Season 1, Episode 2: High Five

"High Five"
Episode 2
Air Date: September, 7 1993

You know...I'm glad for the first official character centered episode of the franchise, the writers decided to focus on Trini, considering out of the original 5, she would go on to be the least developed which is a shame because Trini always seemed like the most mature member of the original Power Rangers. Something about the late Thuy Trang's performance as the character (and yes, her performance as the character is getting critiqued) seemed genuine and confident! Here we learn Trini has a fear of heights when Jason is practicing some rope climbing at the Juice Bar, with Zack and Kimberly encouraging him. Billy soon joins the gang and silly hijnks ensues when Jason lands on Billy and they both swing aimlessly until they fall on the ground.  If that wasn't poor comedic timing enough, Bulk and Skull join them to laugh at Billy and Jason. Jason bets that Bulk can't do it as well as more insults from Kimberly and Zack. Bulk of course makes a fool of himself and Skull just laughs it off....sigh anyway!

Back at the moon, Rita gets an idea to trap the rangers in a time wrap like she did Zordon. A shame we never got anymore back story on that little development (of course the 2017 reboot movie would go on to explore their past together) it's still a shame we never get to see this on screen, but considering the age demographic of the show at the time, no one would really care. Back in Angel Grove, Billy introduces the gang to the communicators and accidentally taps into the Command Center's teleportation system. It's a cool extension of the show's mythology....Alpha's painfully 90s slang is not! Meanwhile, Rita has Squatt and Baboo make a small spaceship to create the time wrap.....uhh...ok....O_o....and Finster creates the first monster of the week for the franchise with the monster manic. Once the mini-space shuttle is sent to Japan....I mean Angel Grove...everyone is scared, screaming and running from it like it's a bomb....ok!!! Probably made more sense in the Sentai but whatever. The time wrap opens and for the first time, the alarms of the Command Center go off.  The rangers are then teleported to the outskirts of town where the Putties are randomly doing...whatever...instead of protecting the god damn time wrap....anyway!  This is where the moral of the episode comes in as while Zack, Kimberly and Jason are fighting some Putties, Trini is forced to face her fear when Billy is cornered on a cliff by one. It's kind of pathetic how Billy can't even handle ONE Puttie at this point but he'll grow out of it after awhile. Trini, struggling to reach him, finally climbs up to him and saves Billy. Meanwhile, the other 3 rangers are....getting bear hugged by the rest of Putties and need help??? LOL What follows is a lame human chain move that...well....you have to see to believe made into the script! Anyway! The Putties retreat in goofy fashion and Rita angrily sends done the monster of the week, Bones, to dispatch the rangers in the time warp.

Zordon congratulates the rangers, especially Trini for facing her fears. He then delivers some more heavy exposition on Bones before we hear "It's Morphin' Time" for the first time!! Awesome! The main fight with Bones is....serviceable.  It's equal parts satisfying and gimmicky as hell, the time warp looking like a cheesy set of an early 80s music video. The rangers immediately work together, Billy somehow figuring out that they need to destroy his head and giving it to Trini to throw into a deep crevice in the time warp. Rita then sends down an giant armored knight version of Bones....because...just as Jason is grabbed by him and the rest of the rangers escape the time wrap.  This zord fight is already different from the last with Jason going solo with the Tyrannosaurs against Bones....so the other rangers can't help??? What was the point of having Jason asking Zack how he was doing? Made sense in the Sentai but here, NOPE!!! Anyway...again....the episode concludes with the gang proud of Trini for facing her fear of heights. Zack, being a dick and scaring her to the point where she climbed the rope to the top was pointless though!

Either way, this was a pretty good episode!! I think what I enjoyed way more than the monster of the week/time wrap none-sense was seeing character development from Trini and once again, the progression of the show's mythology from the communicators, to the iconic morph call to even Rita getting her first official headache! Not the best by any means, but a solid sequel to the pilot!

Final Morph: C+