30 years ago, the FOX Broadcasting company began airing a series aimed at teens and children called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993). It was an adaptation of a Japanese series. In fact, footage from the Japanese program was directly incorporated into the American version. The series became a huge success. Yes, it was cheesy. Yes, it was corny, but it made billions in merchandising and was probably a touchstone for so many on the younger side of Generation X.
The series ran for three seasons. Unfortunately, due to issues with the show's production, several of the actors left the show before its ending. The makers of the show got in the habit of replacing actors and spinning off the show into new programs. Since the original series ended, there have been 20 spin-offs. Some of the shows have aired on ABC. The most recent have aired on Nickelodeon. A couple of years ago, one of the actors talked about having a reunion for the original show's 30th anniversary.
In the 1993 series, there were six actors who became well-known. Sadly, two of those six actors have passed away and one has gotten into legal trouble. The first actor, Thuy Trang, died in 2001 in a car accident, so a true reunion was never possible. The second actor, Jason David Frank, committed suicide in the fall of 2022, presumably around the time that this production was in the works. A third actor, Austin St. John, was indicted in the spring of that same year of federal fraud, so he was legally prohibited if supremely limited from participating in this program. A fourth actor, Amy Jo Johnson, refused to be involved due to salary disputes.
The writers of this special episode decided to find a way for this reunion to circumvent those four actors not being available. What's ironic is that this isn't the first time that this has happened. Half way through the second season of the 1993 series, three of the original six actors quit over poor pay and work conditions. Strangely, two of those actors are the same who are unavailable for this reunion. The only one of the three who quit that's different from those absent now is Walter Emanuel Jones who played the role of Zack Taylor, the Black Ranger. Zack is African American and loves hip hop dancing and flirting with women.
David Yost reprises his role of Billy Cranston, the Blue Ranger. Billy is probably the exact opposite of Zack. Billy is the certified nerd, no rhythm when it comes to dancing and no good at flirting with anybody, let alone women. Billy and Zack are part of a group of super-heroes, known as the Power Rangers. They were given coins and hand-held devices called morphers that would allow them to transform into colored suits that imbued them with fighting abilities, as well as advanced technology, thanks to the help of an alien being named Zordon who only appeared as a huge, holographic, floating head and his artificially intelligent robot named Alpha 5 that's more of a bumbling sidekick.
Unlike other super-heroes, the Power Rangers only fight one specific adversary. It's not as if the Power Rangers solve murders or robberies on Earth. Their only job is to fight one specific alien named Rita Repulsa who lives on the surface of the Moon. She sends soldiers made out of clay called Putty Patrol. They don't speak but instead make a turkey-like sound. The Putty Patrol know how to engage in martial arts, but they're not incredibly good at it, compared to the Power Rangers. Rita also is a sorceress that can create monsters that she will often send to Earth to attack the city.
Her signature trick is her ability to make the monsters grow into the size of high-rise buildings. This is obviously in reference to the Japanese genre, known as kaiju. When the Power Rangers were faced with kaiju monsters, they were able to call upon giant robots, known as Zords, that were similar to the robots in Voltron (1984). Each episode of the 1993 series concluded with the Zords fighting a kaiju monster, often done with not so good stop-motion animation. This reunion features a similar thing but only this time done with not-so-great CGI.
Charlie Kersh co-stars as Minh Kwan, the daughter to Trini Kwan, the former Yellow Ranger. Trini Kwan was portrayed by Thuy Trang who died in that 2001 car crash. In the chronology and mythology of the 1993 series, Trini lived long enough to have a daughter to continue her legacy. This show mainly focuses on Minh trying to follow in her mother's footsteps. In that, this show does an adequate job of showing Minh trying to carry the torch for Trini.
This reunion honors Thuy Trang the most in that regard. Unfortunately, it short changes all the other actors who weren't available for this reunion. Austin St. John played Jason Lee Scott, the Red Ranger and leader of the Power Rangers and Jason David Frank played Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger and probably the fan favorite of the whole series. Both of them are given such short shrift and are practically not acknowledged, which is especially disrespectful, given that Frank was the other actor who died. Watching this program try to write around those characters being involved felt too awkward, even for a series that learned to deal with these kinds of actor absences.
Both Austin St. John and Jason David Frank felt missed in this reunion. The problem is that the characters and the story line here do their best to basically ignore them. This would have been fine, if the show had delved a little bit more into the Power Rangers from the 1993 series who were present. Aside from Zack being in politics, we get nothing more about what his character has been doing over the past 30 years. I'm not sure if he's a mayor or Congressman or what. He becomes a surrogate father to Minh, but that's not explored to any significant degree.
Aside from Billy now having his own tech company, we get nothing more about him. Having learned that the actor who plays Billy suffered supreme homophobia when he was making that 1993 series, some kind of acknowledgment of that homophobia would have been at least interesting. There is somewhat of a nod to a gay couple here, but it goes by incredibly fast. We don't even learn the names of the gay couple.
Rated TV-Y7 for fantasy violence and fear.
Running Time: 55 mins.
Available on Netflix.
