, they had a one-off villain in the form of Ivan Ooze, with the regular villains’ being present, but otherwise playing a minor role. Then going beyond that, Zeo threw out all of the villains that we had previously known, and brought in the Machine Empire (who were direct dubs of the Ohranger villains). Then Turbo replaced them with Divatox and her minions. And to round out the “Zordon era” of the program, in Space, Divatox took a back seat to Dark Specter and Astronema, and another set of minions. All the while, the hero characters evolved more organically, save for one instance where four out of the five Turbo Rangers were abruptly replaced (everyone except the one that we really wanted gone, of course), but other than the transition episode, the show acted as though they had always been there.
This isn’t just a Power Rangers thing, either. The regular turnover of villains occurs outside of Power Rangers as well. Take the Care Bears franchise as an example. There, in the original series by Atkinson Film-Arts and DIC, there was a villain named Professor Cold Heart, who also had a few minions, but then in the Nelvana series, they had a very different villain named No Heart, who had a completely new set of minions. Similarly, all of the movies had one-off villains, and none of the regular TV villains were anywhere to be found. And throughout all of these various productions, other than the addition of the Care Bear Cousins to the franchise (which provided additional toys to market to kids), the heroes remained unchanged. So, just like in Power Rangers, the heroes were pretty much locked in, while the villains changed on a somewhat regular basis.
This brings us to the experiment that Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers was. The first thing that it did was get the main cast out of the way, as we never saw most of those actors again until the end of the story arc. They then brought in new ranger characters who defied the conventions that we had before. And when these new characters morphed, they wore the Kakuranger suits, which might explain why the main team continued to wear the Zyuranger and Dairanger suits that they had been wearing in the third season, even though they had gotten entirely new powers, i.e. because the show was saving those suits for later (however, at that point, there had never been a suit change, so having the Power Rangers come back with new powers in the same suits made perfect sense).
Here were some of the ideas that the show tested under the Alien Rangers story arc that had never been seen up to that point with the regular team up to that point:
- Hero characters with special abilities separate from their morphed forms: There was at least one occasion where the Aquitian characters directed an energy blast at someone while in civilian form. Additionally, the Alien Rangers used no hardware to morph, using only a voice call and arm movements.
- Hero characters from other planets with unique biological needs: The Alien Rangers were from a water-based planet, and typically lived underwater. Therefore, they needed large amounts of water to remain viable. Without adequate water, whether supplied by drinking it, standing on it, or even going though a car wash, they quickly weakened and became unable to function.
- Hero characters whose explicit occupation was being Power Rangers, and not something of a side hustle: Unlike the regular hero characters, who were high school students as their day job, the Alien Rangers were Power Rangers, and only Power Rangers.
- Hero characters who were completely open about being Power Rangers rather than keeping it as a secret identity: The Alien Rangers were not from Earth, making them quite conspicuous to begin with. So it only made sense for them to be open about it, morphing regardless of where they were or who was present. They were also the first team to be publicly recognized in civilian form by civic leaders.
- Hero characters’ routinely wearing uniforms rather than street clothes while in civilian form: The Alien Rangers always wore the same outfit, which was black and purple, which drew inspiration from their morphed forms.
- Combined morph sequences: Prior to this, Power Rangers always morphed individually, regardless of how many were morphing at once, and we had to sit through the whole thing every single time. While the Alien Rangers’ first morph was five individual morphs, most team morphs showed them all morphing on screen at once, saying something like, “Rangers of Aquitar, we need full power!” and the like.
- Control of zord and zord-like entities through different means than simple cockpit piloting: The Alien Rangers used telepathy to control their Battle Borgs, standing in a remote location off of the battlefield while in morphed form and controlling them with their minds. The interaction with the Shogunzords, which were a holdover from the regular team, was less clear. The regular team piloted them in the traditional manner, and they were shown in the cockpit, piloting them. The Alien Rangers were never shown on that cockpit set, and they used the footage from Kakuranger that shows the ranger characters physically becoming one with their individual mecha. So, did they pilot them in the same way as the regular team? It was never firmly established.
- Human mentors: Not long after establishing the status quo of Alien Rangers as the team while the regular team was all kids, they restored Billy, the former Blue Ranger, to his original age, which brought David Yost back to the show before the other hero actors. Billy functioned in something of a mentor capacity for the Alien Rangers as well as the regular team while they were still kids, in addition to, but also distinct from their regular mentor, Zordon.
So that’s at least eight different concepts that they explored during the Alien Rangers arc. And throughout all of this, the villain side of the show remained unchanged. It was still Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd and their various minions, with Master Vile’s departing fairly early on in the arc. The villains were the control in these tests, since the villains were largely still up to the same antics as always, which allowed some continuity while the production saw how these hero test concepts played out in the show. I admit that I think of this period as a time when the villains from the Mighty Morphin era were at their best, because they were played as comical characters, and were absolutely killing it during this time. By comparison, the regime following them, the Machine Empire, was far more serious, and came off as annoying rather than entertaining.
The way that the story arc was written also meant that no matter how the test concepts worked out, their experiment had a definite end. It was stated early on in the story arc that the Alien Rangers would be unable to remain on Earth indefinitely, and the regular team’s quest to find the parts of the Zeo Crystal in order to restore time led to the ultimate resolution of the story arc. That sort of left the Alien Rangers not so much as the main drivers of the story, but as temporary guardians to keep Angel Grove safe while the regular team was away working on larger issues and unable to morph. And once the Zeo Crystal was assembled and time was restored, including restoring everyone’s proper ages, the show continued in a form more closely resembling what came before the experiment, with the regular team’s fighting monsters, and largely using technology to accomplish this rather than any mystical powers or other innate abilities, just like they always did.
Following the experiment, the production could then evaluate how things went and determine what worked and what didn’t for use in future seasons. And all of these concepts were implemented at some point during the course of the show’s run, though not necessarily in the same form as we saw in Alien Rangers:
- Hero characters with special abilities separate from their morphed forms: The first instance of this was Andros from In Space, who had the power of telekinesis.
- Hero characters from other planets with unique biological needs: While the series, to my knowledge, has never run an entire team consisting of off-Earth Power Rangers again (unless you count the Psycho Rangers, though they were villains and had no unmorphed form), there have been numerous instances of individual team members’ following the “human aliens” trope. Andros was one, Maya from Lost Galaxy was another, as was Trip from Time Force.
- Hero characters whose explicit occupation was being Power Rangers, and not something of a side hustle:Lightspeed Rescue was a full-scale manifestation of this, as the Power Rangers worked for the government and more or less functioned as first responders, though not all of them had emergency services in their background prior to becoming Power Rangers. Time Force similarly had heroes who were professional Power Rangers, though in a very different setting than the previous season.
- Hero characters who were completely open about being Power Rangers rather than keeping it as a secret identity: Lightspeed Rescue and Time Force were full-scale examples of this, as there was no concern about keeping identities a secret, as was the explicit rule in Mighty Morphin.
- Hero characters’ routinely wearing uniforms rather than street clothes while in civilian form: the team wore uniforms on the ship during In Space, though this was done without any explanation, and it always felt strange to me. Other seasons, such as Lost Galaxy, had no uniforms per se, but the characters always wore the same outfits when in civilian form, which was also strange, and was never remarked upon. The Time Force, where the Power Rangers were professionals, wore uniforms when in civilian form.
- Combined morph sequences: This was first used in Zeo on a few occasions. There was one early episode where Rocky, Katherine, and Tanya morphed while running (as opposed to doing it while standing still). In that instance, Rocky yelled, “We gotta morph!” and then they quickly put their Zeonizers together and morphed instantaneously with a quick little “Zeo!” sound effect. There was also an instance later in the season where Zeo Rangers I through IV morphed together in a split screen, followed by Zeo Ranger V. I remember being so grateful to see that, because the full Zeo morph was very long, and was downright boring when you’ve seen it a million times before.
- Control of zord and zord-like entities through different means than simple cockpit piloting: Zeo did that in a limited form, as the Red Battlezord was controlled telepathically, meaning that Tommy Oliver had to maintain a clear mind at all times while piloting it, which he initially found difficult. However, unlike the Battle Borgs, which were piloted remotely, Tommy was on board in a traditional looking cockpit, even if the control mechanism was very different.
- Human mentors: Not every season had a person in a mentor role, but Lightspeed Rescue did this most naturally, as the team was in a larger organization with a formalized command structure. Wild Force also had a human mentor in Princess Shayla. Though my favorite mentor has to be Doctor K from RPM, which was a season that played many of the series’ tropes for laughs, including the fact that the characters wear spandex costumes, which was a sore point with Doctor K.
All in all, once I realized that the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers story arc was also a sandbox to test new hero concepts along with the transition of the story to the next season, where the show was already making big changes, it left me in awe, as Power Rangers grew up really quickly in those early years. I had previously commented that the first season of the show was practically unwatchable, but then the following season, they handled the abrupt departure of three cast members rather masterfully. The third season then continued this growth as they chopped the season up in such a way so as to really do their own thing separate from the source material, and they also had enough space to run the experiment. Zeo actually felt like a step backwards in many ways from the third season of MMPR, as they followed more practices from the first season, following the source footage much more closely and in order (Kakuranger was used out of order, starting at the end of the series, switching to the beginning, and then going to the middle), dubbing over the source material’s villain footage rather than making their own like they did with the Zyuranger footage before that, and including far more filler episodes that didn’t advance the overarching story. Turbo would follow a similar path as Zeo, though Turbo made its own villain footage, as Divatox was an American creation, and didn’t appear in Carranger. Turbo was also a stinker of a season because it tried unsuccessfully to do a season with a serious story when the source material was extremely comical in nature. The two melded like oil and water, and Power Rangers suffered greatly for that. It wasn’t until In Space that the show again became more serialized, and the writing rose to the occasion.
All that said, I suppose that early Power Rangers, particularly the third season, deserves more credit than it’s usually given for its writing, because it really was a masterpiece that affected the franchise far more than any of us realized at the time.