Season 1, Episode 34: The Green Candle, Part 1

"The Green Candle, Part 1"
Episode 34
Air Date: November 17, 1993

It always seems like when there is plot movement, the little that there is this season, is when the show gets interesting and exciting. Since Tommy came into the picture, the show has followed a new formula: rangers in peril and Tommy being called to save them last minute!! Every episode since after the Green With Evil saga has followed it to a T!!! I know the writers were new at adapting Sentai to American footage but my god, the show was getting almost predictable!! What the two part episode introduces is a new scenario, the fact that now Tommy is a target and that the rangers now need to save him!! No more last minute 6th Ranger to the rescue copouts and while this episode features Tommy coming into help the rangers, the show ends with his powers still being in danger of being lost! Nice!

The episode opens with Tommy and Zack training. Tommy wants to ask Kimberly out to the dance but is afraid too. Zack encourages him...until Bulk and Skull show up to make them miserable. They come out looking like idiots and the teens rub it in their faces when they are on the ground surrounded by other teens. Meanwhile, Rita has a plan to steal Tommy's powers using a green candle. How? Why? Will be explained later. But we then go to Tommy and Kimberly walking in the park as Tommy is nervous to ask her out. Kimberly reassures him that their friends and he can tell her anything. Right when he's about to ask her, the Putties interrupt and the two fight them off. Unfortunately, they get their asses kicked and caught. Goldar appears, leaves Kimberly distraught and disappears with a captured Tommy. Back in the inter dimensional prison/cage thing, Goldar reveals to Tommy the Green candle and how when it burns out, it will take away his power...forever!!!

Meanwhile, at the Command Center, the rangers are struggling on how to save Tommy when the alarms go off. To everyone's disbelief, its Dragonzord on a rampage in the city.  The teens and Zordon come to the conclusion that Rita must have control over the Dragonzord again and they might have to fight Tommy again as well until Zordon figures out....somehow...that it's not the real Dragonzord (Guess he had Alpha check the zord's hiding place???) Anyway, earlier, Rita had Finster make her a Cyclops monster that can shape shift so, it's probably it. The rangers morph into action to stop the fake Dragonzord while Goldar traps Tommy in the cheapest looking special effect I have ever seen (even for the 90s!!) and goes off to fight the rangers. Goldar fights them with Jason wanting to know where Tommy is.  Eventually they call the zords and form the megazord to fight it. Meanwhile, Goldar teleports back to the other dimension where Tommy is being held and releases him from the terrible special effect as Tommy tries once again to defeat Goldar but figures out how to use his sword to escape and help the rangers.

Once morphed, Tommy tries to call the real Dragonzord but his powers are already starting to weaken. He manages to finally get it to rise out of the ocean and fight the fake copy. The Cyclops once attacked by the Dragonzord, reveals itself; shape shifting into different formations of the rangers' zords until it vanishes...for the moment! Once the rangers are back at the Command Center, Alpha scans Tommy for any inter dimensional matter or whatever. The rangers thinking Rita was bluffing about stealing Tommy's powers are quickly corrected by Zordon. Turns out Tommy touched the candle when he was under Rita's evil spell and the candle is in fact slowly draining his powers...to Tommy's shock and amazement! Back in the other dimension, as the candle continues to burn out....To Be Continued!

Great episode! We now have a dangerous new situation for the rangers and hopefully, Part 2 will be a satisfying conclusion!! :)

Final Morph: B+