Episode Title: Opposites Attract
Original Airdate: October 25, 1994
Well, last time Lord Zedd created a monster from a purse and a tube of lipstick. It can’t get much weirder than that, right? You obviously don’t know this show very well. Get ready for a creature with a giant magnet for a head. Here comes Opposites Attract.
As we begin, Billy is up to his sciencey stuff again. He’s created a polarizing gage to collect data from an upcoming rare solar storm. Basically, it looks like a big blue magnet. He’s showing it off to Trini when Kimberly shows up with her friend, Laura. Both are heading off to take the Angel Grove Angelettes (essentially girl scouts) out on a hike. Clearly, there are some sparks that fly between Laura and Billy, but the Power Rangers’ resident brainiac is a bit too shy to ask her out. Of course, all this is seen by Lord Zedd who decides he can use Billy’s device to create a new monster.
Zedd sends out Goldar to swipe Billy’s device. Though he puts up a good fight against Goldar and some putties, the big blue winged gorilla (or whatever Goldar is) manages to swipe the contraption from Billy. After Lord Zedd zaps the device, the result is a creature called Magnet Brain. It’s essentially a big thing with a magnet for a head. The creature immediately starts messing with the planet’s polarity, causing a strange earthquake-like phenomenon in Angel Grove. This causes trouble for everyone, including Kimberly, Laura and the Angelettes on their hike. Kimberly has Laura stay with the girls while she sneaks off to teleport to the command center, where the other rangers are waiting.
Zordon informs the team that if Magnet Brain is left to his antics, the whole planet may soon disintegrate. Everyone heads off to deal with the monster, except Tommy who goes off to face Goldar, who is out to cause trouble for the Angelettes. Tommy battles his way through a bunch of putties before Goldar finally chickens out and runs away. Meanwhile, the other rangers also dispatch with a bunch of putties before Lord Zedd makes Magnet Brain grow to giant size. That can only mean one thing…call out the zords, create a giant robot, and quickly slice through the monster.
This is a pretty standard episode, but it does bring a few interesting things to the table. Most of the fight sequences are between the rangers and the putties, as opposed to the Magnet Head monster. Especially during Tommy’s fight with the putties, we see some moves we haven’t seen before. At one point, Tommy sails through the air in a Superman type pose before slamming into Goldar. Later, he hangs in the air delivering multiple kicks to Goldar. The effects are a bit cheesy, but at least it’s something new. At one point during the battle, we even get point of view shots, as if we are seeing things through Tommy and Goldar’s eyes. Considering that most episode of this show have the same basic plot, it’s nice to see the behind-the-scenes folks getting a bit more creative.
Not creative at all, however, is our monster, Magnet Brain. This thing is dressed a bit like Darth Vader, but with a U-shaped magnet for a head. There is a single eye between the two prongs of the magnet which just kind of hangs there doing nothing. For some reason the prongs of the magnet each have a letter on them…N on one and S on the other. Perhaps they explain this in the original Japanese program this footage is from, but it’s not mentioned at all here. Despite having a big magnet for a head, this monster does very little that actually has anything to do with objects being attracted to each other. You’d think he’d do something like make the rangers stick to each other so they couldn’t fight. But the only characters who end up stuck together during this episode are Bulk and Skull, during their pretty lame subplot. If you have a baddie with a magnet for a head, have him do something that makes sense! He could’ve had a toilet for a head and you wouldn’t have to change anything about this episode.
Also a bit of a letdown in this installment is the budding romance between Billy and Laura. It’s set up in the opening scene and at the end he does get the opportunity to go out with her, but it’s not really earned. He should’ve had a moment where he gets to save her and the other Angelettes. Ultimately it’s Tommy who saves the day for them. I mean, it’s nice to see Billy get the girl and all, but he still didn’t get a moment to be the hero.
We should note that this episode marks the last time we get to see Richie and Curtis, who have been showing up here in there throughout this season. Both characters were actually brought in to create some questions as to who the new White Ranger might be. It wasn’t originally supposed to be Tommy. But when it was decided to bring Tommy back, Richie and Curtis were slowly fazed out. They get a less-than-stellar send off in this episode, only serving as background characters. This was also the final episode for a few other cast members…but to get into that would give away some plot points that are on the horizon. We’ll explain all that later. Next time, though, we’ll celebrate Halloween, a few weeks late, with Zedd’s Monster Mash.
Channel: Superhero 