Series Re-Watch: My 'MMPR Season 3/Alien Rangers Mini-Series' Review

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers/Alien Rangers (Season 3/3.5)


A definite step up from Season 2! Season 3, while still having it's own faults, is still a pretty good season! Although it starts off with essentially a 3 part Masked Rider teaser in "A Friend In Need", the season gets off on a great start with "A Ninja Quest". A 4 parter that sees all the rangers' powers/zords destroyed for the first time in a memorable sequence with the introduction of Rito Revolto, Rita's brother and a mostly comedic villain who for the most part seems powerful enough but becomes too incompetent during the rest of the season. This leads to the next evolution of the series as the rangers get new powers (The ninja powers and coins), new zords (The Ninja Zords) and even a new ally (Ninjor). I always loved the ninja powers as well as the ninja suits outside of their ranger suits. Borrowing from the first MMPR movie, it introduced a secondary morphed form for the rangers which provided them with their own powers like teleporting, creating doubles of themselves, superspeed and other tricks. Their ninja forms always seemed more powerful than their ranger forms and wondered why they never used them more but hey, that's just me. The ninja fights themselves are awesome with the American production finally providing some amazing stunt choreography on par with their Sentai counterparts. Also borrowing from the first movie, we get the Tangas, big black birds who while not much above the Putties, do have a cool theme song whenever they fight the rangers.


This season also was the first to rely on story arcs and less on standalone episodes. Starting with "A Ranger Catastrophe", we are introduce to Katherine, a minion of Rita who disguises herself as a cat that Kimberly and Aisha look after. The way she's used to spy on the rangers is a fun plot, especially when the plot begins to center around Kimberly. Probably the best aspect of the season is the great character development for Kimberly and how the loss of her power coin leads to some of the series' best episodes/moments. "Changing of The Zords", is a great 3 parter filled with awesome moments from Kimberly taking a stand to protect a friend, Tommy's fight with Lord Zedd, Lord Zedd's appearance in the Command Center to the introduction of the Shogun Zords. It saw the series taking on a slightly more serious tone than usual, especially with a ranger's life at stake. I especially loved "A Different Shade of Pink", Parts 1-3 which provide more mature character development for Kimberly as well as Kat, by giving us some backstory on her, It's also the best send-off for any of the original rangers as Kimberly leaves to be a champion gymnast, leaving Kat as her successor. Although, it's hard watching Kimberly leave after seeing the character leave at the peak of her character. Also, I wonder what made Amy Jo so special that she got a nicely developed write off while thr other original 4 (not to mention, Aisha, I'll get to that later) got poor conclusions to their characters!? Anyway, once Kat is the new Pink Ranger, we kinda run into the same problem as last season. While Kat certainly has an interesting past and the writers do explore bits of her connection with Rita in some episodes ("Rita's Pita" and "Master Vile and the Metallic Armor"), for the most part, there isn't much to explore with the character after Kimberly's departure. Eventually, Kat would find more of her own identity in Zeo and some of Turbo but here, she becomes just as generically good as the Rangers were in the first season. At least it's still better than Rocky and Adam....Zzzzz!


The final stretch of the season introduces us to Rita and Rito's father, Master Vile. Who for the most part seems like a formidable villain, managing to disable the rangers' zords and has an end of the world party just to rub it in their noses.. Though the introduction of the...ummm....metallic armor is one of the lamest things I've ever seen!! Seriously, glitter as armor! Was this another cost saving issue for Saban? Couldn't they use the suits from the movie for this supposedly more powerful form of their powers!? Luckily the rangers don't use it so often but seriously.....WHAT. THE. F#$%!? Anyway, Master Vile eventually comes up with idea to turn the world's axis back and make the rangers kids (oh god, not this again!) Luckily, the rangers still remember their kids only they lose their powers because of it. But I never understood why the writers had to make the rangers kids...again! It didn't work the first time and here, it's only saved by the introduction of the Alien Rangers. Now I pretty split when it came to this whole mini-series. I like the extension of the PR mythology with their being power rangers from other worlds, which made sense in future seasons when other rangers outside of Zordon's era would appear. Yet....this saga just feels like a mixed bag of cool Alien Ranger action and mostly stalling until Zeo next season. The Zeo quests are interesting looks into the rangers' own individual heritages but this could easily have been done when they were adults as those child actors got grating at times. The Alien Rangers themselves are cool in introducing different kinds of rangers, but there's not much to them beside their constant need of water. Though, I liked the 2 part finale "Hogday Afternoon", which is one of the first times a finale started to feel like a finale. I just wish Aisha didn't leave off screen like the others. Although, Tanya wasn't a bad replacement (more on that on Zeo). The season ends on a great cliffhanger and leads in nicely into Zeo. Overall, Season 3 is an improvement over Season 2's messiness. While there are some bad elements (metallic armor, kid rangers, etc.), it could very well be the best out of MMPR seasons in terms of story progression and evolution. But the last 10 episodes of the Alien Rangers Saga bring it down and why exactly did Master Vile decide to leave again?


Best Episodes

1. Changing of The Zords, Parts 1-3


2. A Ninja Quest, Parts 1-4


3. A Different Shade of Pink, Parts 1-3


4. Hogday Afternoon, Parts 1 and 2


5. A Ranger Catastrophe, Parts 1 and 2



Final Morph: C+/C-