Episode Title: Missing Green
Original Airdate: October 3, 1994
Well, after our last big two-part adventure, everybody’s pretty bummed out about Tommy losing his powers. Our team of power rangers is back down to five members now, and there are still plenty of monsters out to stomp Angel Grove. They’ll have to do it without the green ranger, though. Let’s take a look at how they manage without him in Missing Green.
Like I said, everyone is a bit bummed out about losing Tommy, especially Jason who blames himself for not being able to save Tommy’s green candle many many episodes ago, which you could say caused this problem in the first place. The guilt is so bad it’s even causing problems as Jason tries to train for an upcoming karate tournament. With this is in mind, the other four rangers decide they need to find Tommy. Kimberly thinks he’s probably hanging out at his uncle’s lake cabin, since he told her he likes to go there when he’s down. I’m thinkin’ Tommy and Kimberly snuck up there sometime for another reason…but let’s not go there.
The rangers head off to the cabin, but quickly get lost. When they pull over to check the map, they are surprised when Goldar shows up and zaps them off to another dimension. There we find four more candles…blue, yellow, black, and pink. Just like with Tommy, when the candles burn to their end, the other four rangers will lose their powers. You know what that means, only Jason is left to save them. That’s not going to be easy, though. Lord Zedd decides to take the trophy from the karate tournament and transform it into a strange monster called Pipebrain. Zordon informs Jason that he must defeat this monster before he can hope to pass into the Doom Dimension and save his friends.
After battling some putties, jason summons his T-Rex zord and quickly morphs it into the red dragon zord. Then, we see the dragon turn into a samurai zord to take on the giant monster. Some wild fighting happens before the big metalic beast is defeated. Then Jason has to battle Goldar in the Doom Dimension. The other rangers are very weak, but Jason manages to smack Goldar around enough to get by and grab the other rangers’ power coins. He then places them on the almost extinguished candles to restore them to full strength. Then everyone returns to Angel Grove safely.
This is a pretty unique episode considering that pretty much all the action focuses on just one of the rangers fighting off the bad guys. Some of the battles are truly wild. Seeing the red dragon transform into…whatever that sumurai robot thing is called, was pretty awesome. This thing manages some pretty wild fight moves. I especially loved when it came after the Pipebrain creature by twirling its’ staff around like a giant propeller. It’s a really creative battle sequence with some things we’ve never seen before.
Speaking of things we’ve never seen before, how about a monster made out of a gold trophy!? The look of this thing is beyond description. It really doesn’t have any sort of discernible head or face, just a series or twisting and looping gold pipes. One of the pipes, which hangs down like an elephant’s trunk, does have a weird eyeball at the end. The thing also seems to have the ability to shoot additional gold tentacles at the rangers. It’s one of the strangest creatures the show has produced so far.
The episode does have a few awkward elements. The Bulk and Skull subplot is kind of dumb this time. They decide to follow the four rangers as they head for Tommy’s uncle’s cabin having overheard Kimberly say something about “rangers.” They think our four heroes are trying to find the true identity of the power rangers, but if they’d really paid attention to what Kimberly said, they should’ve figured out that they were, in fact, the rangers right the and there. I guess that’s just a commentary on how dumb Bulk and Skull actually are. The behind-the-scenes tensions that were rising are also very noticeable in this episode. As we mentioned in previous posts, some cast members were not showing up for looping sessions by this point, including Walter Jones (Zack) and Thuy Tran (Trini). This explains why when in their ranger outfits, neither Zack or Trini speak any dialogue in this episode. Also, according to various online sources, Jason’s dialogue when in ranger attire is not provided by Austin St. John in this episode. You can certainly notice a differences if you listen for it.
This still manages to be a fun episode, though, bolstered mainly by some wild fight sequences with an even wilder monster. Weirdest of all, though, is that Jason happily accepts the trophy when he wins the tournament at the end of the episode. I mean, who doesn’t want to display a thing that turned into a giant monster on their mantle? Next time, though, we go from fighting monster trophies to fighting monster musical instruments. Join us for Orchestral Maneuvers in the Park.
Channel: Superhero 